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Company
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.
338 pages, Paperback
First published January 17, 2006
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December 1, 2007
This book could have been so good - but wasn't.
Anyone who has worked anywhere in the last 20 years will recognise, with some pain, stuff written here - the nightmares of quality improvement plans, the language mangling this is ‘mission statements’ and the feeling that work has become an experiment performed on us by our less than benevolent overlords – all of this ought to have made for a very funny book. You know, in the all-too-uncomfortable sense that we laugh and cry about the same things.
That it so comprehensively failed to even raise a smile I can only put down to it being written with too close an eye on the American market. It is completely lacking in subtlety – so much so that I forgot halfway through that it was written by an Australian. It was like watching a slapstick comedy starring Adam Sandler, with the jokes telegraphed sometimes pages ahead. In fact, if it is made into a film Sandler could play the lead role. Either way, I won’t be watching it.
That the book gains praise from The Economist and Forbes probably says more than enough. This is not a book that subverts the existing order, but one that seeks to reinforce the futility of attempting to subvert it. People wonder why the best comics are almost always leftwing – it is because comedy is fundamentally subversive. If you have written a book that seeks to make fun of capitalism, it probably shows you have failed if The Economist is quoted on the cover saying anything but DO NOT READ THIS BOOK.
I have advice to anyone wanting to write a book on this theme – you don’t need to go over the top. Modern corporate culture is so fundamentally stuffed, so lacking in human decency or human feeling, so incapable of justification, that to exaggerate only makes it less degrading than it actually is. Exaggerating for the sake of a few laughs is fine – as long as the laughs finally come. That they didn’t in this case is just too sad for words.
The inescapable conclusion this book makes is that modern companies are so fundamentally evil that there is no alternative but nihilism. I think this is going too far, as this would be only one of my suggested options. Giving people some say in their workplace, some form of industrial democracy, may not be the most popular idea among the management gurus, but it would seem much more interesting than destroying the livelihoods of all those around you and then going off on the speaking tour circuit, the remarkably unfunny conclusion to this book’s little jaunt of folly.
This is a book that seems to be screaming out for a ‘solution’ to the modern dilemmas that corporations pose to society – that the author has no solution other than nihilism diminishes the book. I was left much as Aristotle said I would after a ‘comedy’ – feeling worse about the world than when I started.
Given what this book was about, the wealth of material it could have exploited, it is tragic that it is as dull and unfunny a book as it turned out to be. All I can say is, if only…
Anyone who has worked anywhere in the last 20 years will recognise, with some pain, stuff written here - the nightmares of quality improvement plans, the language mangling this is ‘mission statements’ and the feeling that work has become an experiment performed on us by our less than benevolent overlords – all of this ought to have made for a very funny book. You know, in the all-too-uncomfortable sense that we laugh and cry about the same things.
That it so comprehensively failed to even raise a smile I can only put down to it being written with too close an eye on the American market. It is completely lacking in subtlety – so much so that I forgot halfway through that it was written by an Australian. It was like watching a slapstick comedy starring Adam Sandler, with the jokes telegraphed sometimes pages ahead. In fact, if it is made into a film Sandler could play the lead role. Either way, I won’t be watching it.
That the book gains praise from The Economist and Forbes probably says more than enough. This is not a book that subverts the existing order, but one that seeks to reinforce the futility of attempting to subvert it. People wonder why the best comics are almost always leftwing – it is because comedy is fundamentally subversive. If you have written a book that seeks to make fun of capitalism, it probably shows you have failed if The Economist is quoted on the cover saying anything but DO NOT READ THIS BOOK.
I have advice to anyone wanting to write a book on this theme – you don’t need to go over the top. Modern corporate culture is so fundamentally stuffed, so lacking in human decency or human feeling, so incapable of justification, that to exaggerate only makes it less degrading than it actually is. Exaggerating for the sake of a few laughs is fine – as long as the laughs finally come. That they didn’t in this case is just too sad for words.
The inescapable conclusion this book makes is that modern companies are so fundamentally evil that there is no alternative but nihilism. I think this is going too far, as this would be only one of my suggested options. Giving people some say in their workplace, some form of industrial democracy, may not be the most popular idea among the management gurus, but it would seem much more interesting than destroying the livelihoods of all those around you and then going off on the speaking tour circuit, the remarkably unfunny conclusion to this book’s little jaunt of folly.
This is a book that seems to be screaming out for a ‘solution’ to the modern dilemmas that corporations pose to society – that the author has no solution other than nihilism diminishes the book. I was left much as Aristotle said I would after a ‘comedy’ – feeling worse about the world than when I started.
Given what this book was about, the wealth of material it could have exploited, it is tragic that it is as dull and unfunny a book as it turned out to be. All I can say is, if only…
July 24, 2010
Max Barry's Company is a corporate satire for those that might find Douglas Coupland a bit too challenging.
One of the many problems with humorous satires (oh there are many, the number one problem being tied between them not being very astute and not being funny) is that once the premise (joke, social observation) is set up then the author has to make a book out of it. Like just about every movie made that is based on a Saturday Night Live skit, there is painful a realization, which comes about a third of the way through the work, that there has to be something more to justify this being a major motion picture as opposed to a skit you put on at 12:45 in the morning when only the nerdiest of comedy geeks are still watching.
The last sentence collapsed somewhere during its second clause. Oh well. The premise of this book could have been handled really well in an Onion news story (no, I will not write out the story, I realize I'm not actually funny and besides I think goodreads.com may collapse under the weight of too many parodies, spoofs and awkward (I mean absurd) juxtapositions between dissimilar things in culturally familiar mediums).
Passive-aggressive critiques of other reviews aside, I should focus on the book at hand. Company is ok. It is not as funny as Office Space, it's not as clever or smart as either versions of The Office. It is vastly inferior to Microserfs. The book is (purposefully?) alienating in its characters, not that I'm complaining that alienation in a book is a bad thing. I'm all for alienation. It's just that the book may have been more effective if I cared about any of the characters. Or about corporations. Ok, there I said it. This book portrays corporations as evil and money hungry and I agree with that take of corporations but I don't buy into the 'we are innocents being manipulated unknowingly by our corporate masters.' I have ideological problems with the premises of this novel, call it the myth of Shiny Happy Capitalism. This is a satire for people who want to feel awesome about the potential of their soul-sucking jobs / corporations and live in a state of strict denial, or want to live in denial or something. I don't know actually. I just know that the book is kind of amusing, but it runs out of steam and it's the satirical equivalent of 1984 but where the conflicts of 1984 resolve themselves by creating a friendly panopticon that is always watching out for your best interests.
