This is March's Book Group selection. We didn't even have to vote on it! It was unanimous (it helped that there were only three of us at the meeting that month...).
Max Barry also wrote Jennifer Government, which ended up on every one's top 10 list (except for Steve's, the lone dissenter, had to be different...).
From the jacket blurb: Stephen Jones is a shiny new hire at Zephyr Holdings. From the outside, Zephyr is just another bland corporate monolith, but behind its glass doors business is far from usual: the beautiful receptionist is paid twice as much as anybody else to do nothing, the sales reps use self help books as manuals, no one has seen the CEO, no one knows exactly what they are selling, and missing donuts are the cause of office intrigue. While Jones originally wanted to climb the corporate ladder, he now finds himself descending deeper into the irrational rationality of company policy. What he finds is hilarious, shocking, and utterly telling.
This book is a lot like the Dilbert cartoon put into novel form. It hits a nerve - business is a lot like this. You go to work, you are with your co-workers for over 8 hours a day yet really have no idea what they do beyond cubicle land then you go home to your alternate personality. It was also a lot like watching a National Geographic episode on the African Serengeti - where the unsuspecting but vaguely uncomfortable are gathered around the water cooler while the hyenas and lions are gathering in the boardroom.
A quick read (I finished it in a couple of days), that is indeed, humorous, shocking and utterly revealing.
PS - It's not science fiction, but it's darn close...
1 comment:
After I read that book, I spent a week craving a glazed doughnut.
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