Interesting Tale from a Disgruntled Former Employee
936038
Mike Daisy worked in a Seattle Call Center and was later promoted to a Business Development position.  Like many Amazon employees, he was somewhat overqualified for his initial position.  He criticizes a number of Amazon decisions but uses hindsight rather than explaining why the decision was bad based upon the information available at the time.  There are a few amusing tales, and it does provide some insight into the company decision-making process.  (As a side note:  I was hired by Amazon to work in their Lexington warehouse a couple of times-- I left to accept a research assistanceship and complete a M.S. degree in Computer Science at the University of Kentucky.)
3746673
This is not the most intellectually challenging book to read but entertaining nonetheless. Especially from my point of view, a shareholder in TheStreet.com.
Here is a story of an egomaniac who tries to paint an objective portrait of himself but comes out as a self-promoting and self-congratutory. No wonder he is not one of the well-liked people on Wall Street.
Nevertheless, his life story from the middle class Phillie to Harvard Crimson to LA reporter back to Harvard and to Goldman Sachs is interesting in a yuppie-ish way. Maybe a bit like Fitzgerald intrigue. And he did shed light on what goes behind the scene on Wall Street which I find fascinating.
This is a sort of book that I would haven written. I, with absolutely no talent in writing, but always dreamed of getting published. Maybe that is a bit too harsh:)
4092265
Ken Richardson tells a mostly accurate story of the company and its abilities.  I believe it was the greatest electronics company ever.  There were a few things in the book I remembered differently than Mr. Richardson tells.  For example, when he says he shut down the assembly line over the "quality" issue, he says it only took three weeks.  I seem to remember it took many months to get the line back up and Mr. Richarson called all salaried people to the building 801 cafeteria and asked how we could get the line re-started.  He was accurate in describing it as a phony quality issue.

The Long Term Incentive Program (LTIP) was just a complete rip off of the company funds.  The 1985 General Motors annual report says that the $375 million dollars they pocketed increased the value of the company by $125 million.  The MBAs and accountants spent three dollars to make one dollar.  There was really no risk that any key managers would leave, the company had better benefits than most and the work was always challenging.

He didn't mention the silly methods the MBAs and accountants used to try to save money.  They closed the exit lobbies at 5 pm instaed of 6 pm.  Of course this encouraged people to leave early.  Ted Wong, the Missile Systems Group president stopped that.  They decided to empty waste baskets only once per week, clean the restrooms once per week and vacuum the floors once per month. Another time, one of these people sent an Interdepartmental Correspondence (IDC) to all salaried personnel complaining about the excessive use of soldering iron sponges by the assemblers.  At that time, the government was paying Hughes $121/hr for members of the technical staff.  At two dollars per minute, the time spent reading and reacting to this silly IDC would probably have used enough money to purchase several thousand of these sponges.  The above is an example of the creativity of the MBAs

Hughes also started hiring former goverment people that supported Hughes programs and put them in upper management.  These new people had no idea of the Hughes legacy.

I spent twenty-three years at Hughes and it was an absolutely great company until the accountant became president.  The book made me sad to see what MBAs and accountants in management positions can do to a great company.
3149258
I enjoyed reading about a remarkable lady.  it is shame that some employers are so mean to the ones who wait on them while other employers appreciate their help.
1317704
This book is not about the biscuit industry as such, although some of its history and products are featured, along with some information about Carlisle and its surrounding area. Apparently, the definitive history of the biscuit industry has yet to be written, although books about individual businesses have been written, and are listed at the end of the book.

I have no experience of the biscuit industry, but I once had a temporary job as a teenager in a jam tart factory (R and K Wise in Swindon, now closed), so I suppose that gives me some inkling of what a biscuit factory would be like.

The author looked for volunteers among people who had worked for Carr's in Carlisle, to tell them his story. Seven women volunteered but one dropped out when she decided that she didn't want to discuss her life story after all. In the old days, very few men worked there, though more do so now.

The stories told by the women are quite varied, but all seemed to think Carr's was wonderful to work for despite the boring factory work and modest pay. As no real thinking was needed most of the time, the women spent their time chatting while working. It wasn't all factory work, though. One of the women was eventually promoted out of the factory, to a position where she was more of a social worker, checking up on people who were off sick and looking after their needs. On one occasion, she was under instructions to bring back somebody's stool. She returned to Carr's with a kitchen stool. and never heard the last of it. As a leaving present when she retired, she was given a kitchen stool.

Inevitably, there are common threads to the various stories, but I didn't feel any repetition was excessive.

Take the biscuit, read the book. It makes great reading.
4398932
This book is an amusing look at modern business practices and what's wrong with them.  Adams takes us through a short history of business in the 1990s, from down-sizing to right-sizing, from re-engineering to Total Quality Management.  His descriptions, based on his own job titles and tasks, of how the business world has changed is quite revealing.  In the not-so-long-ago good-old-days, people could easily get lost in the bureaucracy of a large company doing time wasting jobs that produced nothing of value for the company.  As things got tighter, in poorly run companies, the rats who could swim did just that, leaving more and more work to be done by people who were, on average, less and less capable.  And the least capable, as well all know, were promoted to management, where they wouldn't be in the way of real work.