One of the many problems with humorous satires (oh there are many, the number one problem being tied between them not being very astute and not being funny) is that once the premise (joke, social observation) is set up then the author has to make a book out of it. Like just about every movie made that is based on a Saturday Night Live skit, there is painful a realization, which comes about a third of the way through the work, that there has to be something more to justify this being a major motion picture as opposed to a skit you put on at 12:45 in the morning when only the nerdiest of comedy geeks are still watching.
The last sentence collapsed somewhere during its second clause. Oh well. The premise of this book could have been handled really well in an Onion news story (no, I will not write out the story, I realize I'm not actually funny and besides I think goodreads.com may collapse under the weight of too many parodies, spoofs and awkward (I mean absurd) juxtapositions between dissimilar things in culturally familiar mediums).
Passive-aggressive critiques of other reviews aside, I should focus on the book at hand. Company is ok. It is not as funny as Office Space, it's not as clever or smart as either versions of The Office. It is vastly inferior to Microserfs. The book is (purposefully?) alienating in its characters, not that I'm complaining that alienation in a book is a bad thing. I'm all for alienation. It's just that the book may have been more effective if I cared about any of the characters. Or about corporations. Ok, there I said it. This book portrays corporations as evil and money hungry and I agree with that take of corporations but I don't buy into the 'we are innocents being manipulated unknowingly by our corporate masters.' I have ideological problems with the premises of this novel, call it the myth of Shiny Happy Capitalism. This is a satire for people who want to feel awesome about the potential of their soul-sucking jobs / corporations and live in a state of strict denial, or want to live in denial or something. I don't know actually. I just know that the book is kind of amusing, but it runs out of steam and it's the satirical equivalent of 1984 but where the conflicts of 1984 resolve themselves by creating a friendly panopticon that is always watching out for your best interests.
March 25, 2013
For the first 100 pages, I was thinking to myself, "Genius! This is a rip-roaring, laugh-out-loud (in the literal sense of the phrase), spot-on scalding satire of corporate culture. Each of author Max Barry's initial poison-tipped arrows hit the corporate bulls-eye...the use of the elevator buttons to visualize the corporate hierarchy; the inanity of corporate voice-mail; the over-confidence of MBAs; the invisibility of the CEO; the meaninglessness of the company mission statement; or the aimlessness of a sales team that is unsure what its company actually does. Brilliant!
And, then, slowly, after the curtain is pulled and the company's true purpose is revealed, the novel's brilliance fizzled, the author's arrows became blunted, and the plot morphed into an unbelievable Animal Farm meets Boiler Room escapade that seemed more concerned with whether Hollywood would option the book's rights than making any nuanced points about corporations and corporate power.
And, then, slowly, after the curtain is pulled and the company's true purpose is revealed, the novel's brilliance fizzled, the author's arrows became blunted, and the plot morphed into an unbelievable Animal Farm meets Boiler Room escapade that seemed more concerned with whether Hollywood would option the book's rights than making any nuanced points about corporations and corporate power.
June 25, 2012
I really enjoy corporate cubicle fiction, for some reason. Books like Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris, and I’ll even include Last Night at the Brain Thieves Ball by Scott Spencer. Company is sort of a mix of these, in as much as there’s the petty politics of working in a cube farm, and a deeper conspiracy fueling the intrigue. Don’t read Company if you feel good about the corporation you work for and don’t want that feeling challenged. Calling Max Barry "cynical" is like calling Microsoft "profitable."
Barry’s style is a bit stark, a bit plain, matter-of-fact. He gives you just enough description to keep things straight, but leaves the rest of it to yourself, and the reader will eventually fill in details from her own experiences. Again , this can have a devastating effect on someone otherwise sympathetic to working between four half-walls all day long. Barry is unrelenting, but not so harsh as make his fictions seem hateful or mean. I mentioned Ferris and Spencer, above, but the end of the novel was evocative of Neal Stephenson’s The Big U, although not quite as heavy or taxing.
Comparisons to Dilbert are inevitable, but whereas Scott Adams pitches withering sarcasm against smug incompetence, Barry’s Company is more about the corporate machine itself, the kind of synergies it fails to generate while wasting vast amounts of energy. Adams has a lock on irony; Barry has a lock on pathos. This is a quick read, and you’ll find yourself shaking your head throughout, not at the absurdity of how business operates in the Company, but instead at how familiar that absurdity is.
Barry’s style is a bit stark, a bit plain, matter-of-fact. He gives you just enough description to keep things straight, but leaves the rest of it to yourself, and the reader will eventually fill in details from her own experiences. Again , this can have a devastating effect on someone otherwise sympathetic to working between four half-walls all day long. Barry is unrelenting, but not so harsh as make his fictions seem hateful or mean. I mentioned Ferris and Spencer, above, but the end of the novel was evocative of Neal Stephenson’s The Big U, although not quite as heavy or taxing.
Comparisons to Dilbert are inevitable, but whereas Scott Adams pitches withering sarcasm against smug incompetence, Barry’s Company is more about the corporate machine itself, the kind of synergies it fails to generate while wasting vast amounts of energy. Adams has a lock on irony; Barry has a lock on pathos. This is a quick read, and you’ll find yourself shaking your head throughout, not at the absurdity of how business operates in the Company, but instead at how familiar that absurdity is.
March 29, 2020
2.5 stars. I didn't hate it, but I expected more. Cynicism towards the absurd norms of corporate and bureaucratic institutions should be right up my alley, but I wanted it to go further--more humor, more satire, something. In the end it didn't do much to make me feel anything nor challenge the status quo at all. (It was also published in 2007, so work life has changed quite a bit in light of technology and social media, making the book feel quite dated and some of the plot implausible.)
March 16, 2010
I wanted to like this book, just like I wanted to like Jennifer Government but ultimately it fails and for the same reasons. There's just no depth here. Maybe I shouldn't look for any, just accept it as light-hearted satire. Still, the entire story line feels contrived, existing only to point out truths that we all know anyway: big corporations don't care about their employees. Maybe if just one senior manager was given a small amount of depth, rising above the expensive suit-wearing, golf-playing, Porsche-driving cold-hearted power grabber, the book would have been more memorable. We don't get to know any of the characters well enough to care about them.
