Working Wounded : Advice that Adds Insight to Injury [Mass Market Paperback]

Bob Rosner (Author), Bob Roser (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2000

Working Wounded is for anyone who has lived in a cubicle, slaved away in the corner, or swept the shop floor. Straight from Rosner's syndicated column come these hilarious remedies for dealing with common work ailments. Illustrated by cartoonist Robert Mankoff of "The New Yorker".

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Confronted consistently by malicious managers, contemptuous coworkers, inept underlings and stressful situations, today's working stiff often feels pummeled from all sides. Working Wounded: Advice That Adds Insight to Injury, by journalist and consultant Bob Rosner, is a lighthearted but deadly serious map through the minefields of the corporate world that offers recommendations on an abundance of tools and techniques that can be used to make it safely from nine to five. A series of insightful illustrations throughout by New Yorker cartoonist Robert Mankoff pokes perceptive fun at the whole business scene. --Howard Rothman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Syndicated columnist Rosner presents a cornucopia of information on the world of business that doles out advice on coping with colleagues, bosses, employees, dead-end jobs, switching companies, performance pressures, health, technology and being axed. The text is enlivened with sidebars, quotes from sources as varied as Plato, Charles de Gaulle and Satchel Paige, results of polls the author has conducted among workers and short quizzes. Added attractions include witty contributions by New Yorker cartoonist Robert Mankoff (e.g., boss to underling, "It's your job to dream of things that never were and ask, 'Why not?' and it's my job to tell you"). The quotes reinforce Rosner's overall message that job difficulties can be managed, although, on some occasions, he advises, it just may be better to bow out. There is never a dull moment from start to finish.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (October 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446608661
• ISBN-13: 978-0446608664
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 0.8 x 6.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #970,882 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

From the corner office to the cube, work is tough. There are competing agendas, lack of loyalty or we're just burned out. Bob Rosner offers information, insight and inspiration for creating a more engaged workplace.

Bob is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist who has personally responded to over 50,000 emails from bosses and employees. He's learned that many bosses struggle to listen and many employees struggle to speak up. Bob offers practical strategies and tools to bridge this "empathy" gap. He's been called "Dilbert, with a solution." Bob is a regular contributor to the Today Show, CNBC and other media outlets.

Bob Rosner bio:
* Bob is a best-selling business author; "The Boss's Survival Guide," reached #4 on Amazon's sales ranking and was a Wall Street Journal business best-seller.
* He's been featured in People, The Wall Street Journal, Glamour, Fortune, Newsweek, Readers Digest, Playboy, Time, etc. Bob has been a regular contributor to the Today Show, and interviewed by NPR, 60 Minutes, CNN, Fox, Good Morning America, etc.
* Bob has been a keynote speaker to corporations and associations in Argentina, Australia, England, Canada, New Zealand, Scotland, the Philippines and in 48 of the 50 United States for the past 25 years.
* He's consulted with many of the Fortune 500.
* He has his MBA and has been an adjunct professor to MBA students.
* For more than thirteen years he's been an internationally syndicated columnist and contributor writing workplace911 (formerly called Working Wounded).
* He has founded four corporations (three were non-profits).
* Bob has received a Sigma Delta Chi award for Journalism Excellence, the Surgeon General's Medallion from former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and was the 1989 Commencement Speaker at the University of Puget Sound.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must read, must buy if you don't like your job, April 6, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Working Wounded: Advice That Adds Insight to Injury (Hardcover)

First Aid for the Working Wounded by T.S. Peric'

