How to Be Useful

[calzephyr]

It seems to Megan Hustad that 20 and 30 year olds are having a hard time surviving in the corporate hierarchy, so she distilled 100 years of "success literature" - all the way back to Horatio Alger and up to Donald Trump - into one quick, easy to read and funny book. It's subtitled A Beginner's Guide to Not Hating Work.

There are a number of reasons why the office hierarchy doesn't work for young people anymore - particularly because they don't have much in the way of expectation. The first chapter, which focuses on "just be yourself" (it's crap advice, apparently) is a gentle way of telling the reader that they are not a special snowflake. So don't be yourself, just do your best to conform for the first few years of your working life. Build up a reputation as reliable, hard working and polite - and then when the time comes, you can slowly undo all this when you have greater ambitions and don't want to be the office gopher. This is discussed in a later chapter as well, and one I found the most useful. It seems people start feeling discontent around the 4 year mark.

The second chapter on politeness was a hoot. It seems most people should know this, but I guess it needs to told. Don't snipe others as you never know who's listening. That old guy in the elevator - maybe he's the CEO - but they probably have power over you. Cut down on cynical remarks - they can come back to haunt you when cool jobs get passed to someone else - you just might be building a reputation for hating things.

There's a chapter on dressing for success, and a chapter on how to tell deprecating stories well. Everyone likes a good story, and if you're going to tell one, it's a good idea to practice it for flawless delivery. Know when there's a right time to not be too "smart" - it's usually better to make your boss look smart instead. I don't know how applicable all this advice is, perhaps it depends on how rigid the office hierarchy is, but like any self-help books, there's always some useful gems.

Comments

[tooaquarius.livejournal.com]

Or, be so hopelessly poor at it that you start your own business lol.

It's funny a big part of why I am self-employed was because office politics or even co-worker politics bothered me. Then, working for myself, I find myself having to be so much more politically correct working for customers directly that having been a good office kid would have been so much simpler if I'd realized at 21.

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

Office life is certainly not for everyone! I find it too boring personally - part of one chapter was more or less devoted to developing your work personality (probably in the first chapter), which saps a lot of energy.

[tooaquarius.livejournal.com]

I bet :p

I will be interested if I maintain the same sort of 'work, low speed, all the time' thing once i have a separate room for a formal office / studio.

In completely other news: Etsy analytics are live, did you give that a shot yet? I have numbers in, more or less as I expected and want to see how the other smart folks are doing...

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

Oooh, thanks for the tip! It's going to be cool to see how stats compare to Etsy and Art Fire. I swear, I don't how I miss these updates, I subscribe to Etsy on Twitter yet!

[silvermare.livejournal.com]

You're book reviews are always interesting and insightful, but this one especially catches my interest. I've never made it very far in an office environment. Of course, my personal challenges may be different from what the book addresses. Depression, social anxiety, seemingly random episodes of horrific agoraphobia, and office environments really don't mix! I've found that I do much better in less intimate environments, such as retail, as ironic as that may sound. However, NO ONE has a future in retail, especially in the current economic slowdown, so I'm going to have to learn to adapt to an office environment if I'm going to continue climbing out of the gutter. I'm thinking I ought to start making the necessary mental adjustments BEFORE I apply for another office job. I'll definitely be on the lookout for that book!

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'm glad you like my book reviews :-)

Oh, one thing I should have mentioned from the book is that usually everyone has a small delusion that gets them through the day. So instead of finding this irritating, try to humour it.

Offices are great places for people that love order, hierarchy and rules, and who might enjoy playing games with people. I think.

No, retail is no place to be in any time it seems. My mom worked about 40 years total in retail and she was making about the same in 2008 as she was in 1983!