In the last part of the book, Adams has a few suggestions as an engineer/cartoonist about ideal company management.  He introduces the notion of the OA5 company, or Out At Five.  He suggests that managers maximize efficiency by scheduling meetings only in the afternoons, and late in the afternoons, so that the meetings don't get in the way of real work.  That way, the work gets done despite the meeting, so everyone can get out at 5, which keeps up morale and energy.  Besides, if a meeting is scheduled for 4-5 and everyone wants to get Out At Five, then the interminable chatterers who hog the floor at meetings may keep their traps shut for once so that they too, can go home on time.  Adams argues that the most important task for a manager is to make sure that everyone in the department is a team player, and that people who don't work well or get along well with others should be dismissed.  That way, the others can get more work done and get Out At Five.  I've never studied business management and I don't think Adams has formally either, but these ideas sure sound as good as anything else I've heard on the topic.  In any case, we'll have to wait for the prototype to be built before we can see how the ideas actually work in practice.
2900322
I enjoyed reading about absurdities in the working world. Kind of like Dilbert, but set in a warehouse, this is a book about the odd situations and people who pass through. The Laws of Manager/Worker Dynamics are funny and perceptive. I liked the story about the DWIT buttons.
337846
Interesting premise - spoiled man of privelege is forced to join the serving class and actually finds happiness. I like Gill's writing style and the book kept me interested. I did see some holes, such as details (or at least more info) on the 10 years between the ad agency and Starbucks. And how, exactly, did he embark on the path that caused his family to break up? How did his move at the book's end really come about? I felt much was glossed over or disregarded as irrelevant, when in fact it's relevant to grow this reader's empathy with Gill and his story. Perhaps he was worried about being seen as a bad guy (when in fact, he's just human), or perhaps there was heavy editing by Starbucks PR. Overall, a good, quick, interesting read. I just think substantial info was missing.
3537469
RUNNING THE BOOKS is a personal narrative recounting some experiences of the author during the almost two years he worked at Boston's South Bay House of Corrections.  South Bay is a large corrections facility that houses male and female inmates receiving sentences of less than two and a half years.  Israeli born, Orthodox reared, and Harvard educated author Avi Steinberg seems an unlikely fit for his employment as prison librarian/creative writing teacher.  And the perhaps unfair thought crossed my mind that perhaps a big attraction of the job was the chance to soak up prison life and some colorful anecdotes for this book.  Yet for whatever reason Steinberg does do a good job recounting some interesting tales of prison life including conflicts between staff members as well as inmates.  Although his style of writing is often laced with humor he does show compassion and respect for the inmate library patrons and students he served.  Unfortunately Steinberg also has a tendency to go off on tangents that don't really fit with the rest of his book and seem suspiciously like padding.  A prime example of this fault is a lot of coverage is given to a female inmate who discovers the eighteen year old son she abandoned as a baby is also incarcerated in the South Bay facility.  Though we do learn the melodramatic story ends tragically readers never get the full information or resolution we had been led to expect. Also more than a few of Mr. Steinberg's insights and discoveries about prison life seem either forced or pretentious.  Still RUNNING THE BOOKS is a readable firsthand account of a subject
which most of us probably have some morbid curiosity.
3086835
This is my fourth book about Enron.  I better move on to something else.  Brian was a UT MBA graduate who became a middle manager 9 months before Enron went into its death spiral.  He shows the innovative side of this shaky venture, where his manager tries to find a way to leverage bankruptcy derivatives.  Wow, that sounds shaky.  Not only does he spend a lot of of time trying to develop this market, but he experiences the Enron culture, where 15% of employees are considered 5s and are fired or demoted.  He also finds a company that cared only for good news, and punished honest accessments.  That led to Fastow's schemes to spin the debt out to related entities and grow rich doing this.  Again Ken Lay comes across as a guy that maybe didn't understand what he was doing, and the Board of Directors as not performing their jobs.

This is a nice good book about the Enron fiasco.  It shows the suffering of the average employee who lost money in his unemployment from this "dream" company.  Brian became an emotional stronger person as a result of his experiences at the World's Most Innovative Company.
346672
Informative expose on how what it is like to try to survive on a paltry pay check.
807542
Story hits home, as I was in management for many years and the frustration at a few companies exuded the feelings of the story. Still, didn't have me laughing like Go the f to sleep.
2496063
There are certainly many issues facing those who are trying to climb up from low paying and/or minimum wage jobs.  However, this author's attitude that all those in this position are helpless victims doomed to lifelong poverty is ridiculous!  As is the idea that anyone NOT mired in a tedious, low-paying job is somehow bad and to be blamed for those who are.  She identifies with the poor almost pathologically without fair consideration to all involved, including the employers.  And I found that very strange considering she is a well paid, successful writer living in a very high-rent area of this country (Key West, Florida) in her everyday life!