The use of the word "sacked" instead of "fired" is bizarre for a story that takes place in Seattle. It also seemed strange for the setting to be Seattle when no features of the city are incorporated into the story. It would have been better not to mention the city and keep the story generic.
I think Max Barry has a lot of skill as a writer, enough to keep my interest despite the flaws. I wish that he would put his talents to better use.
The use of the word "sacked" instead of "fired" is bizarre for a story that takes place in Seattle. It also seemed strange for the setting to be Seattle when no features of the city are incorporated into the story. It would have been better not to mention the city and keep the story generic.
I think Max Barry has a lot of skill as a writer, enough to keep my interest despite the flaws. I wish that he would put his talents to better use.
April 28, 2023
Anyone who has worked in corporate bureaucracy would find something to laugh about in this book; which tells the story of a company that exists only as a research lab for the authors of the "Omega Management System". This should give you a good idea of the book's tone:
The book makes me laugh, when it's not busy scaring the crap out of me because it is a little too real.
There are stories — legends, really — of the “steady job.” Old-timers gather graduates around the flickering light of a computer monitor and tell stories of how the company used to be, back when a job was for life, not just for the business cycle. In those days, there were dinners for employees who racked up twenty-five years — don’t laugh, you, yes, twenty-five years! — of service. In those days, a man didn’t change jobs every five minutes. When you walked down the corridors, you recognized everyone you met; hell, you knew the names of their kids.
The graduates snicker. A steady job! They’ve never heard of such a thing. What they know is the flexible job. It’s what they were raised on in business school; it’s what they experienced, too, as they drove a cash register or stacked shelves between classes. Flexibility is where it’s at, not dull, rigid, monotonous steadiness. Flexible jobs allow employees to share in the company’s ups and downs; well, not so much the ups. But when times get tough, it’s the flexible company that thrives. By comparison, a company with steady jobs hobbles along with a ball and chain. The graduates have read the management textbooks and they know the truth: long-term employees are so last century.
The problem with employees, you see, is everything. You have to pay to hire them and pay to fire them, and, in between, you have to pay them. They need business cards. They need computers. They need ID tags and security clearances and phones and air-conditioning and somewhere to sit. You have to ferry them to off-site team meetings. You have to ferry them home again. They get pregnant. They injure themselves. They steal. They join religions with firm views on when it’s permissible to work. When they read their e-mail they open every attachment they get, and when they write it they expose the company to enormous legal liabilities. They arrive with no useful skills, and once you’ve trained them, they leave. And don’t expect gratitude! If they’re not taking sick days, they’re requesting compassionate leave. If they’re not gossiping with co-workers, they’re complaining about them. They consider it their inalienable right to wear body ornamentation that scares customers. They talk about (dear God) unionizing. They want raises. They want management to notice when they do a good job. They want to know what’s going to happen in the next corporate reorganization. And lawsuits! The lawsuits! They sue for sexual harassment, for an unsafe workplace, for discrimination in thirty-two different flavors. For — get this — wrongful termination. Wrongful termination! These people are only here because you brought them into the corporate world! Suddenly you’re responsible for them for life?
The truly flexible company — and the textbooks don’t come right out and say it, but the graduates can tell that they want to — doesn’t employ people at all. This is the siren song of outsourcing. The seductiveness of the subcontract. Just try out the words: no employees. Feels good, doesn’t it? Strong. Healthy. Supple. Oh yes, a company without employees would be a wondrous thing. Let the workers suck up a little competitive pressure. Let them get a taste of the free market.
The old-timers’ stories are fairy tales, dreams of a world that no longer exists. They rest on the bizarre assumption that people somehow deserve a job. The graduates know better; they’ve been taught that they don’t.
The book makes me laugh, when it's not busy scaring the crap out of me because it is a little too real.
May 30, 2016
COMPANY, Max Barry’s brilliant piece of satire, takes us inside Zephyr Holdings, a corporate monolith whose employees are so deeply buried in office politics and the day-to-day struggle to meet quotas and adjust to constant reorgs that none of them has a clear picture of just what the company does.
New hire, Stephen Jones, is so excited by his job prospects that he dares to go in to see the CEO and find out. It’s far more Machiavellian than anyone could ever imagine. Zephyr Holdings, apparently exists only to bombard its employees with constantly changing directives in order to study their behavior and publish the findings in a best-selling corporate manual.
None of this seems right to Jones, in spite of his infatuation with Eve Jantiss - the gorgeous and brilliant front office receptionist who is, in reality, the number two person in the company. Jones decides to rally the employees first to an awareness of their value as workers and then to complete corporate mutiny. In the end, there is mayhem and perhaps a new and better order... or not.
Though I thought the ending was a little flat, there’s clever writing, strong characterizations, and a truly insightful depiction of the madness of corporate life. This makes COMPANY a great read for anyone who feels trapped in the madness of their jobs and understands that maybe the only thing to do is step back and have a good laugh about it all.
New hire, Stephen Jones, is so excited by his job prospects that he dares to go in to see the CEO and find out. It’s far more Machiavellian than anyone could ever imagine. Zephyr Holdings, apparently exists only to bombard its employees with constantly changing directives in order to study their behavior and publish the findings in a best-selling corporate manual.
None of this seems right to Jones, in spite of his infatuation with Eve Jantiss - the gorgeous and brilliant front office receptionist who is, in reality, the number two person in the company. Jones decides to rally the employees first to an awareness of their value as workers and then to complete corporate mutiny. In the end, there is mayhem and perhaps a new and better order... or not.
Though I thought the ending was a little flat, there’s clever writing, strong characterizations, and a truly insightful depiction of the madness of corporate life. This makes COMPANY a great read for anyone who feels trapped in the madness of their jobs and understands that maybe the only thing to do is step back and have a good laugh about it all.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 4, 2013
If you've ever worked in a large corporate environment, you'll recognize the characters in the book. And you'll laugh about it. Or you'll smirk.
