Personal Copy signed by Jean Darnell

Business is specificity, and story is specificity; they’re not speculation—so I find it bizarre that this business fable (business story) should be so extreme in its abstraction, to the point where the text is literally like, Say you have a problem. So you try A, B, and C, and they don’t work. So combine A, B, and C; it’ll work. (That’s really where he lost me, lol.) And the (mysterious?) Manager and the (mysterious?) young man don’t have names…. I guess the theory is ‘sell to everyone’ and that’s a good seed of an idea, but I think people can tell the difference between selling to them too and being shy that they’re not too important to you, you know. But I would like to read more business fables—just not by this author. I just have trouble deleting things when I value the larger category it feeds, you know.

…. So, if something’s widely successful and it’s mediocre, does that mean it bears some responsibility for a crazy world? The average manager doesn’t need to be told to live more grey, you know—to be more emotionally vague, more unattractive…. He can figure out how to do that. Now, the market in a non-crazy world, well that would be a little different…. I know people think they’ve heard all that before: have more fun, etc. etc., but the reason why it’s not an “in” talking point now to some extent, besides the inevitable seasons of thought, you know, the cyclic-ness of everything, is that everything always fell on the women, you know. Possibly a singer making a lot of money, right. The manager’s job was just to wear a grey tie, smile a grey smile, and to feel vague, you know. I guess the rot at the root is that people think that if you weren’t unattractive you’d be more of singer or a drunk than a manager. It’s just folk delusion and has nothing to do with the potential of the market, though.

…. “Do not blame, or cause harm to sentient beings.” Of course; I agree. (beat) I blame the education system. (studio audience laughter). People who become managers aren’t any more likely than anybody else to know algebra, probably less, but the education system has trained the masses, not indeed in algebra, but to believe that to be successful you have to act like you knew algebra, you know—as though algebra were psychology and motivation and all the rest of it….

Sometimes the person who really believes in our education system is the MOST ignorant, as I indeed have been, at times—although the person who gets an ‘F’ in algebra usually absorbs at LEAST half of it, half of the emotional strategy, you know: at least the part that goes, “I’m a schmuck unless I feel grey inside; store managers shouldn’t be schmucks like me.” Of course, it’s not easy because the masses are very much divided; however, it seems like a bad sort of compromise to offer them as the system an elite designed to be equally reprehensible for everyone, you know. Which isn’t to say that sometimes the masses aren’t unreasonable. “For the high crime and misdemeanor of not being Trump, I, Clown Man, hereby impeach you, Biden, by a vote of 67-7.” ‘How did you get those numbers?’ “Oh, those are the voices inside my head.”…. But just to offer the people DMV Corp. (G-Man Corp., I mean), because the grey road is the road of least resistance…. I don’t know; is that really playing the long game?

…. He sorta gets some of the common problems in business organizations, but that is so not the same as inspiring people to do better or having what it takes to do a better job; ie, being brief is so not the same as being alive and something beyond just a rational computer in a business suit. And he so just doesn’t write stories well!

—Everything is rationality, young man—even the decision you have to make, whether or not to give a damn! 😀
—Wow, Manager! Since I’m just the author’s sock puppet just like you, I guess I’ll go ahead and agree with you! 😀

I hate to be negative, but the idea that normies might label this book as ‘positive thinking’ fills me with dread! 😹

Usa la forma della storia per raccontare piccoli approcci buoni per qualsiasi tipo di manager (o meglio: per manager senza troppe pretese e con poca voglia di leggere, data la scarsa mole del libro). Si potrebbe dire che è solo buon senso (l'obiettivo, la lode, la sgridata), ma quel che il libro dice è meno scontato di quel che si può pensare.
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Very short but very simple ( )

Simplistic but with some great gems, easy to pick out since it's a quick read.