She herself enjoys all the benefits of the upper middle class lifestyle, and more power to her for earning them, yet, she rails relentlessly about others in this position and blames them for the plight of the working poor.  When she works as a maid for a cleaning service, she comments about how insulted she is by one of the home-owners choice of books!  Huh?  She is angered that another home-owner has the audacity to own a set of copper pots and other home furnishings and decor that she finds disdainful as if these people are somehow at fault for being successful and having purchasing power, and heaven forbid, opinions and tastes that she does not share.  She makes it clear that she herself does not regularly employee domestic help as that would just be, well, disdainful, yet, she admits to having done so on certain justifiable occasions.  Really Barbara, you can't have it both ways!!

When an immigrant dishwasher at a restaurant where she works is caught red-handed stealing from the storehouse, she immediately identifies with the thief and becomes defensive of him.  So stealing is OK if you're working for minimum wage?  Would she have been so protective of the thief if he'd stolen say HER laptop or HER car or HER food?  I wonder.

And did anyone notice that on two different occasions, regarding two of her jobs, the author brought up the widely held (and grossly misguided) concept that employers "hold back" the new employees first week of pay?  As a human resources professional, I've battled this misconception amongst both white and blue collar employees for years and find it unfathomable that a person with a Ph. D. does not get it that the time she works this week is not actually paid for until the following pay period, usually the next week.  There is no "holding back" of any pay, merely a lapse in time in which payroll processing takes place and a check printed.  I found it incredible that this author did not grasp the logistics of this simple concept, and instead, clung to the ignorant idea that an employer would actually "hold back" pay until some such future date at their self-declared discretion, a practice that would be in fact, illegal.

Where is the balance in this so-called reporting?  It's all and only about one side of the picture.  And where are the suggestions? solutions? ideas for a better system?  The concept of this book has great potential, but sadly, it falls flat and short of meeting it.
237498
Interesting novel about a hospital anesthesia department with disgruntled employees.
1875856
Fascinating glimpse of how tough and poorly paid the life of a conservationist can be.  The author tells his story very well, leaving me with a renewed respect for those who can put up with discomfort and poor pay in a good cause.  A good read.
1029754
This is the autobiography of James J. Davis, an iron bar maker (a puddler) who left the mill to go into politics, rising to represent Pennsylvania in the United State Senate from 1930 to 1945 after being U.S. Labor Secretary under Presidents Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. He wrote his autobiography while Labor Secretary so it lacks insight into his subsequent Senate career. It still provides insights into the Pennsylvania politics, economy, and life during his times.

James Davis was an opponent of fancy words. He noted that working people were being hurt in courtrooms because they did not understand the questions from attorneys. After seeing that, he dedicated his life into turning complex words into simple ones. In this manner, he believed labor and management could speak to each other and understand each other. This was a philosophy he took from being Ellwood City Clerk to serving as US Labor Secretary.

Davis championed workers perhaps in part because he saw their exploitation. He himself was arrested, tried in a "kangaroo court", and sentenced to a working camp where employers purchased prison labor.

As a Republican, he was not a fan of unions. He in fact became the leader of his local union by criticizing the previous union leaders for being what he called "slick talkers" who were calling for a strike that he opposed. He believed that higher wages could be negotiated by studying making work more efficient and approaching management with logic that justified higher wages.

As Labor Secretary, he was sickened by the deplorable conditions of immigration stations. Yet, no laws were being violated. His remedy, as he wrote, "it was only necessary to add sympathy and understanding to the enforcement of the law." He was also a strong anti-communist, observing "I never knew a communist in my life that was a well man."

Davis credits himself with saving management and employees millions of dollars by negotiating settlements as Labor Secretary that avoided strikes. His office settled 3,600 out of 4,000 labor disputes. Prior to that, 70% of such cases resulted in strikes. History may well question, though, if his was in fact tilted towards management that was the financial lifeblood of the Republican Party. One can conclude that James Davis seemed true to his anti-strike belief throughout his career. This was an era when the grievances of workers were vastly ignored, and Davis was part of the problem. For that, his beliefs, while sincere, were faulty and millions suffered from deplorable working conditions and low wages.
4096228
This private investigator certainly had his problems.  He had a disfunctional relationship with his parents who seemed to him to be old hippies stuck in the 60s , but highly successful in their lives.  He apparently cannot talk to them about his problems with his own life, as they seem to hear him, but not really listen to him. His office is on the brink of collapse but his office manager hangs on and provides him with much needed computer information while he investigates the cases he has taken on.  He does have a productive relationship with the local police which comes in handy, but I feel that he does not have a good sense of his own personal worth.  He just seems to float through situations without much effort to improve his lot and, as this story ends, he has not only solved crimes, but has given away much of the financial rewards he worked hard to receive. Finally, it is an entertaining story with was really quite fun to read.