The Big Bing
Black Holes of Time Management, Gaseous Executive Bodies, Exploding Careers, and Other Theories on the Origins of the Business Universe
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- ¥1,600
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The definitive collection of thoughts, assaults, and hilarious observations from America’s premier business humorist and bestselling author of Throwing the Elephant and What Would Machiavelli Do?
The Big Bing will be a mandatory addition to the library of everyone who works for a living, or would like to. For nearly 20 years, Stanley Bing’s funny, wise, pleasantly mean-spirited, and at times even useful columns have delighted readers in the pages of Esquire, Fortune and a variety of other national publications.
Bing has lived the last two decades inside the belly of the corporate beast, clawing his way to the top of one of the great multinational companies in the cosmos. And he has seen it all: the high body count after many a gruesome deal, the machine that grinds up the bones of those who stood in its way, the birth and death of executive dinosaurs (and he’s had quite a few lunches with some of them, too). The result is storytelling at its best—sophisticated, amusing, and driven by the kind of insight that only a true insider can possess.
The Big Bing provides a mole’s-eye-view of the society in which we all live and work, creating one of the most entertaining, thought-provoking, and just plain funny bodies of work in contemporary letters.
Two decades inside the beast. One man taking notes—
Managing Your Boss: Strategies for handling every species of executive dinosaur, from the raving lunatic who becomes incoherent after lunch to the one who just wants to be your pal.Satirical Career Advice: Essential tactics for clawing your way up the ladder, from taking a nap without getting busted to the fine art of strategic bullshit.Friends, Enemies, and Consultants: A mole’s-eye-view of the political crypt, where turf wars are won, credit is stolen, and consultants are... well, consultants.The Absurdity of Corporate Life: A collection of pleasantly mean-spirited observations on everything from brutal mergers and business travel to the proper use of the office squawk box.
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Twenty years of columns by business humorist Bing (Throwing the Elephant; What Would Machiavelli Do?) from Fortune and Esquire add up to a very funny look at the contemporary executive. The media exec/writer organizes his collected works into a surprisingly coherent whole, containing 11 thematic sections that range from "The Tao of How" (tips on giving good phone and taking lunch with distinction) to "Up and Out" (advice on surviving career death and getting paid to go away). Often, related columns present complete story cycles; Y2K comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb while Bing fires away. "Chainsaw" Al Dunlap chops up companies and then falls on his own blade. Quizzes punctuate the columns: the worst scores on "The Bing Ethics Test" mean "you're a scumball and should do very well." Whenever the outward hostility gets tiring, Bing happily skewers himself. He suffers emotional collapse when he misplaces his BlackBerry and his cell phone: "Uncontrollable drooling made it difficult for me to keep both hands on the wheel. I was incapable of thinking straight or even in a circular fashion." He is "consumed by rage" when his limo does not appear in good time. And yet, the reader can almost always relate, perhaps because underneath the surface, Bing seems so genuinely entertained by the business world. "The good news is this: there is no fate but what you make," he concludes. "So you keep looking, and trying to get it, and to get over on it. And I'll be there with you, as long as there's still a little fun left in it."