Most of us, at some point in our working career, labored within a crummy company, faced-off with a bullying boss or suffered the ignominy of a firing.
Most of us have shared workplace horror stories or listened sympathetically to someone who really took a battering.
Let's face it. Workplace dissatisfaction ranks high on the angst scale for the 90s and this is the audience to which nationally syndicated columnist Bob Rosner directs his book, Working Wounded: Advice that Adds Insight to Injury (Warner Books).
While bookshelves are littered by the bunches with titles on job hunting, job coping and job escaping, Rosner manages to whip out a bouquet that offers a few, fresh petals.
Too many job-help books sound like a dry managerial tract from some experimental work environment which exists only in the mind of the writer. Rosner's laboratory is real: true-life stories culled from calls for help he gathers through a weekly column and a Working Wounded website (workingwounded.com). Fortunately, Rosner manages to describe this with a sense of humorous outrage that makes for a good read.
Rosner's faces the task about changing a bull-headed boss' inflexibility to your way of thinking in "Hold the Garlic! I Want My Boss to Shape-Change". He goes on to note "His [the boss] name was Dick-but we called him 'Cold Shower' because that's what he gave to every new idea that came across his desk. After collecting more bullet holes than a stop sign on a country road, I finally decided to bring him an idea he couldn't shoot down-one of his own."
Rosner dispenses advice from the experts who are familiar with the workplace, covering basic issues such as "Poked From All Sides: How to Cope with Your Co-Workers" to gathering confidence in our burgeoning techno-state with "Stuck In The Web: How To Score Points with Technology".
Rosner offers advice in a lively, succinct fashion, sprinkling the book with timely tidbits abou!t working that leave you nodding in agreement or shaking your head in anger. First, there's "The Working Wounded Quotebook".
"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes." Oscar Wilde.
Second, you have the Working Wounded List.
"They Asked You What . . . Real Questions Asked During Real Job Interviews
A Wall Street bank asked women MBA graduates, 'Would you have an abortion to stay on the fast track?'
While discount department store asked interviewees, 'How long can you hold your urine?'"
Finally, my favorite: the e-mail received at Working Wounded.
1) "The Best Way to get a Promotion
"Be on time, learn your job, go the extra mile, and don't suck up to the boss.
2) "The Other Best Way to Get a Promotion
Two words: kiss butt!"
3) "Scrooge Lives. Last year at the Christmas party, the boss gave us all Christmas cards. We opened them up only to find pink slips inside. He said he thought the party atmosphere would take the edge off of being let go."
And if you ever tire of reading of reading about the workplace, as a diversion you can relax with drawings from The New Yorker cartoonist Robert Mankoff which are found throughout the book.
What Rosner never forgets in Working Wounded is that real people populate the workplace and that a deft combination of experience, inspiration, information and humor is the key to surviving a fresh wound and, if you recover, there just might be hope for you on the next job.
How good is this book? When my sister Millie (an erudite, eclectic reader with a varied work history and a cool disposition to self-help employment books) leafed through the Working Wounded, she had a single comment: "When you're done with this, could I take a look?" She also like the cartoons.
Regardless of the type of work you do, Working Wounded's message is about emotional protection on the job. Every smart police officer hits the streets with a bulletproof vest. That's how you should regard Working Wounded: Try it !on for size and it'll help you survive the bullets. - 30 -

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Cut and Paste Garbage, July 30, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Working Wounded: Advice That Adds Insight to Injury (Hardcover)

Mr Rosner has succeeded in "compiling" a worthless piece of fiction. There is little original thinking from the author. It strikes this reader as exceedingly negative. He makes no attempt to connnect the worker with his or her own career. Instead, the book is about surviving in a war zone that is completely foreign to the worker-soldier. I am of the belief that each of us is capable of finding a work environment that is positive for our skills and talents. Mr Rosner apparently believes that we are forced into negative work places without choice. It will not be recommended to my career transition clients.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Humorous, realistic solutions for the workng stiff., February 22, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (San Francisco) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Working Wounded: Advice That Adds Insight to Injury (Hardcover)

Mr. Rosner has a wonderful way of taking the questions I have often wondered about, but never asked, and laying the answers at my fingertips in down-to-earth, simple language. There's no walking on egg shells here! Let's face it... some of issues he is dealing with are less than exciting, but this is information we all need under our belts to make the most of the workplace. To take the sting out of it, he sets up each topic with with a funny personal story that leads right into the question at hand. It never failed to give me a sense of light-heartedness about it and set me up to enjoy the topic being tackled.

Today's buyer is said to be a savy one, well-educated about the products we buy. I consider a career as the major product in which I invest, and with Mr. Rosner's insight, I think anyone can make the best of our current and/or future workplace. While some of the chapters don't deal with my particular job, I think the workplace as a whole belongs to each of us. For instance, I have found value in the chapter that deals with the troubles faced by the "big boss," because it gives me important insight into how my "big boss" is feeling. Now I can approach him with an insider's viewpoint and score.

Anyway, I enjoyed the book a lot and hope you do too. I read on the cover that you can reach him by e-mail with questions. That's true. I've never failed to get a quick response from him to a workplace question. I like that about him. He doesn't yet you started and then leave you hanging.

I only wish the book had been longer.