You've read another big corporation satire, and maybe you'll give it to someone else who works in a large corporation, as if to say, "Look, corporate life IS stupid. Just because we buy into it every day doesn't mean that we're a part of it." Maybe you'll add a "LOL" to the end. Or say L-O-L, which you'll (hopefully) regret saying later. And that's it.
You'll go back to your desk and that powerpoint presentation that your boss has been making repeated font changes to for the last 3 weeks will push the book right out of your working memory. In a week, you won't remember the title. You'll remember some book about a company and not be able to remember if it was good or not.
So you'll give it 3 stars because you know that no one ever reads or disputes 3 star opinions, allowing you to file the review and print out copies of your presentation in both 11 and 11.5 point Impact, because your boss can't seem to decide which gives a better visual representation of the information.
You've read another big corporation satire, and maybe you'll give it to someone else who works in a large corporation, as if to say, "Look, corporate life IS stupid. Just because we buy into it every day doesn't mean that we're a part of it." Maybe you'll add a "LOL" to the end. Or say L-O-L, which you'll (hopefully) regret saying later. And that's it.
You'll go back to your desk and that powerpoint presentation that your boss has been making repeated font changes to for the last 3 weeks will push the book right out of your working memory. In a week, you won't remember the title. You'll remember some book about a company and not be able to remember if it was good or not.
So you'll give it 3 stars because you know that no one ever reads or disputes 3 star opinions, allowing you to file the review and print out copies of your presentation in both 11 and 11.5 point Impact, because your boss can't seem to decide which gives a better visual representation of the information.
June 22, 2007
This is based upon the audio download from [http://www.Audible.com]
Narrated by: William Dufris
There have been various comments about this reader…either love him or hate him. I happily align with the former.
Since there are many other sources for a review of the book, I’ll comment only what makes this different, the reader. With so many characters in the story, I found different voices the reader used for each helpful and delightful in the reading of this very clever story.
I rate William Dufris right along my other favorite reader, Scott Brick.
Easy, fun listen.
Narrated by: William Dufris
There have been various comments about this reader…either love him or hate him. I happily align with the former.
Since there are many other sources for a review of the book, I’ll comment only what makes this different, the reader. With so many characters in the story, I found different voices the reader used for each helpful and delightful in the reading of this very clever story.
I rate William Dufris right along my other favorite reader, Scott Brick.
Easy, fun listen.
December 29, 2018
Max Barry has quietly put together a career of writing fine satire of the modern condition. I've also read Jennifer Government, another dark comedy about a near future where corporate entities have taken control and deploy armed agents against each other... think James Bond if James was a woman and worked for Coca Cola instead of MI-6.
But I digress. This book is a spoof of workplace culture. If anything, it has become even more prescient since its publication a decade ago. In the world of Trump, Company doesn't seem too exaggerated.
We meet the sad denizens of training sales in the monolithic Zephyr company as they go to war against each other over who took an extra donut in a morning meeting. Eventually, after we meet half a dozen of these corporate misfit toys, the story settles into the point of view of Jones, a likeable if somewhat aimless young fellow who becomes obsessed with figuring out just what his employer does. The more he tries to understand the purpose of Zephyr, the more he realizes that all is not what it seems. We follow Jones down the corporate rabbit hole, behind the wizard's curtain of a vast social experiment.
Barry's characters are excellent and he is very funny. I was surprised to discover that the author is Australian, as he clearly has insight into the horrors of American corporate culture.
I don't know what has happened to Barry. He never quite found a big audience and hasn't published in a few years which is a shame. I have one more book, Lexicon, in my to-read list still. 4.5 stars.
But I digress. This book is a spoof of workplace culture. If anything, it has become even more prescient since its publication a decade ago. In the world of Trump, Company doesn't seem too exaggerated.
We meet the sad denizens of training sales in the monolithic Zephyr company as they go to war against each other over who took an extra donut in a morning meeting. Eventually, after we meet half a dozen of these corporate misfit toys, the story settles into the point of view of Jones, a likeable if somewhat aimless young fellow who becomes obsessed with figuring out just what his employer does. The more he tries to understand the purpose of Zephyr, the more he realizes that all is not what it seems. We follow Jones down the corporate rabbit hole, behind the wizard's curtain of a vast social experiment.
Barry's characters are excellent and he is very funny. I was surprised to discover that the author is Australian, as he clearly has insight into the horrors of American corporate culture.
I don't know what has happened to Barry. He never quite found a big audience and hasn't published in a few years which is a shame. I have one more book, Lexicon, in my to-read list still. 4.5 stars.
February 29, 2012
Ah, office life. So rife for parody. So fertile with corporate absurdity. Where mankind's unique lunacies are simultaneously coddled and dismissed. The things that make us uncomfortable and disgruntled are handled with pig-skin gloves and ice tongs, and the things that make us excited and content are considered extraneous to the bottom line. Where back sides are so well-covered that they're almost impossible to kiss. Is there any better fodder for literature, television, or movies?
Joshua Ferris' debut novel, "Then We Came to the End," comes along at a time when the corporate zeitgeist is experiencing a resurgance in parody and satire, and some would say he joins the ranks of those who get it right, who manage to sock the nail squarely on the head. I won't go that far.
I give the guy props for aiming high. His book, written in the first-person plural, is told from the view of over half a dozen different characters. The effect is more than a little dizzying, although it does give the book the sense of collective panic and confusion that seems to pervade the cloth-lined cubicles of most white-collar rat mazes. His quirky characters -- Tom Mota (unhinged idealist), Chris Yop (office supply thief), Carl Garbedian (emasculated pill popper) -- they all sing and dance like very real people, and their interactions are well-played and telling, even if they aren't also very interesting.
What would've made them interesting would've been some sort of coherent story line, a plot hub around which they all could've spun. Instead, the most consistent thread to the tale is the overarching dread each of them has about being fired, the final notice when their lives' greatest suspicions are confirmed: you are not necessary or important. The only real antagonist in this book is the Almighty Pink Slip, it's an idea, and (even more so) it's the uncertainty and chaos that hides behind the idea. As far as Ferris' drones are concerned, Life After Layoffs is just as sticky a wicket as Life After Death.
It's not a bad premise, and Ferris' decision to deliver it from the perspective of the collective lends the story a lot more weight than it might otherwise have. After all, equating the loss of a job with the loss of a life is the bailiwick of all good office parody; have we become so disconnected from our souls that our identity is tied up in pay grades and job labels? (Ever heard this exchange before? "After all, I'm Assistant Regional Manager." "No, you're Assistant TO the Regional Manager.")
