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28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
For fake, workaholic sycophants only, January 27, 2006
This review is from: Jobs That Don't Suck (Paperback)
The title of this book caught my eye at the library. The book started out well enough--the author's humorous, casual tone was a refreshing step up from most job books. He seemed to be gearing the book toward liberal arts majors like myself with no particular direction in life. The information not really anything new, with tidbits such as "it's not what you know, it's who you know, so make friends with people who can help you get a job", but it was fun to read.
If you are a young person (with no family and no social life whatsoever, nor any intention of having one in the future) looking to get into the entertainment industry, this book is for you. Mr. Drozdyk is involved in the industry himself, and includes many interviews with young people who have succeeded in entertainment about their great jobs and how they got there. However, if your definition of "jobs that don't suck" includes not working more than 8 hours a day, you're in for a disappointment. The people he interviews work 12-16 hours a day and they LOVE it. Or at least they say they do. For if you follow Mr. Drozdyk's advice, you always lie and say you love everything, no matter how much you secretly want to slit your wrists. Anyway, one side benefit of this book is I used to have dreams of working in publishing. Now I've realized that I'd rather stab myself with a hot poker.
The book doesn't stop with just finding a job--it continues on to explain what to do on the job in order to get promoted, and that's where it starts to get annoying. Mr. Drozdyk presents a rather grim view of the workplace--a dog-eat-dog world where the only way to get ahead is by being a fake, workaholic sycophant. First rule--lie, always. Lie about your qualifications. You can always learn them in your spare time. Lie about your feelings. Remember, you're always happy, all the time. You never feel bad. Lie about your problems. You don't have any!! You don't want to look weak do you?
Second rule--make "friends" with anyone who can get you ahead. Avoid people who don't exude the fake aura of enthusiasm and confidence that you must constantly present. Suck up to anyone who appears to be going places in the company, especially your boss. However, you don't want to be real friends with these people, because that might involve dropping the facade you must wear at all times to get people to like you. Note: while doing this, you must not appear to be a fake opportunist, you must appear to be a genuine nice guy.
Third rule--work long hours. Work long hours even if you have no actual work to do, just sit there until 9 pm playing solitaire if you have to. Quote, "If your first job doesn't absolutely consume you, if you're not thinking about it twenty-four hours a day, then, in my opinion, you're not going to go anywhere." Eat lunch at your desk, unless one of your suck up targets invites you out to lunch. Who cares about sleep, health or family? Live to work! Having interests other than work indicates laziness.
If you actually have the acting skills that you must have to fully implement Drozdyk's recommendations, don't sell yourself short. Go to Hollywood, and win the Academy Award you deserve!
If you are a good person who wants work-life balance, who doesn't want to compromise values such as honesty and altruism, who wants a job merely to support yourself and your family, not to take over your entire life, then don't waste your time on this book. It will just make you depressed. The only comfort is these hot shots who give up everything just to climb the ladder will probably be dead of heart attacks by the time they're 40.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
not without cost, July 28, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: Jobs That Don't Suck (Paperback)
There is no doubt that this book is well put together and far easier to read than the standard fare on offer in relation to this subject. The advice provided on how to get a job is helpful and practical, as well as being a pretty amusing read. I already had my first real position for a couple of months when I acquired this title, so the parts on how to do well in a job were of more interest. I studied and followed these sections carefully. I must say that the advice in the book is what it claims to be - a coherent strategy is presented for getting ahead which is relevant to modern workplaces (in particular, professional offices). However, a word of warning - this advice is from the hard school. The endless continuum of late nights, weekends, lunch-skipping and worst of all, people massaging and submissiveness which seem to underpin this strategy will take your nerves to the verge of collapse. Your body follows suit, and that's where you stay - verging on physical and psychological downfall. That is unless you truly believe in what you're aiming for - and you'll have to be aiming for something eternally fulfilling because everyday living this way isn't really a nice life. I used the strategies in this book to get a hefty promotion, and now I'm in the rarified position of being a 22 year old project manager. However, for what it cost me, I sometimes wonder whether I would have been better off following a more sustainable approach to my young life. I'm not saying this is a bad title, as evidenced by the rating. If you use this book to get promoted, exercise a degree of moderation and enjoy the good humour on offer. If you decide to take it literally, go only with a firm belief in what kind of lifestyle you want, because its death or victory all the way and possibly death from victory at the end.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
pretty misleading book title!, April 20, 2009
This review is from: Jobs That Don't Suck (Paperback)
A book title such as "Jobs That Don't Suck" is sure to attract people like me, who want to avoid soul-sucking employment and find humane and life-affirming work environments. Unfortunately, we are not the intended audience for this guide.
The prevailing advice here seems to be that you should kiss a lot of butt; come in early and stay late, even if it means typing pages and pages of gobbledygook or playing computer Solitaire for hours; and suppress any and all individuality of which you might be in possession. The vast majority of work environments described in this book are characterized as backstabbing, brutal, and cutthroat. People talk about developing ulcers and alcoholism in response to their jobs' stress. You will apparently be working every waking hour with people you hate and who would sell you out in a minute if it advanced their own careers. And these are the jobs that DON'T suck?!
Throw labor laws out the door -- if you don't want to work weekends without pay, you have a "sucky attitude." (Not an exact quotation. The exact quotation is that "your attitude sucks," pg. 271.) Ditto for unpaid overtime and skipping your paid lunch breaks. You know, there were people who DIED to give us the 40-hour workweek. Authors such as Drozdyk show huge disrespect to them by advocating we all join in on a (rat) race to the bottom, backward in time to the bad old days of exploited laborers.
The politics of this book really bothered me in parts. Founders of corporations are romanticized as self-made men who worked harder than most anyone else is willing, and we are told to grovel at their feet in thanks for the opportunity to cut into their bottom line by taking a salary. Some people might see it another way -- that most workers make their companies far more money than they are being paid.
There are constant implicit assumptions throughout that the reader is a trust-fund baby with the ability to: (1) pick up and move to New York City without any job prospects, (2) bum around in Europe for a year while "finding" oneself, (3) work indefinitely for no pay at a grueling internship, or (4) pay one's way to out-of-state conferences to get in extra schmoozing time. Surely these are all great things to do for those with the appropriate resources at their disposal. What about the majority of people?
The information about the Internet is laughably outdated. ("I've been on the Internet for two years now!" "Eighty-five percent of college students use E-mail!") I haven't bothered to check out the recommended websites under the assumption that none of them would even work.
I might not recommend against skimming through this book, but with so many other career-advice guides out there, you could probably get the same kind of information elsewhere. There's really no reason to depress yourself with this one, unless you get a kick out of the "sassy" language (read: casual use of profanity and slang). Its depiction of working life is so overwhelmingly negative. I would not recommend it to anyone who is making that transition into the Real World -- this book could be enough to send a nervous college grad into a deep depression.
The only reason I started reading this book was because of the title -- and the only reason I continued to read it was because I was so fascinated by how incredibly offensive it was.
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