Rating: 
Summary: Just like my life.
Review: "I've worked for a lot of idiot bosses in my life. But, after reading "How to Work for an Idiot," I figured out for the first time that the energy I spent complaining about them was wasted. Dr. John's mixture of humor and real life examples made me realize that being angry and bitter is easy. Everybody expects that. But, putting myself under the microscope is the only way to make things better for me. Like he says in the book, "If I'm working for somebody less talented and intelligent than I am, and I allow that person to make my life miserable, who's the idiot?"
Rating:
Summary: Just like my life.
Review: "I've worked for a lot of idiot bosses in my life. But, after reading "How to Work for an Idiot," I figured out for the first time that the energy I spent complaining about them was wasted. Dr. John's mixture of humor and real life examples made me realize that being angry and bitter is easy. Everybody expects that. But, putting myself under the microscope is the only way to make things better for me. Like he says in the book, "If I'm working for somebody less talented and intelligent than I am, and I allow that person to make my life miserable, who's the idiot?"
Rating: 
Summary: Are there any bosses out there who *aren't* idiots?
Review: ...
I'm a physician. After about twenty years in clinical practice, I've spent the last decade in the business field, working with pharmaceuticals companies and outfits that serve the needs of the drug manufacturers. I picked up <i>How to Work for an Idiot</i> in much the same way I've added to my medical library over the years, and for the same purpose. I'm trying to expand my knowledge of pathology, particularly the etiology and epidemiology of disease. And management in these United State today is <b>definitely</b> a disease. Much as I would like to have enjoyed Dr. Hoover's book, I haven't found much in it that is worth the cover price - or the time spent in reading it. I marked at the beginning a Major Bad Sign when I saw that Dr. Hoover introduced himself with direct and explicit promises of humor and insight. As a rule, anyone who thinks that he's so doggone funny that he can boast about the jollity his writing will impart is someone who can be reliably expected to provide less chuckles than the Book of Job. Better if he had approached the subject with an air of deadly seriousness, and let the idiocies of American management do the job for him, simply and straightforwardly. In fields of endeavor where results are measured less by bloviation, misdirection, and "creative accounting practices" - as American business managers have been tracking each other for the past half-century - there are the inescapable marks of objective reality. In medicine, there are the meetings of the Morbidity & Mortality Committee. There are tumor board sessions, QA audits, nervous phone calls from your liability insurance carrier. In engineering, we have Kipling's "The Hymn of Breaking Strain" to keep us mindful of <i>The Strength of Materials</i> and the consequences of irresponsibility. In the education and careers of business managers, however, we have deceit piled upon deception stacked atop fraudulence teetering on delusion that Tower-of-Babels into an ionosphere of grandiose dementia. With business management - particularly in the big corporations - consisting entirely of megalomaniacs, psychotics, sociopaths, compulsive liars, and dimwits, it's no wonder that in spite of myriad technological advances and skyrocketing productivity among the people who actually <u>do</u> things (ever and always impaired by the suppressive stumblebums who "manage" them), we live in chronic dread of disaster, with no confidence in prosperity or the prospect of getting and keeping a decent standard of living. Saying that "It's the Economy, Stupid" is rather like saying "It's the Beer, Lite." The impact of idiot management is pervasive, pernicious, wide-reaching and earthquake-deep. Along with their counterparts in the political sector of society - yet another bunch of prehensile, psychopathic, and prevaricative parasites - the ex-Business Management majors whose sprawling drunken bodies we used to step over in the college dormitories every Sunday morning are doing damage to the nation on a scale so vast that it conjures comparison with the Black Death. I had looked to Dr. Hoover's book for some insight on this subject, seasoned with a little of the gallows humor such an issue must necessarily evoke. Regrettably, I got neither. Worse yet, for an author with a bunch of other publications in his curriculum vitae, I found grammatical and orthographical thud and blunder every time I turned a page, with the writer of this book on Idiot Bosses - who claims that he's a <i>recovering</i> Idiot Boss himself - demonstrating all the ghodawful prose style so common among the functionally illiterate management clowns who occupy expensive suits with no more content than costly hot air. Not only was this book written by an idiot, but it was edited by one as well. There is nevertheless a good and proper reason to add <i>How to Work for an Idiot</i> to your bookshelf, and I would encourage its purchase and reading to anyone studying the pathology of managerial idiocy. If you think of it less as a guide to the subject and more as a <b><i>specimen</i></b> thereof, it's a proper entry into your own personal Mutter Museum of the horribly deformed.
