Customer Reviews

Have Fun at Work

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

 

 

This book helps make sense of why some of the seemingly reasonless things related to technical projects happen. An excellent book to have on hand to refer to at the beginning of a project to help avoid disaster; or at least to let you know when to get out. Donzil E. Lowther, P

This books describes how and why technical disasters occur. Some of the discriptions gave me the feeling that the author was at my side during my company's attempt to develop a gas centrifuge nuclear fuel enrichment system. If I had read this book first, I could have seen the disaster coming. Imagine trying to justify a plant using a machine that has to run without cost for over 100,000 hours to pay for itself. Your local bank will give you a better deal. The six phases of a project are stated. My personal observations show that the phases are real. Boyce Griffith, PE, Oak Ridge, T

Wish the author had taken a writing class before this one - he definitely writes like the Mechanical Engineer he is - but wow(!) the ideas in this book are worth all the trouble.

I highly recommend it for anyone interested in understanding the underlying reasons for dysfunction at work, especially in project work in IT.

Helped me out enormously.

If you like Dilbert, P.J. O'Rourke, H.L. Menchken, etc., you might also enjoy this. Most of the book describes how and why organizations can't manage complexity, and there is also advice on how one can deal with that and still 'have fun at work.'

The most interesting thing to me was the author's extremely convoluted style of writing. Reminds me of von Veblen and 'The theory of the leisure class.' Sometimes the prose is amazingly twisted and hard-to-follow.... but it's fun to wonder why this guy went about writing a book in this unusual style because he does seem to grasp the realities of the workplace.

Memorable item from book: POSIWID (the Purpose Of a System Is What It Does.) As we used to say in the seventies, Think About It.