Cube Farm [Paperback]

Bill Blunden (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1590594037 | ISBN-13: 978-1590594032 | Publication Date: August 4, 2004 | Edition: 1

While most readers chuckle at Dilbert, there are fiefdoms in the software industry that deviate only slightly from the madness of a comic strip. Truth is stranger than fiction, especially when it comes to the workplace. In Cube Farm, Bill Blunden describes his three years in Minnesota, performing research and development for Lawson Software. It is a story riddled with intrigue, duplicity, and collusion. From his trench-level view, Blunden provides a droll examination of a company in the throes of internal rivalry and suffering from a long string of failed projects. It is a hilarious story that will appeal to anyone who has ever suffered at the hands of an incompetent manager or toiled in a dysfunctional environment. This is the book for every fan of the movie Office Space. Containing similar woodcuts to those seen in Software Excorcism, this book is a great continuation on the thoughts of Blunden.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Reverend Blunden began his journey into the software industry when he discovered the DOS debug utility in 1983. Ten years later, Reverend Blunden found himself implementing actuarial tools at an insurance exchange in Cleveland. Along the way, he received an undergraduate degree in Physics from Cornell University and a Master of Science degree in Operations Research from Case Western Reserve. During the subsequent ten-year period, Reverend Bill traveled around the United States, performing R&D for a middleware vendor and working with embedded security devices. Reverend Blunden has authored a number of books on system level software, including Message Passing System Internals. He is currently at large in the bay area.

Reverend Blunden is the author of Software Exorcism (Apress, 2003, 234-4), and the forthcoming Offshoring IT: What Can Go Wrong and Why (Apress, 2004).

Product Details

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (August 4, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590594037
• ISBN-13: 978-1590594032
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,572,894 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dog EAT Dog! Woof! Woof!, September 15, 2004

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cube Farm (Paperback)

If you're in IT and have chortled knowingly at Dilbert, then Blunden might take you to the next level of cynicism. He describes his travails in his first real programming job.

During the ascent of the dot coms, he ended up at Lawson, a mid ranking purveyor of business tools and technology consulting. He found himself in the tool making part of the company. A very disillusioning foray into coporate computing. Months of intense effort on his part, but no deliverable at the end. Apparently, this was scarcely unique in the firm. He describes others having spent years there, just performing office politics and backstabbing, as opposed to producing a tangible product, to actually benefit the company and its shareholders and customers.

Perhaps the funniest passage is his Y2K experience. He wonders aloud if Mr Y2K, Ed Yourdon, was peddling moonshine and hysteria. Many of us might agree.

Be warned that Blunden is a Reverend in the notorious subversive organisation called the Church of the SubGenius. One day, Donald Rumsfeld and the Department of Homeland Security will catch up with these blokes. Then, it's a one way trip to Gitmo.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Glad this isn't *my* corporate experience... :-), August 26, 2004

By 

Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cube Farm (Paperback)

If you want to feel better about your job (or confirm your fears that corporate life is horrible), you might want to read Cube Farm by Bill Blunden (Apress). It's a quirky little book about a person's foray from college into a corporate environment of a major Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software vendor.

Blunden went to Cornell and got a degree in physics. But in Cleveland, that and a couple of bucks will get you coffee at Starbucks. It might even get you a job at Starbucks. After a stint in food service, he got another degree in Management Science and ended up eventually securing a job in IT working for Lawson Software in Minnesota. In his time there, he was part of a grossly dysfunctional company that had most of their software projects die before seeing a shipment to market. The people, given code names in the book to "protect the guilty", are a rogue's gallery of misfits and psychopaths who will make you hope you never have a boss or coworkers like that. The story ends when he decides to leave because he doesn't like what he's becoming.

The book is touted as "a reality check for anyone preparing to enter the work force, and a survival guide for those entangled in their own personal version of Office Space." While I have no doubt these work environments exist, I've never seen all these personality types in a single place in my over 25 years of IT. For a first IT job, this guy had a horrible experience. His "lessons" at the end of each chapter are short one liners about corporate life, but they are largely based on an extremely cynical view of corporate life. If I had his experience at Lawson, I'd probably feel the same. But I'm not sure I'd buy this book as anything more than one person's hard luck story of life in IT as well as an entertaining read by a talented writer. Using it as a guide to surviving in the office place might cause you problems if you work in a more normal company...

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The ultimate bad job book, November 6, 2004

By 

Jack D. Herrington "engineer and author" (Silicon Valley, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cube Farm (Paperback)

This book is an in-depth expose into the life of a software engineer during the tech bubble. From the interview, through the various projects and failures and into the eventual layoffs. It's filled with great insights and cutting humor. Each chapter covers a particular phase of his work experience and wraps up with some key takeaways.

Anyone who has been in the software industry for a while will find a lot to laugh and cringe about in this book. Personally I found the anecdotes informative and the condensed takeaways at the end very appropriate.

Behind all of the comedy Bill preaches the core principles of respect for yourself and your profession, and emphasizes professionalism. That's something we could all use.