Unfortunately, Ferris' book, in spite of its clever rambling, in spite of how deftly the protagonists pass of the narration without missing a stride, in spite of how nimbly office politics are parlayed into things like emails, office chairs, and cubicle knick-knacks -- in spite of all of this, it doesn't really pack much punch until the last few pages, when the real humanity of the characters is finally allowed to stand out. The final lines of the novel are really just very, very good stuff, but it comes at the tail end of a lot of ham-fisted meandering, and it makes you wonder just how good the book could've been had Ferris not tried so hard to be funny, and had instead tried harder to be real.
He could've taken a lesson from Max Barry's "Company," another book about office politics, but one that goes more whole-hog with its satire. The slim tome starts with the theft of a donut and swiftly crumbles in on itself in a deliciously over-done send-up of every element of office life, from the dark overlords at Human Resources, to the pale, squinting I.T. guys. The novel follows the trail of Stephen Jones, the new guy at a corporate behemoth called Zephyr Holdings. Jones barely has enough time to warm the seat of his chair before consolidations and lay-offs rock the business. Inter-office politics lock down all progress, salespeople are ordered to REDUCE productivity, the buttons in the elevator are all backwards, and no one -- absolutely no one -- can even tell Jones just what the company does, anyway. Also, there's still a donut thief on the loose.
Although Barry's book is a bit more juvenile than Ferris', that also means it's having a lot more fun. Jones goes on a quest to untangle the quagmire of memos and inter-departmental backstabbing that seems to be the lifeblood of Zephyr, and along the way he uncovers a dark, fundamental truth behind the way all businesses are run: employees are unnecessary. Ferris spends over half of his novel asking the old "Am I really significant?" question, while Barry jumps straight into explaining the answer.
"Company" gets a little kooky near the end, and in that way, it's sort of the anti-thesis of "Then We Came to the End." The body of one wants the conclusion of the other. But, even if "Company" takes to fantastical lengths the Swiftean logic of big business, it still comes out ahead in terms of sheer entertainment and thought-cud. Barry doesn't have the literary grace of Ferris, but he does manage to put together a more revealing, a more pertinent, and a funnier story.
I guess it boils down to what kind of boss you are: do you like clever busy work, or do you want results at all costs? Ferris gives you one, and Barry gives you the other. Either way, it beats actually working.
Joshua Ferris' debut novel, "Then We Came to the End," comes along at a time when the corporate zeitgeist is experiencing a resurgance in parody and satire, and some would say he joins the ranks of those who get it right, who manage to sock the nail squarely on the head. I won't go that far.
I give the guy props for aiming high. His book, written in the first-person plural, is told from the view of over half a dozen different characters. The effect is more than a little dizzying, although it does give the book the sense of collective panic and confusion that seems to pervade the cloth-lined cubicles of most white-collar rat mazes. His quirky characters -- Tom Mota (unhinged idealist), Chris Yop (office supply thief), Carl Garbedian (emasculated pill popper) -- they all sing and dance like very real people, and their interactions are well-played and telling, even if they aren't also very interesting.
What would've made them interesting would've been some sort of coherent story line, a plot hub around which they all could've spun. Instead, the most consistent thread to the tale is the overarching dread each of them has about being fired, the final notice when their lives' greatest suspicions are confirmed: you are not necessary or important. The only real antagonist in this book is the Almighty Pink Slip, it's an idea, and (even more so) it's the uncertainty and chaos that hides behind the idea. As far as Ferris' drones are concerned, Life After Layoffs is just as sticky a wicket as Life After Death.
It's not a bad premise, and Ferris' decision to deliver it from the perspective of the collective lends the story a lot more weight than it might otherwise have. After all, equating the loss of a job with the loss of a life is the bailiwick of all good office parody; have we become so disconnected from our souls that our identity is tied up in pay grades and job labels? (Ever heard this exchange before? "After all, I'm Assistant Regional Manager." "No, you're Assistant TO the Regional Manager.")
Unfortunately, Ferris' book, in spite of its clever rambling, in spite of how deftly the protagonists pass of the narration without missing a stride, in spite of how nimbly office politics are parlayed into things like emails, office chairs, and cubicle knick-knacks -- in spite of all of this, it doesn't really pack much punch until the last few pages, when the real humanity of the characters is finally allowed to stand out. The final lines of the novel are really just very, very good stuff, but it comes at the tail end of a lot of ham-fisted meandering, and it makes you wonder just how good the book could've been had Ferris not tried so hard to be funny, and had instead tried harder to be real.
He could've taken a lesson from Max Barry's "Company," another book about office politics, but one that goes more whole-hog with its satire. The slim tome starts with the theft of a donut and swiftly crumbles in on itself in a deliciously over-done send-up of every element of office life, from the dark overlords at Human Resources, to the pale, squinting I.T. guys. The novel follows the trail of Stephen Jones, the new guy at a corporate behemoth called Zephyr Holdings. Jones barely has enough time to warm the seat of his chair before consolidations and lay-offs rock the business. Inter-office politics lock down all progress, salespeople are ordered to REDUCE productivity, the buttons in the elevator are all backwards, and no one -- absolutely no one -- can even tell Jones just what the company does, anyway. Also, there's still a donut thief on the loose.
Although Barry's book is a bit more juvenile than Ferris', that also means it's having a lot more fun. Jones goes on a quest to untangle the quagmire of memos and inter-departmental backstabbing that seems to be the lifeblood of Zephyr, and along the way he uncovers a dark, fundamental truth behind the way all businesses are run: employees are unnecessary. Ferris spends over half of his novel asking the old "Am I really significant?" question, while Barry jumps straight into explaining the answer.
"Company" gets a little kooky near the end, and in that way, it's sort of the anti-thesis of "Then We Came to the End." The body of one wants the conclusion of the other. But, even if "Company" takes to fantastical lengths the Swiftean logic of big business, it still comes out ahead in terms of sheer entertainment and thought-cud. Barry doesn't have the literary grace of Ferris, but he does manage to put together a more revealing, a more pertinent, and a funnier story.
