Crisp: Find the Bathrooms First (Crisp Professional Series) [Paperback]

Roy J. Blitzer (Author)

Book Description

Series: Crisp Professional Series | Publication Date: October 19, 1999

A fresh look at what people think and do immediately after taking a new job-how the critical first weeks and months on a job can be an opportunity to grow, a chance to understand the decision made to take a job.

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Crisp Learning; 1 edition (October 19, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560525533
• ISBN-13: 978-1560525530
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,475,252 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The outline to a useful book, March 15, 2005

By 

Ray Salemi (Framingham, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Crisp: Find the Bathrooms First (Crisp Professional Series) (Paperback)

Find the Bathrooms First is an outline to what could have been a very useful book. Unfortunately it is light on examples, runs out of steam, and is weakly written.

Great books like this follow a pattern of make-a-point/tell-a-story. The book makes many points, but it does them in a rapid fire fashion and never gives examples or stories that bring it home to the reader. What results is a list of ideas without a picture of how they hang together.

The book offers a six week program, but the authors ran out of steam on week 5 and week 5 and 6 are only one page each.

The writing is weak. Here is a typical passage, "Unfortunately, sometimes once you are part of an organization, you begin to come across skeletons in their closet." The equivocation sucks all the life out of this sentence.

This unwillingness to make a strong statement is helpful in face-to-face conversations but makes for dreadful reading. The sentence should have read, "All organizations have skeletons in their closets and it's only a matter of time until you find them in your new organization."

The book also needs more copy editing. For example, the author is an alumni of my school, the Univeristy of Massachusetts at Amherst (not Amhurst.) There are other distractions of this type.

I gave this book two stars (instead of one) because the information is genuinely useful and if you follow the steps in this book you'll be better off than if you don't.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great survival kit for the inevitable job change, April 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Crisp: Find the Bathrooms First (Crisp Professional Series) (Paperback)

Although lots of books help you deal with how to pull together a good resume and even get to a "live" interview. This is the first book that really helps you get a realistic handle on how to survive your first day, deal with your expectations, and monitor whether the change has been a good one or how to improve it. Since almost everyone can expect to change jobs (possibly even careers) several times, this handy volume provides you with a lot of things to think about plus great "Suggestions for Action." It belongs on your shelf with "What Color Is Your Parachute" as a compass for change!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good, distilled common sense guide, October 11, 2006

By 

Paul Marc Oliu (Princeton, NJ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crisp: Find the Bathrooms First (Crisp Professional Series) (Paperback)

Having read this and then another book (Sink or Swim!: New Job. New Boss. 12 Weeks to Get It Right by Milo Sindell Thuy Sindell) preparing for a new job, I found it to be a quick handy guide to navigating through your first 90 days.

Unlike Sink or Swim! the methods and strategies were not as detailed as I would have liked. Had I read this afterwards, I think it would have dovetailed nicely with some common sense bullet points that underscored what was in SorS!.

For example, work on developing working relationships with people you trust or asking informative questions about your new place of employment will help in successfully managing your first 90 days. Clearly common sense rules but there is no thrust to these strategies, ie how do you go about taking these steps, other than identifying them as such, and moving on.

Just like Popeye, it is what it is. A good resource that helps you keep some of these new job type issues/questions, at the forefront of your thinking as you are getting comfortable in your new position.

My favorite part was at the end, The Satisfaction Index. It is a test you can take to see whether the new job is what you expected, and is it the right fit. I've taken it a number of times since starting, and if done honestly, can give you insights into how you are doing, and how your job is or is not living up to expectations.