Customer Reviews

Claw Your Way to the Top: How to Become the Head of a Major Corporation in Roughly a Week

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I first got this book while I was in college and considered it one of the funniest books I had ever read. It's a perfect gift for a senior in college. After getting into the "real world" I liked it even more. Much like Dilbert cartoons, it becomes even funnier when compared to your own work situation. Includes such topics as "List of topics that middle-aged white Anglo-Saxon males talk to each other about when they're not talking business", "How to dress exactly like everybody else", and "Lobster repair: a fast-growing field".

Before Dilbert, there was Dave Barry's "Claw Your Way to the Top". I bought this book in 1986, two years after I graduated from college before there was Amazon. I laughed so hard and it was all so true. This book will prepare any naieve university senior for "real life".

I think the best part of the book is the section on firing people. Of course the alternative is to let the two big Brunos poke out your eyes with hot knitting needles.

This book is wonderful and I recommend it as a graduation present for any graduating senior.

This book was written in 1986. Although it is decent, it is probably the only Dave Barry book in my collection that I don't re-read occasionally. The jokes just seemed a bit staged as compared to his later writing, because the book doesn't reference any true life stories. If that's what you prefer, then this book will suit you fine, but I prefer the "I'm-Not-Making-This-Up" stories of actual events that are his trademark.

If you are looking for a humor book on the topic of corporate America, then this is a good choice. However, if you just want to read some funny Dave Barry, then try one of his later books, such as one of his compilations of short articles.

Dave Barry satorizes career, business, motivation, and self-help books. If you've read them, you will laugh hysterically at his pointed remarks that reveal some of the most absurdly stupid things written in many of those books.

I have never laughed so hard at any book. I've bought over 25 copies of it for friends over the years and often quote from it. In 1987 my friend Regina and I were interviewing a young man named Brian; we told him, "If you find this book funny, you'll enjoy working with us. If not, you'll enjoy working with everyone else here!" He came in the next day and told us his favorite part, and we hired him. This book is a classic illustration of the principle that really great humor is based on truth.

Arte Johnson does a great job as narrator with Dave Barry's offbeat sense of humor. Dave Barry can be read in so many ways, most of them wrong. Arte Johnson does a strong job with this text.

Dave Barry's humorous look at the world of business is strong throughout, but occassionally dated, especially when he talks about computers. Dave Barry could easily update this book and make it even more funny. That being said, this one is still worth a look.

This is one of the funniest books I've ever read. I'm surprised that some of the other readers below didn't find it as humorous as later Dave Barry works, because I end up on the floor whenever I reread this. the sections on meetings, on resumes, on office attire--all brilliantly funny. I guess it helps to have been a disenchanted office employee at least once in your life. But if you've tried climbing the corporate ladder and have decided that there's no worse fate, this book is for you!

...amusing, occasionally laugh out loud funny, but ultimately as memorable as a Debbie's Snack Cake. I'm a diehard Barry fan, and highly recommend Big Trouble. This one, though - buy it used, read and sell.

This is not the funniest book written by Dave Barry, although it is funny in spots. He lampoons the current business world, the absurdities and incongruities that are a daily part of the life of so many people. As is the case with the best satire, there is a great deal of truth in the exaggerated nonsense that Barry writes. Meetings do dull the mind to the point where you flap your lips with your fingers, the terminology used in corporate America is often the lowest quality double-speak and resumes and press releases are often works of fiction.
"Dilbert" by Scott Adams is considered the bible of corporate misfeasance; it always seems to hit the business world right in the privates. This book is not as good as the Dilbert comic strip; I smiled rather than laughed my way through it.

I'm in the middle of reading the Enron story, "The Smartest Guys in the Room", and decided to take a brief intermission. And what should I find on the shelf but "Claw Your Way to the Top" by Dave Barry. It's one of the few Barry books that I've missed, and very appropriate while I'm in "Let's Try to Dissect the Corporation" mode. Except that maybe I shouldn't have sat down to read it right there in the Public Library, since it was work trying to stifle my laughter and not disturb other patrons.

Because "Claw Your Way to the Top" was written in 1986, before the rise and fall of Enron, there are no references to Kenneth Lay and his cronies, though Lee Iacocca's name does come up a few times. Similar to Scott Adams ("Dilbert"), Dave Barry's insights into corporate BS are right on the $$$ money, as truthful as they are hilarious. Of course when all the hilarity destroys peoples' lives and livelihoods, it's not so funny, but Barry's book doesn't cover that. Instead it's comic relief from the sobering and sordid truth of such travesties as Enron. Take a timeout and treat yourself to some corporate humor, courtesy of Dave Barry. If you fail to find this book funny, you must be one of those psychopathic suits we should all fear...