I guess it boils down to what kind of boss you are: do you like clever busy work, or do you want results at all costs? Ferris gives you one, and Barry gives you the other. Either way, it beats actually working.
May 24, 2021
This sharp corporate satire starts off well enough but finds itself plunging into a dark hole of nonsense. Anyone who has ever worked in the corporate world will appreciate the dark comedy until it becomes more of a weird childish romance. If there were such a thing as beach read for men, I feel like this is it.
November 19, 2012
I have read this book a number of times. I enjoy it, each and every time. I love the incisive satire of modern businesses and the ridiculous business models and practices companies embrace to be "better." I love the characters, who are swept up into the madness and yet smart enough to know that they are being swept into madness and that they are someone else outside of work. I love the character of Eve, a true sociopath, and yet the author makes you care about her. I love that there aren't easy answers and that Steven Jones follows what he thinks is right even if it might not be. I love that Elizabeth seems to be written to be an awful depiction of a pregnant woman and then at the last second Roger is nothing more than a Doughnut.
The author takes on corporate America but also American workers and is unsparing in his assessment of them all. It is a fun read, but one that poses ethical questions that are really worth considering.
The author takes on corporate America but also American workers and is unsparing in his assessment of them all. It is a fun read, but one that poses ethical questions that are really worth considering.
September 2, 2024
DNF-ed at 75%. I was looking forward to this after seeing it recommended on Biblioracle's "work" book list. The story starts out really well, but towards the 40% mark, it starts to show its flaws. It's too long—the audiobook is over 10 hours long—for characters that I cannot develop any feelings for, and the few characters that I could sympathize with have no authority. I wanted to keep going, hoping that William Dufris's wonderful dramatized narration would carry me through to the end, but, alas, it felt like watching a prolonged sketch comedy that relies on the same physical comedy for laughs.
April 29, 2013
Max Barry has an incredible talent for satire. He manages to write these very clever books that are surprisingly balanced considering that they are actually critisisms, in this instance of corporate mentality, capitalism and economics. Very relevant book, particularly in today's economy and a very entertaining read as well. Recommended.
September 10, 2016
Starts like a light comedic tale, evolving into satire of office culture honed with some very sharp observations. With time, it begins to take on more serious undertones and the satire produces much stronger reaction than the knowing smirk of recognition. Berry makes quite a point about human nature and the way we can be made to behave towards each other.
December 13, 2014
A satire on corporations, good but not as much fun as Lexicon (which was fabulous). Some of the characters were hard to take (e.g. Roger and his missing donut fixation). And of course many of the situations rang true to my long corporate career.
July 7, 2015
Not bad - just kind of loses momentum in the second half. It was a funnier novel before you learn the twist.
July 6, 2017
The problem with employees, you see, is everything. You have to pay to hire them and pay to fire them, and, in between, you have to pay them. They need business cards. They need computers. They need ID tags and security clearances and phones and air-conditioning and somewhere to sit. You have to ferry them to off-site team meetings. You have to ferry them home again. They get pregnant. They injure themselves. They steal. They join religions with firm views on when it's permissible to work. When they read their e-mail they open every attachment they get, and when they write it they expose the company to enormous legal liabilities. They arrive with no useful skills, and once you've trained them, they leave. And don't expect gratitude! If they're not taking sick days, they're requesting compassionate leave. If they're not gossiping with co-workers, they're complaining about them. They consider it their inalienable right to wear body ornamentation that scares customers. They talk about (dear God) unionizing. They want raises. They want management to notice when they do a good job. They want to know what's going to happen in the next corporate reorganization. And lawsuits! The lawsuits! They sue for sexual harassment, for an unsafe workplace, for discrimination in thirty-two different flavors. For—get this—wrongful termination. Wrongful termination! These people are only here because you brought them into the corporate world! Suddenly you're responsible for them for life?If you've ever pulled down any kind of corporate paycheck... well, nothing's changed since 2006, when former Hewlett-Packard employee Max Barry's Company came out, and I suspect the inspired sarcasm above will still resonate with you just as strongly as it did for me.
—pp.42-43
Pay attention to the elevator buttons whose image appears as the first page of Company, too—those buttons and how they're labeled will tell you a lot about Zephyr Holdings before you even get into the book itself. The first thing you'll notice is that they're numbered in reverse—the top floor, the CEO's domain, is #1, and the lobby is floor #20. I.T., naturally, is on the 19th floor, just one level above the street.
None of this is a coincidence. Zephyr's operations may be inscrutable to its employees, but they are always very carefully thought out.
As you read the first few chapters of Company, I think, it'll also be productive to consider the phrase "Chekhov's Donut" (yeah, I'm pretty proud of that variation—but you can read about the original here). The donut does show up again...
"It would certainly be ironic if after all this time it turned out that hyperefficiency was counterproductive."The Book of the SubGenius may also be a useful reference...
—Daniel Klausman, CEO of Zephyr Holdings, p.244
Despite being set in Seattle, Company does occasionally betray its Aussie origins, with staff being "sacked" instead of fired, and boxes on forms being "ticked" instead of checked. But those are small sins, really, compared with all the good work Max Barry has done here. Barry has crafted an inspired (and acidic, and hilarious) dissection of the essential division between labor and management—between those who do the work, and those who take credit for the work.
In Company, Barry's sympathies are obviously on the side of the former, but as a lifelong worker bee myself, I have to think that's a good thing.
May 20, 2019
I’ve been searching for books that are similar to mine for comps (namely, satire), so that’s why I picked up Company. And I liked it, but I didn’t like it either, mostly because it’s too Gen-X.
Okay, the plot. The protagonist, Steve, starts at a new company, Zephyr. There are some antics, and that’s where the book first felt wrong. It felt kinda like an episode of The Office. Given that this was written in 2005 and the author worked at HP for a long time, I’m pretty sure that’s because of me and comparisons to The Office aren't his intent, but the point remains: the plot’s too self-aware at the beginning. Obviously, if anyone talks about satire they talk about A Modest Proposal. However, the comedy comes form the cognitive process of asking “why is the author talking about this as if it’s meaningful?”, not from the protagonist getting flustered and asking himself that question. Basically, I like it being more tongue-in-cheek, less explicit.
