The Big Bing CD: Black Holes of Time Management, Gaseous Executive Bodies, Exploding Careers , and Other Theories on the Origins of the Business Universe

The pieces are sectioned into themes readers will recognize--office politics, technology, life on the road, men being men, job angst. A number of columns snap and sting. For example, in "You Da Man," Bing details six species of bad bosses including "Don King without the Hair" and "the last days of Dick Nixon." He spins tales from the political crypt, asking readers to join his amusement at "the range of goofy people who are thrown together in the pursuit of political advantage."

Bing is at his best in giving amusing advice (how to give good phone, win turf wars and get a room with a view) and in business travelogues about places like Las Vegas where he sees "several apparently dead people playing slots." The writing bristles with attitude. Only a moving essay on "the mourning after" September 11 interrupts the relentless cynicism of Bing's observations. Some readers will be able stay in on the jokes. Others may find his voice tiring or unkind and may note the difference between insight and wisdom. --Barbara Mackoff

Product Description
A corporate mole's-eye view of the society in which we all live and toil, creating one of the most entertaining, thought provoking, and just plain funny bodies of work in contemporary letters. Stanley Bing knows whereof he speaks. He has lived the last two decades working inside a gigantic multinational corporation, kicking and screaming all the way up the ladder. He has seen it all -- mergers, acquisitions, layoffs, the death of the three-martini lunch -- and has himself been painfully re-engineered a number of times. He has eaten and drunk way too much, stayed in hotels far too good for him, waited for limousines in the pouring rain, and enjoyed it all. Sort of. Most importantly, Bing has seen management at its best and worst, and has practiced both as he made the transition from an inexperienced player who hated pompous senior management to a polished strategist who kind of sees its point of view now and then. In one essential volume, here is all you need to know to master your career, your life, and when necessary, other weaker life forms.