The Way of the Rat: A Survival Guide to Office Politics [Paperback]

Joep P. M. Schrijvers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2004

In the corporate environment where conspiracy rules, this guide exposes the power games played in the workplace and reveals strategies for not only surviving office politics but thriving. In East Asia, the rat is considered a symbol of resourcefulness, good luck, and wealth, making it an appropriate symbol for those people who have mastered the use of office politics for their own gain. With the rat as a guide, lessons inspire office workers to maneuver the proverbial workplace sewer. Witty, no-holds-barred writing makes this book entertaining and educational for employers and employees alike.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Art of War for the office, a DIY manual for thwarting the boss, exploiting colleagues’ weaknesses and comingout on top." -- The Sunday Times (UK, January 2, 2005)

"I strongly recommend this book... It's not only extremely perceptive of human behaviour at work, but also fun to read." -- Management Today (June 2004)

"Schrijvers book speaks frankly, and with an admirable lack of motivational nonsense, about the real dynamics of business success." -- The Daily Telegraph, U.K.

"What runaway hit The Rules did for romance, Way Of The Rat promises to do same for the work world." -- The Times, U.K.

"hilarious book,... comes complete with a "verminicity" test to determine whether you are a stupid, clever or filthy rat." -- Siobhán Creaton, Irish Times (December 2004)

From the Publisher

The international bestseller that exposes, with wit and ruthlessness, the power games played in companies today. A phenomenal bestseller (over 150,000 copies sold in Europe alone) that should be read by anyone who works in a company, for their own survival and success.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Cyan Communications (October 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0954282922
• ISBN-13: 978-0954282929
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,171,784 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dead-serious anthropology and sociology masquerading as humor, September 9, 2006

By 

Barry T. Campbell (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Way of the Rat: A Survival Guide to Office Politics (Paperback)

The Way of the Rat is probably the best book on office politics I've ever read. The author, who toiled in the corporate and consulting vineyards for years, writes pungent and mordant observations on the way modern corporations really work. Part satire, part out-and-out parody, and even so, simultaneously a dead-serious work of corporate anthropology and sociology that is more than the sum of its parts.

However: to understand the cultural anthropology of the modern office, you need to understand anthropology in general, preferably with a smattering of evolutionary psychology thrown into the mix. Human beings have built and designed some wonderful things, ranging from flint arrowheads to Michelangelo's David to the Brooklyn Bridge to particle accelerators, but we're still giant hairless apes with swollen forebrains, and despite our carefully constructed facades, that's still how we act much of the time.

And you'll never see better examples of primate dominance hierarchies than you'll find in most "modern" offices.

Thus, I also recommend:

The Naked Ape : A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal
(Good general introduction to practical anthropology)
Author: Desmond Morris
ISBN: 0385334303

The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are
(Good general introduction to evolutionary psychology)
Author: Steven Pinker
ISBN: 0679763996

And for more general background:

Office Space
(Motion picture, 1999; director, Mike Judge)

Time allowing, it's also not a bad idea to brush up on your Von Clausewitz, Machiavelli and Sun Tzu. A little dose of Hobbes and Kant wouldn't hurt either.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Review of The Way of the Rat, March 1, 2006

By 

Jerry Geisler - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Way of the Rat: A Survival Guide to Office Politics (Paperback)

Schrijvers writes an unflinching, unapologetic, and arguably bleak portrayal of corporate life. What makes Schrijvers book so compelling is that readers, or at least readers with morals and values, should find themselves aghast at what on the surface reads to be an endorsement of abhorrent behavior in the workplace. Even more so if there is a hint of familiarity with which the reader identifies.

At times Schrijver's suggestions seem so outlandish that the reader should find themselves wondering if he could possibly be serious. To further confuse the reader, though written as a how-to manual, Schrijver clearly states that the book should be taken in jest. In the end a reader is left wondering if Schrijver is endorsing "rat" behavior or condemning it? More importantly, a reader should come away asking themselves, have I been a rat and is this really what I want to be?

Schrijver essentially asserts, by way of his "verminicity" test where one has no choice but to be a rat, that anyone working in an office environment has been subjected to and has likely themselves used rat tactics. For those who reject this label, Schrijver categorizes this group as "stupid rats". In other words, you're a rat whether you like it or not but you are just naive enough to miss the signs of verminicity that are apparently all around you.

Though much of what Schrijver writes is probably an accurate portrayal of the characteristics of office politics at many companies, one would have to be a hardened cynic to completely believe that this is true of all office environments. A more likely explanation is that Schrijver, a writer and consultant on personal development, grew dissolusioned. Dissolusioned with the pop-psychology business book-of-the-week, which self-anointed intellectuals and business leaders latch onto, praise, and then before long, begin to look for the next release to trumpet as a breakthrough.

This book strikes one as the anti-thesis of those types of books; a book where the writer grew tired of reading about synergy and shifting paradigms and decided to write a book to tell people how things really work in the real world. Schrijvers may have over shot his mark a bit, but one can hardly argue that he fails to make his point and his no-holds barred approach to writing is refreshing.

In the end, the writer coyly reveals his intended purpose of the book with an epilogue that appears to literally be a page out of a completely different book. While the balance of The Way of the Rat is figuratively a page out of a different book; a book that flies in the face of the ideas, buzzwords, and catch phrases so commonly seen in the genre of self-help business books.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars New Way of Thought, September 20, 2008

By 

Maxim Masiutin (Chisinau, Republic of Moldova) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Way of the Rat: A Survival Guide to Office Politics (Paperback)

The main idea of this book is that office politics exist regardless of your desire. If you don't notice at all the existence of the office politics, then it is played well, so you aren't even aware of it.

Joep P. M. Schrijvers, the author of the book, uses the same style as Niccolò Machiavelli have used in 16th century in his famous work "The Prince".

Mr. Schrijvers does not dispense entirely with morality nor advocates wholesale selfishness or degeneracy. He just uses candid, honest and direct way of explanation, so some people may find distasteful or frightening. This straightforward, open and frank style of the author is what I like.

Don't expect to find a todo list in this book. The case vignettes in this book are somewhat oversimplified, but they may provoke new thoughts and rise tough questions that you might need to answer in your professional life.

I would also recommend "Leadership without easy answers" and "Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading" by Ronald Heifetz. Don't be confused by the titles: leadership doesn't always come from the top.