I don’t want to say that the story is all that. The book gets better from there, after the first third of the beginning. And even there it’s not all that, but sometimes there it overreaches. Soon enough the protagonist finds out that the corporation is basically false. Everyone working there is so that a secret team (Alpha) can test the effects of various managerial philosophies. They’re so secret, in fact, that the actual managers and senior managements don’t know about it and are part of what’s being tested.
I’m going to skip ahead because I want to say what my problem was. I like the climax, where the protagonist gets the company to effectively unionize (but no, not unionize, that’s a dirty word and something not even the exploited workers want) and then reveals how the suffering and really unfair policies of the company (such as effectively firing women when they get pregnant even though technically they aren’t) are arbitrary. The corporate reorganizations and people losing their jobs are done for no reason but results in real people having their lives upset.
The protagonist represents democracy (in the corporate process), even going so far as quoting a lightly-edited passage from the declaration of independence regarding work. His main antagonist roughly represents soulless, heartless, sociopathic corporate profiteering. She feels like a living embodiment of anyone who employs outsourcing to 3rd world countries. In a shorter summary, I’d say she is someone that earnestly believes that work will set you (never her) free. So I’d say I like that the author is taking a stance that workers (labors) are as or more important than managers (capital) as far as a company goes.
Then the part I don’t like. The author walks back all that in a concession. The company doesn’t work well without the labor class controlling everything. And the very end, after everything has collapsed and the workers openly riot and injure the Alpha team, months after the dust settles, the author is on a speaking tour (so he doesn’t seem to really care about workers controlling the company because he’s talking to managers, not the workers). Eve confronts the Steve (now that I think about it, I’m sure that’s a joke), and he’s perfectly fine with her going on to a different job and doing the same thing as him but with an entirely different message. He has no problem with this, even though that was the whole point of the story at Zephyr. She specifically confronts him on this, that he should try to stop her, but he says that he only pities her. So as long as it’s not in his field of view, he has no problem with the working class being exploited. And that’s why I was talking about the author being Gen X.
Okay, the plot. The protagonist, Steve, starts at a new company, Zephyr. There are some antics, and that’s where the book first felt wrong. It felt kinda like an episode of The Office. Given that this was written in 2005 and the author worked at HP for a long time, I’m pretty sure that’s because of me and comparisons to The Office aren't his intent, but the point remains: the plot’s too self-aware at the beginning. Obviously, if anyone talks about satire they talk about A Modest Proposal. However, the comedy comes form the cognitive process of asking “why is the author talking about this as if it’s meaningful?”, not from the protagonist getting flustered and asking himself that question. Basically, I like it being more tongue-in-cheek, less explicit.
I don’t want to say that the story is all that. The book gets better from there, after the first third of the beginning. And even there it’s not all that, but sometimes there it overreaches. Soon enough the protagonist finds out that the corporation is basically false. Everyone working there is so that a secret team (Alpha) can test the effects of various managerial philosophies. They’re so secret, in fact, that the actual managers and senior managements don’t know about it and are part of what’s being tested.
I’m going to skip ahead because I want to say what my problem was. I like the climax, where the protagonist gets the company to effectively unionize (but no, not unionize, that’s a dirty word and something not even the exploited workers want) and then reveals how the suffering and really unfair policies of the company (such as effectively firing women when they get pregnant even though technically they aren’t) are arbitrary. The corporate reorganizations and people losing their jobs are done for no reason but results in real people having their lives upset.
The protagonist represents democracy (in the corporate process), even going so far as quoting a lightly-edited passage from the declaration of independence regarding work. His main antagonist roughly represents soulless, heartless, sociopathic corporate profiteering. She feels like a living embodiment of anyone who employs outsourcing to 3rd world countries. In a shorter summary, I’d say she is someone that earnestly believes that work will set you (never her) free. So I’d say I like that the author is taking a stance that workers (labors) are as or more important than managers (capital) as far as a company goes.
Then the part I don’t like. The author walks back all that in a concession. The company doesn’t work well without the labor class controlling everything. And the very end, after everything has collapsed and the workers openly riot and injure the Alpha team, months after the dust settles, the author is on a speaking tour (so he doesn’t seem to really care about workers controlling the company because he’s talking to managers, not the workers). Eve confronts the Steve (now that I think about it, I’m sure that’s a joke), and he’s perfectly fine with her going on to a different job and doing the same thing as him but with an entirely different message. He has no problem with this, even though that was the whole point of the story at Zephyr. She specifically confronts him on this, that he should try to stop her, but he says that he only pities her. So as long as it’s not in his field of view, he has no problem with the working class being exploited. And that’s why I was talking about the author being Gen X.
November 21, 2018
If you've ever worked in a big office environment and just loved it, like, "Oh boy, my cubicle is awesome and my management is just the BEST!"...this book is not for you. If you've ever worked in a big office environment and often looked up from your monitor, glanced around at the other drones, and thought to yourself, "Is this it? Or is there something more sinister at work? Is everyone here against me?"...this book is for you! (I am of the second variety.) Because, yes, there is more going on in Zephyr Corp than meets the eye. There are also donut obsessions, secret pregnancies, receptionists who are paid ridiculously large salaries, and don't forget the Smoker's Corral. I thought this office conspiracy satire was really funny and entertaining.
September 26, 2021
Would give it a 3.5 stars.
But I feel less generous today.
This is a funny story, at least the first half of it.
Reminds me what it's like to be employed by a big company and some Dilbert jokes.
Nice and easy.
But I feel less generous today.
This is a funny story, at least the first half of it.
Reminds me what it's like to be employed by a big company and some Dilbert jokes.
Nice and easy.
November 1, 2021
A veces las políticas empresariales pueden resultar realmente chocantes, pero en La corporación todo tiene su razón de ser, aunque no deje de resultar algo inquietante. Una buena lectura que invita a una profunda reflexión mercantil.
May 22, 2019
An echo of what everyone else already said re: Company and a forced reminder that Lexicon is A REAL TREAT
September 15, 2024
Promising and fun first 100 pages. The reveal and conclusion was unsatisfying, and made me think it could’ve been better as a short story/novella.
February 1, 2022
Headline required
If Orwell and Palahniuk had a baby and cast it in Office Space it might look like this. For the most part it's an unchallenging, quick and easy read about corporate limbo, it needs to be a bit more intelligent to gain that extra star, but it's an enjoyable romp through the forests of cubicles.
