Customer Reviews

Fire Your Boss

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Fire Your Boss isn't really about getting rid of your boss. It's about taking proactive steps to avoid being in a one-down position.

You'll like Fire Your Boss if you buy into the authors' value system Pollan and Levine don't mince words. Work, they say, is about money. Given a choice of two job offers, choose whichever gives you the most money, time or both. Don't expect satisfaction and fulfillment from work.

For many people, this advice will make sense. However, some people work in truly toxic environments and they'll become ill -- mentally and/or physically -- if they stay. Some companies (such as SAS in North Carolina) offer quality of life that makes sense for many employees. And some people manage to have truly wonderful jobs.

Once on the job, say the authors, success comes from pleasing your boss. Never mind the company: it's all about keeping your boss on your side because she's the only person who can help you. In general, this advice is excellent; however, company culture can influence your boss's power, your ability to transfer within the firm and/or your ability to avoid being fired.

I stay away from absolutes -- so "Nobody hires a stranger" should be translated, "People like to hire their friends." The best section of the book covers networking: these days, you make friends, not contacts. So your long-term strategy will involve joining groups and socializing with people who can help you.

And, as with all career books, you have to do some reality checks. When you get a competing offer from an outside firm, say the authors, pay attention to a counter-offer from your own firm. However, some experts say that sixty to eighty percent of employees who accept those counteroffers are gone in six months. If you do accept a counteroffer, get a contract or the type of termination agreement these authors recommend.

The very best advice from these authors: Always keep "fishing," as they say. Never stop watching the job market. Prepare to move for the right conditions.

I don't agree with their checklists of "factors" -- I've developed my own decision processes -- and I think you have to be careful before jumping ship too fast. Some people are hired to be scapegoats, some bosses have hidden agendas, and some employees do get stranded in tiny towns in the middle of nowhere.

I suspect the authors fill in the blanks when they're coaching one-to-one and/or they choose their clients very, very carefully. And I definitely recommend this book as a perspective that, while incomplete, offers a helpful corrective to the airy promises of "Dream and do it."

For career change, I'd supplement with Herminia Ibarra's Working Identity and Martha Beck's Finding Your Own North Star.

Have you lost a job because your employer was tightening it's belt? Are you one of the survivors of layoffs doing the work of five people for one person's salary? Welcome to the 21st century in the American workforce.

What is the working man or woman to do? READ THIS BOOK! The bookshelves are chock full of career and self-help guides , but this one is different. It is eye-opening and doesn't echo the same "work smarter, organize better, network more efficiently" platitudes that so many of those other books proclaim. Instead, it contains step-by-step instructions on how to best deal with the new employment reality by improving one's own situation.

Experienced author Stephen Pollan is a career consultant with many years of experience advising those who want to "get ahead." He ably chronicles the changes that have rapidly occurred in the American economy and their effect on the mindset of American employers. Then, with gusto, he delves into his step-by-step instructions for taking control of one's worklife. His recommendations are somewhat counterintuitive but ring with truth. Pollan strips the reader's conceptions of career success to the bones and then builds a new, healthier framework. The end result will be a happier, more successful worker.

I cannot recommend this book strongly enough. It is well-written with a straight-forward conversational style. Few words are wasted and neither is the reader's time. To illustrate his points, Pollan incorporates plentiful examples of how his strategy has helped clients to achieve personal success in today's rugged world of work. This book will change the way the working man and woman approach their careers.

There are many self-help career guides that extol us to find a job within our passion. Their logic is that if we love our work, then the money will follow. However, "Fire Your Boss" takes a different tack. Stephen M. Pollan and Mark Levine instead recommend that we work for the money, and then the love will follow. From that foundation, they craft a career plan that they contend will lead to occupational success and personal well being. This flies in the face of conventional wisdom, but the authors make a compelling case.

The "Fire Your Boss" philosophy is based on the assumption that employees are disposable. In the era of downsizing and outsourcing, the scenario of a lifetime job with a single company is history. Therefore, becoming attached to one position, firm, or career path is futile. With this in mind, the authors suggest that we "fire our boss" and give up a set career plan. Once we do that, then we are free of occupational anxiety. We can remain in our job if it provides the salary and benefits we desire, or leave it for one that does. Indeed, they exhort that we must always be "fishing" for a better job elsewhere. To that end, "Fire Your Boss" pushes us to continually network outside of the job, because in the authors' words, "no one hires a stranger." We should also be fine-tuning our own personal work plan, which is based on what we can offer to a boss. Meeting the boss' needs is key to workplace success, the authors argue. If you make the boss happy and ensure he or she looks good, then your position is almost bulletproof.