...
Rating:
Summary: Are there any bosses out there who *aren't* idiots?
Review: ...
I'm a physician. After about twenty years in clinical practice, I've spent the last decade in the business field, working with pharmaceuticals companies and outfits that serve the needs of the drug manufacturers. I picked up How to Work for an Idiot in much the same way I've added to my medical library over the years, and for the same purpose. I'm trying to expand my knowledge of pathology, particularly the etiology and epidemiology of disease. And management in these United State today is definitely a disease. Much as I would like to have enjoyed Dr. Hoover's book, I haven't found much in it that is worth the cover price - or the time spent in reading it. I marked at the beginning a Major Bad Sign when I saw that Dr. Hoover introduced himself with direct and explicit promises of humor and insight. As a rule, anyone who thinks that he's so doggone funny that he can boast about the jollity his writing will impart is someone who can be reliably expected to provide less chuckles than the Book of Job. Better if he had approached the subject with an air of deadly seriousness, and let the idiocies of American management do the job for him, simply and straightforwardly. In fields of endeavor where results are measured less by bloviation, misdirection, and "creative accounting practices" - as American business managers have been tracking each other for the past half-century - there are the inescapable marks of objective reality. In medicine, there are the meetings of the Morbidity & Mortality Committee. There are tumor board sessions, QA audits, nervous phone calls from your liability insurance carrier. In engineering, we have Kipling's "The Hymn of Breaking Strain" to keep us mindful of The Strength of Materials and the consequences of irresponsibility. In the education and careers of business managers, however, we have deceit piled upon deception stacked atop fraudulence teetering on delusion that Tower-of-Babels into an ionosphere of grandiose dementia. With business management - particularly in the big corporations - consisting entirely of megalomaniacs, psychotics, sociopaths, compulsive liars, and dimwits, it's no wonder that in spite of myriad technological advances and skyrocketing productivity among the people who actually do things (ever and always impaired by the suppressive stumblebums who "manage" them), we live in chronic dread of disaster, with no confidence in prosperity or the prospect of getting and keeping a decent standard of living. Saying that "It's the Economy, Stupid" is rather like saying "It's the Beer, Lite." The impact of idiot management is pervasive, pernicious, wide-reaching and earthquake-deep. Along with their counterparts in the political sector of society - yet another bunch of prehensile, psychopathic, and prevaricative parasites - the ex-Business Management majors whose sprawling drunken bodies we used to step over in the college dormitories every Sunday morning are doing damage to the nation on a scale so vast that it conjures comparison with the Black Death. I had looked to Dr. Hoover's book for some insight on this subject, seasoned with a little of the gallows humor such an issue must necessarily evoke. Regrettably, I got neither. Worse yet, for an author with a bunch of other publications in his curriculum vitae, I found grammatical and orthographical thud and blunder every time I turned a page, with the writer of this book on Idiot Bosses - who claims that he's a recovering Idiot Boss himself - demonstrating all the ghodawful prose style so common among the functionally illiterate management clowns who occupy expensive suits with no more content than costly hot air. Not only was this book written by an idiot, but it was edited by one as well. There is nevertheless a good and proper reason to add How to Work for an Idiot to your bookshelf, and I would encourage its purchase and reading to anyone studying the pathology of managerial idiocy. If you think of it less as a guide to the subject and more as a specimen thereof, it's a proper entry into your own personal Mutter Museum of the horribly deformed.
...