If Orwell and Palahniuk had a baby and cast it in Office Space it might look like this. For the most part it's an unchallenging, quick and easy read about corporate limbo, it needs to be a bit more intelligent to gain that extra star, but it's an enjoyable romp through the forests of cubicles.
June 29, 2023
Fun book in the vein of Office Space (definitely not The Office, there's very little good spirit to be found here). This novel creates a world where extreme office habits and corporate culture are cranked to 11. The main story kept me turning the pages but by the end, I'm not sure if I was left with that much to think about. Was this satire or nihilism or somewhere in-between?
December 5, 2014
You may remember when I read Machine Man by Max Barry and I remember it being enjoyable. I decided I need something lighthearted to read right now and what better than some crafty satire.
This is the story of a strange Company in which nobody really knows what the company does and everyone’s job sort of folds back into the company. The sales reps sell training packages to the rest of the departments. Infrastructure management charges everyone for management in the building, charging departments for the use of windows and computers and phone lines.
Since there is a pay freeze Jones gets hired on in Sales but on paper it says that he is, well, paper. A purchase of paper.
Jones gets curious about the oddities of the company and starts to seek answers but he is told a parable about monkey’s in a lab that is meant to discourage his curiosity.
A large part of the beginning of the book focuses not on Jones but on the other characters in the sales office. A man who won’t stop obsessing over who took his doughnut, a woman who falls in love with her customers up until the deal is done, another woman who works out in the gym all day, a man who is secretly in love with the beautiful receptionist on the ground floor, etc. etc.
It isn’t until Jones finally figures out whats really going on in the company that his story becomes central to the book.
It’s a light and easy read, fun for anybody who has ever suffered in a cubicle farm in a windowless room all day. It’s a satirical examination of how evil big companies can be to their employees and why having one of these jobs really sucks the soul out of you.
I really enjoyed reading Company but the ending was a little lacking. It built up to a huge shit-hits-the-fan, let’s-start-a-riot moment and then just cut off and went to a One-Year-Later situation. Not the worst way to write an ending and I know its really hard to write endings but I felt like it was a bit of a cop-out.
Still glad I read it and it’s still a four star rating from me. I like this author a lot and will probably read another of his before long.
This is the story of a strange Company in which nobody really knows what the company does and everyone’s job sort of folds back into the company. The sales reps sell training packages to the rest of the departments. Infrastructure management charges everyone for management in the building, charging departments for the use of windows and computers and phone lines.
Since there is a pay freeze Jones gets hired on in Sales but on paper it says that he is, well, paper. A purchase of paper.
Jones gets curious about the oddities of the company and starts to seek answers but he is told a parable about monkey’s in a lab that is meant to discourage his curiosity.
A large part of the beginning of the book focuses not on Jones but on the other characters in the sales office. A man who won’t stop obsessing over who took his doughnut, a woman who falls in love with her customers up until the deal is done, another woman who works out in the gym all day, a man who is secretly in love with the beautiful receptionist on the ground floor, etc. etc.
It isn’t until Jones finally figures out whats really going on in the company that his story becomes central to the book.
It’s a light and easy read, fun for anybody who has ever suffered in a cubicle farm in a windowless room all day. It’s a satirical examination of how evil big companies can be to their employees and why having one of these jobs really sucks the soul out of you.
I really enjoyed reading Company but the ending was a little lacking. It built up to a huge shit-hits-the-fan, let’s-start-a-riot moment and then just cut off and went to a One-Year-Later situation. Not the worst way to write an ending and I know its really hard to write endings but I felt like it was a bit of a cop-out.
Still glad I read it and it’s still a four star rating from me. I like this author a lot and will probably read another of his before long.
October 6, 2009
Company by Max Barry is set in a milieu that I love to explore, the corporate office world. It’s full of office politics; the mundane and the ambiguous. I’ve often been fascinated with the world. And this novel explores it in hilarious and thought provoking fashion.
The story is about Jones, a new employee at Zephr Holdings who cannot work out exactly what the company does other than the deals and interactions between of the various departments. The question is what Zephr really does and Jones goes out of his way to find out, despite his colleagues warning him not to.
Max creates a fascinating world full of interesting characters with their own motives and subplots. It’s easy to get lost in the world and his hilarious take on work life. But this fascination may be because I work in an office myself and can very much relate to a lot of the characters and their situations. Perhaps he was aiming for someone like me.
Again because of being an office worker myself and most definitely due to me being a Marxist, the political plot to the novel had me on a knife edge as I was waiting to see how the story would resolve itself and what political conclusions you were meant to draw from it. Whilst I wasn’t expecting it to line up with my worldview exactly, the conclusion was satisfying for me. I won’t give it away, though, but it’s satisfying considering the bold direction of the story.
Barry’s writing style is sparse and smooth. I found the book easy to get into and wanting to keep ploughing through the pages. Though, this is without it then being devoid of interesting description. There is a good balance there and I learnt a lot as a writer from reading Company.
This is one of the best novels I’ve read all year and I would recommend this book to anyone but especially fellow cubicle dwellers.
http://www.benjaminsolah.com/blog/?p=...
The story is about Jones, a new employee at Zephr Holdings who cannot work out exactly what the company does other than the deals and interactions between of the various departments. The question is what Zephr really does and Jones goes out of his way to find out, despite his colleagues warning him not to.
Max creates a fascinating world full of interesting characters with their own motives and subplots. It’s easy to get lost in the world and his hilarious take on work life. But this fascination may be because I work in an office myself and can very much relate to a lot of the characters and their situations. Perhaps he was aiming for someone like me.
Again because of being an office worker myself and most definitely due to me being a Marxist, the political plot to the novel had me on a knife edge as I was waiting to see how the story would resolve itself and what political conclusions you were meant to draw from it. Whilst I wasn’t expecting it to line up with my worldview exactly, the conclusion was satisfying for me. I won’t give it away, though, but it’s satisfying considering the bold direction of the story.
Barry’s writing style is sparse and smooth. I found the book easy to get into and wanting to keep ploughing through the pages. Though, this is without it then being devoid of interesting description. There is a good balance there and I learnt a lot as a writer from reading Company.
This is one of the best novels I’ve read all year and I would recommend this book to anyone but especially fellow cubicle dwellers.
http://www.benjaminsolah.com/blog/?p=...
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