On the one hand, "Fire Your Boss" crystallized my approach to work. Most of the time I like my job as a IT technician. Computers appeal to the cognitive side of my nature, but I wouldn't consider them my passion. After all, work by definition is, well, work. It's tough to be passionate about any scenario where I have to show up at a set time and provide a service or good, under penalty of dismissal for whatever reason. In that context, even a passion can become a burden. Self-employment carries the same consequences, because you still have to produce or starve. In contrast, the authors indicate that a job's purpose is to provide money for needs and wants. Personal fulfillment should be obtained outside of the workplace. As the authors would advocate, I've used my salary to try out a number of interesting activities, such as foreign travel, motorcycling, education, and martial arts. Without my income, none of these options would have been available to me. Should I try to find a job in one of those areas, like the "love your work" pundits advocate? Perhaps. But would they still be passions when I have to do them to obtain basic needs? I certainly don't disparage anyone who has found fulfillment and profit by doing his or her passion. That's an appealing life circumstance. But it doesn't work for everyone, and I appreciated the authors' alternative.

However, I struggled with them on one major point. Their exhortation to be constantly "fishing" for a better job strikes me as somewhat mercenary. Yes, most jobs these days aren't secure, and it would be foolish to pass up a good opportunity. But giving up a good job because another one looks better doesn't always pan out. For example, a number of folks have left my company for what they saw as dream jobs. However, they wound up coming back for their old slot (if it was available, that is). The grass is not always greener, and it seems like they expended a lot of time and energy for little benefit. In addition, constant job jumping would make it difficult to become vested for retirement purposes. A detailed retirement strategy based on the "fishing" methodology would have been appreciated. Plus, I find it hard to believe that one can "have a job offer always in hand." Perhaps that's possible in the clubby executive ranks, but I'm not so sure that's feasible for the rest of us drones. Sometimes old-fashioned persistence and loyalty does pay off, even when things look better elsewhere.

At any rate, "Fire Your Boss" provides a good counterpoint to the plethora of "love your work" books on the market. It provides an alternative occupational strategy for folks who are suspicious of that ideology, and whose passion is anything outside of the workplace. Even those who would like to work in their passion but are unable to do so can benefit from this book. For those reasons, I recommend it.

Reading the other reviews of this book makes me think that either Stephen Pollan paid a lot of people to write reviews, or else everyone else in America works in the most cyncical, Dilbert-esque companies imaginable.

This book starts with an idea that does make some sense: the purpose of a job should be to make money so that it can provide you with financial resources to have a rewarding emotional life at home with your family and community. Many people have been caught up in having a "career", trying to find personal satisfaction on the job, instead of finding personal satisfaction at home. In the end, they end up having neither, spending so much time at work and then realizing that they can be downsized in an instant.

However, he takes this idea to the most absurd extreme: the only thing that should really matter about a job is how much you get paid. Forget doing interesting, challenging work, forget an environment that you enjoy. Furthermore, a lot of his advice is just plain wrong. For example, his chapter "There's No I in Job" is about how you should just suck up to your boss and make him look good. Well, what happens your boss leaves or moves to a different department? If your value isn't recognized by others in the company, you're back to square one. His other chapter about always being on the look out to jump to the next job is the stupidest drivel I've ever read. I can guarantee that during the tech bust the LAST people to get hired were the ones who jumped from company to company every six months in the late 90s.

Frankly, it IS possible to find an enjoying, satisfying job AND still put your family and home life first. In a couple years this book will be relegated to the dust heap of so many other "Wow, look at this radical, contrarian idea" self help books, right where it belongs.

I haven't even read the entire book, but I can attest to the effectiveness of the chapters I did read--and I plan to read the rest and put it into action as well. I read the chapter about pleasing your boss, basically finding out what your boss wants, and doing that, not what your job description says you should do. My boss likes to micromanage (he's admitted as much) so I started seeing him constantly and going over all the details of my work. Our relationship improved immensely and I started really enjoying working with him, not to mention learning a lot from him. I read the chapter about keeping your resume out there and checking out other places to work even if you really don't plan to leave. The result was that I went to an interview at another business, basically just to practice interviewing (I almost didn't go to the interview and what tipped the balance toward going was that I remembered the advice from this chapter of the book). Naturally, since there was no pressure, I was completely relaxed and really enjoyed the interview. Result: a great job offer, which I initially was going to take, till I told my boss, and he matched it and then some, and pretty much gave me carte blanche to come and go as I please in my present job. With results like these, you can bet that I can't wait to read the rest of the book! Not only am I enjoying my job more than ever, I also respect and like my boss more, I'm getting paid more, and I have more freedom in my work. I highly recommend Fire Your Boss--it has obviously worked for me.

