Per My Last Remaining Nerve

The email arrived 2 minutes into a Monday morning, and the subject line contained 2 words and a question mark, and those 2 words were quick question. The author knew, with the certainty of a person who has been hit by the same bus enough times to recognize the headlights, that his entire day was about to be repurposed. This hilarious survival guide is for everyone who has already drafted the angry email and is now deciding whether to hit send. You are born with a complete nervous system, and you enter the workforce assuming the office will use it respectfully, but instead the office treats your nervous system the way a toddler treats a box of crayons, with enthusiasm and no respect for the packaging.

The email takes a crayon, and the deadline takes a crayon, and the meeting takes a crayon, and the reorg takes the whole box. Within a few years you are walking around with exactly 1 crayon left, and that last crayon is what the author calls the last remaining nerve, and this book is about how to keep it. Drawing on 4 reorgs, 2 layoffs, and 11 managers, this book walks you through the entire inventory of modern office life, the quick question, the inbox as a grave, the art of the email threat, deadlines as suggestions, the meeting that could have been an email, the reorg waltz, feedback as a contact sport, Slack as a sticky note with teeth, reply all as a weapon, the status update ceremony, the annual review paradox, the out of office escape, the office archetypes, and the hybrid hustle.

You will learn how to spot the quick question, how to draft the masterpiece of passive aggression and decide whether to send it, and how to protect the 1 crayon you have left. Whether you have ever read a furious email aloud to the printer, ever scheduled a meeting that could have been an email, or ever watched your last remaining nerve get pulled at an all hands meeting, this book will make you laugh, make you nod, and remind you that the office has been like this since the first memo.