Rating:
Summary: Before you jump out the window -
Review: At long last, the book to grab right before you go out the office window! Dr. John has given us humerous ways to overcome often not so humerous situations we find ourselves in at work. I can't seem to keep my copy of this book for more than a chapter as everyone who sees it seems to know an "I-Boss" and wants to "borrow" it! I lost my first copy in the dentist office! There are so many wonderfully turned phrases and insights that I have highlighted almost every page! While an easy-to-read book, it contains very important concepts that will help everyone from the guy working for the "I-boss" to the lucky few working for the "Good Bosses". As a trainer for the State of New York, I will be using Dr. John's concepts when working with "state workers" who sometimes find themselves caught in the "I-zone", "a state caused by the fusion of neurological synapses, usually followig an attempt to apply logic and reason to an I-Boss's thinking." The good news is that there are ways to move into the "Light," and Dr. John shows us many of them. Dr.John on the "I-zone": "Your inner voice tries to scream again, but nothing comes out this time, even inside your head. A pop-up window on your mental desktop reads,'This program has committed an illegal operation and will be shut down.' It's too late to do anything but watch your sanity disapear. Everything goes quiet and your internal monitor screen winks out." There is HOPE! If you can keep your book long enough to read it!
Rating:
Summary: Before you jump out the window -
Review: At long last, the book to grab right before you go out the office window! Dr. John has given us humerous ways to overcome often not so humerous situations we find ourselves in at work. I can't seem to keep my copy of this book for more than a chapter as everyone who sees it seems to know an "I-Boss" and wants to "borrow" it! I lost my first copy in the dentist office! There are so many wonderfully turned phrases and insights that I have highlighted almost every page! While an easy-to-read book, it contains very important concepts that will help everyone from the guy working for the "I-boss" to the lucky few working for the "Good Bosses". As a trainer for the State of New York, I will be using Dr. John's concepts when working with "state workers" who sometimes find themselves caught in the "I-zone", "a state caused by the fusion of neurological synapses, usually followig an attempt to apply logic and reason to an I-Boss's thinking." The good news is that there are ways to move into the "Light," and Dr. John shows us many of them. Dr.John on the "I-zone": "Your inner voice tries to scream again, but nothing comes out this time, even inside your head. A pop-up window on your mental desktop reads,'This program has committed an illegal operation and will be shut down.' It's too late to do anything but watch your sanity disapear. Everything goes quiet and your internal monitor screen winks out." There is HOPE! If you can keep your book long enough to read it!
Rating: 
Summary: Did not Help my problem at work --- must be me.
Review: Based on the 12 Step program, this flippant and barely humorous discourse is sitting on my bathroom floor only 3/4 read. I just couldn't stand it anymore. The author, a self proclaimed "recovering idiot boss" (IBoss), does not seem to take the topic seriously. Maybe I should lighten up, you say?
I still have to go to work tomorrow.
Let go and let god, indeed.
Rating:
Summary: Did not Help my problem at work --- must be me.
Review: Based on the 12 Step program, this flippant and barely humorous discourse is sitting on my bathroom floor only 3/4 read. I just couldn't stand it anymore. The author, a self proclaimed "recovering idiot boss" (IBoss), does not seem to take the topic seriously. Maybe I should lighten up, you say?
I still have to go to work tomorrow.
Let go and let god, indeed.
Rating:
Summary: Laughing Out Loud
Review: How to Work for an Idiot flows along and seems like Dr. John and the reader are sitting and enjoying a glass of wine together. Bringing in humor before the real meat is a fun way to learn. The 12-step program for recovering idiots was stimulating and fun to read. I liked the point that said, "We need to succeed in spite of the idiots in our lives." Real wonderful, solid advice. I laughed aloud at the line, "I never realized what it was like to work for an idiot until I became self-employed." The stories are excellent...strong points laced with laugh-aloud, self-deprecating humor. Dr. John has a winner on his hands. Stew Leonard
Founder, Stew Leonard's
One of FORTUNE Magazine's 30 Best Companies to Work for in America
Rating:
Summary: Kinda funny, no real suggestions
Review: I picked this up at a real bookstore because the title looked interesting and I had a business trip and would be able to read this away from my boss. There's some humor to the classifications of different management styles, and some decent anecdotes, but the main take-away I got from this was "work sucks, and you'd rather be doing something else." I could've guessed this on my own.
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