"Fire Your Boss" flips conventional wisdom about career and fulfillment on its head. It challenges you to completely rethink your beliefs about work, and discard outdated orthodoxies. Simply put, Pollan's message boils down to finding satisfaction in your ENTIRE life, concentrating on working for the money, not the love - and chucking the whole idea of "career" altogether! After reading his book and evaluating my own job as a TV news producer, I couldn't agree more.

The step-by-step guide in "Fire Your Boss" forced me to decouple emotion from my work and dispassionately appraise my job. I realized that in my high-pressured career, in a so-called "glamour" industry, the negatives greatly outweigh the positives. I also realized that the communication, organization and execution skills I've honed in television have serious market value elsewhere. Following the book, I developed a new work plan, and I'm now "fishing" for a better-paying job in other areas where I can tap my talents, like sales and public relations.

Beyond taking control of your destiny and finding the job (not career) that best suits your life, "Fire Your Boss" gives you invaluable insight on thriving within an enterprise. Pollan's refreshing - and counter-intuitive - prescription for dealing with your boss was an eye-opener. I followed his techniques, and they work!

Bottom line, "Fire Your Boss" is a must-read. I've recommended it to friends and co-workers and urge you to pick up a copy, too.

Stephen Pollan offers the straight scoop on how to make your job work for you. The book is readable, clear, direct, and it lays out an action plan. Know your value; market your skills; always look ahead; and never confuse job satisfaction with real satisfaction: with these and other smart and simple rules, Pollan lays out a path that every worker ought to follow. This is the book; Pollan is the man; and we are all the better for it.

I really liked this book because it encapsulates and enlarges upon conclusions that I had come to myself.

Mr. Pollan and Mr. Levine are very right when they advise us to be on a constant job search. The employment environment has become so erratic and unpredictable that this is a must. Those people who ignore this advice end up fruitlessly sending out resumes for years before they find another position.

I also like their advice in Chapter 4 ("There's no I in Job"). It had never occurred to me to observe my boss and write down the observations to determine what the boss' real wants and needs were. If I had done that I might have been more successful at some of my jobs.

Their observation that there is no definite correlation between job performance and compensation is consistent with my experience. Usually raises for outstanding performance are only slightly higher than inflation. The only way to obtain a larger raise is to have a credible threat of quitting or to move to another firm. I think that the only type of performance that will result in a definite change of compensation is poor performance or non-performance. That will result in a firing or a layoff. But mediocre performance, good performance, outstanding performance? They all get more or less equivalent compensation.

So as not to sound too cynical I would say that the value of outstanding performance is that one usually learns more by doing this. This is learning can help one advance within a company (in terms of responsibility and authority, not necessarily compensation) or obtain a position at another firm.

This book has a different way of looking at your career. Basically it says forget about loving your job or career like the other guides such as What Color is Your Parachute and Do What You Love the Money Will Follow. This book says work for the money and do what you love on the weekends and nights.

"Fire Your Boss" is a gift to a generation of Baby Boomers and everyone else who "has no time" as they pursue "careers" at the expense of family and social life.

A fulfilling "career" seemed like a good idea in response to the antiseptic 9:00 - 5:00 routine many of us saw on "Leave it to Beaver," but it has back-fired in an era when corporate loyalty is pass?.

Elaborating on a theme presented in his seminal work, "Die Broke" (a must-read), Stephen Pollan maintains that work is the place where we earn money to do what we want to do with the remainder of our lives. The mindset of pursing a "career" rather than having a "job" is what seduces people into spending hours upon hours of uncompensated time in the workplace.

"Fire Your Boss" is not proposing that your literally "fire your boss," but refers to re-thinking your relationship to the workplace. If work is a "job," then you want to get in, get out and get paid. And while you're at it, focus on what your boss needs to succeed, not what you need. Combine the "job" mentality with perpetually being on the look-out for better paying opportunities-aka "fishing," and your life and your income become yours.

"Fire Your Boss" is enhanced by the use of actual client stories (disguised to protect identity) that describe real people in situations with which we are all familiar. It is also replete with practical, step-by-step advice.

As usual, Stephen Pollan is strikingly counterintuitive. Whether or not you actually follow the plan set forth in the book, "Fire Your Boss" will get you thinking-and may change your life.