Customer Reviews

Crisp: Find the Bathrooms First (Crisp Professional Series)

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

 

 

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.

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!

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.

This is a good and easy book to read. Its bulleted format and straight-forward presentation makes it simple to digest in even one sitting. The weeks are broken out as chapters, with milestones and activity checklists and questions at the end of the chapters helping to reinforce the message.

Using it as a guide for the first six weeks in a new position, its probably most effective to stay aligned with the chapter for the week that you're in at work, although things don't always progress at the same pace for everyone at every job, plus, the format makes it so easy to read ahead - which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Interestingly, after six weeks in my new job, I now find myself back in my last position. Among many other factors, the new job wasn't what I was led to expect. The lesson, "Don't Burn Any Bridges", should be in the prequel.

Roy Blitzer is spot on in his helpful guide to starting a new job. I'm only days into my new job and already I have found the advice invaluable. There's so much to take in both in terms of the tasks to be done and the people to meet and this book helps ease that awkward transition. The title may be jokey, but the advice is actually sound - knowing where the toilet is situated is pretty important. In my last job I immediately made the wrong impression on my colleagues after I went awol from my desk for almost 45 minutes wandering around aimlessly with an expression on my face which must have given away the fact that I was clenching the turtles neck for all I was worth. The boss finding me squatting in the bushes next to the carpark, jettisoning a foul payload didn't exactly enhance that impression. But full marks to the author for a fantastic guide.