The Absurd Workplace


Book Description

The current world is absurd. Faced with climate change, health pandemics, and ever-growing inequality, it is striking how globally, governments and organizations are malingering to find effective responses to these crises, leading to absurd situations where we are facing the destruction of the planet, while humankind is not making the necessary transformation towards truly sustainable societies and workplaces. Focusing on these grand, global challenges from an absurdity and hypernormalization lens, the book aims to elucidate what is happening in contemporary society and workplaces, why there is so little improvement being made in relation to the grand global challenges, and how a more sustainable social transformation can be made in organizations. It offers a wide, yet in-depth, perspective on absurdity in society and the workplace and presents a theoretical framework, as well as in-depth case studies of sectors or organizations where absurdity manifests itself. Presenting an overarching new perspective on society and workplaces, this book helps students and academics make sense of what is currently unfolding, and what can be done. The book therefore bridges theory, science and the everyday practice of organizational life, and how individuals working in a variety of organizations can contribute to more sustainable economies and societies.




Management of the Absurd


Book Description

A "Business Week" bestseller, this original, contrarian philosophy challenges today's leaders to look past the quick fix and deal thoughtfully with the real complexities of managing people.




Temporary


Book Description

In Temporary, a young woman’s workplace is the size of the world. She fills increasingly bizarre placements in search of steadiness, connection, and something, at last, to call her own. Whether it’s shining an endless closet of shoes, swabbing the deck of a pirate ship, assisting an assassin, or filling in for the Chairman of the Board, for the mythical Temporary, “there is nothing more personal than doing your job.” This riveting quest, at once hilarious and profound, will resonate with anyone who has ever done their best at work, even when the work is only temporary.




Office Idiots


Book Description

Most books that deal with ridiculous behaviors in the workplace are premised largely on conjecture, anecdotes, and limited data, but that’s not the case with Office Idiots. Written by Ken Lloyd, one of the foremost experts on jerks at work, this book relies on data from actual workplaces across America to present a sweeping and frighteningly accurate snapshot of the antics of office idiots. Based on thousands of letters to his newspaper column and Website, jerksatwork.com, this book spotlights office idiots wherever they exist in an organization, followed by practical advice on what to do and even what to say when you encounter them. In addition to providing a vast array of hands-on (and hands-off!) tools, Office Idiots will also show you how to: Deal with some of the most off-the-wall and absurd forms of office idiocy. Avoid enabling behaviors that actually bring out office idiocy in others. Make sure you don’t become an office idiot.




The Pilgrim’s Guide to the Workplace


Book Description

This is an Open Access book. Hoping to incubate a unique idea about workplace design, Dr. Agustin Chevez walked in isolation for 42 days from Melbourne to Sydney. His pilgrimage delivered 34 Signposts, a collection of insights which hold the promise to guide us to a better place to work. While firmly positioned within the shifting context of work, the Signposts point away from reactive solutions with a short shelf life. Instead, these markers are infused with a diversity of thought instilled by Agustin's pilgrimage and reclaim the forgotten qualities of solitude, boredom, adversity, and absurdity as mechanisms to deliver innovation and create improved working environments. On his way to Sydney Agustin relied on maps and people with local knowledge of the lands he traversed. Similarly, in this book, he consults people with local knowledge in various design disciplines, management, and technology as he navigates the many regions of the workplace and work practices covered by the Signposts. When he reaches the end of the known trails, he starts laying paths that take us closer to where the Signposts converge. Agustin writes from the perspective of a pilgrim, architect, workplace consultant, and researcher and invites you to join him as a fellow pilgrim. You will be rewarded with a journey that revisits our assumptions about the way we use space to host the ever-evolving notion of work - an expedition leading not only to better versions of the workplace, but a better version of ourselves. "This book takes about three hours to read, and it could take a lifetime to fully extract all the benefits that it contains. This does not suggest that there are not immediate benefits available from reflecting on and applying the Signposts that are core to the book's intellectual contribution." - Peer Review extract.




Elgar Encyclopedia of Organizational Psychology


Book Description

In this comprehensive Encyclopedia, Matthijs Bal brings together over 190 international experts to present fresh perspectives on key concepts, theories and research in organizational psychology. Entries cover central topics in the field, such as performance and work family balance, as well as upcoming and underrepresented areas such as decolonization, authenticity and playful work. This title contains one or more Open Access entries.




Please Fire Me:


Book Description

If you work in the kind of place where your boss's door is always open, the coffee is always refilled, and professionalism reigns, then kindly put down this book and throw yourself off something very tall. If years of being frustrated by arrogant douche bags and mental pygmies have left you ready to burn the world to the ground while laughing, then prepare to discover someone actually has it worse. Inspired by the hugely popular website, Please Fire Me is "A venting ground for the malemployed." --Thrillist "A really funny, bitchy co-worker." --The L Magazine Read hilarious workplace horror stories and follow the PFM guide to surviving the corporate machine. "Your boss is illiterate, your co-worker eats her own hair--whine it all out on Please Fire Me."--Details.com "Read Please Fire Me and be happy your job isn't that bad." --Smart Pretty and Awkward "Hilarious." --Times & Transcript




Improving Workplace Quality


Book Description

A consensus has developed in workplace studies around the concept of ‘well-being at work’ in an awareness that such apparently distinct aspects as health and safety, discrimination, labour market integration, and work-life balance converge in the workplace and are best treated as one complex phenomenon. This important book offers twelve contributions by distinguished international scholars from a range of disciplinary domains, providing an in-depth analysis of ongoing changes in the world of work and their impact on personal well-being. The contributors place specific workplace experiences in a comparative perspective, examining policy and regulatory initiatives and judicial rulings at national, regional, and international levels. The case studies are drawn from Italy, France, the United States, Russia, and developing countries. The essays examine recent legal developments in such topical issues as: – atypical and non-standard work; – child-care leave; – company-level welfare provisions; – disability; – harassment; – low-wage workers and employment benefits; – misperception discrimination; – public policy in care services; – unemployment and mental health; and – work/family conciliation policies. Providing a detailed overview of recent developments in policy and jurisprudence in a comparative perspective regarding discrimination, work-life balance, and workers’ integration into the labour market – as well as a guide to best practices in promoting well-being at work – this book will prove indispensable to labour and employment law practitioners, as well as to work organization, occupational medicine, mental health, and human resources professionals.




Bullshit Jobs


Book Description

From David Graeber, the bestselling author of The Dawn of Everything and Debt—“a master of opening up thought and stimulating debate” (Slate)—a powerful argument against the rise of meaningless, unfulfilling jobs…and their consequences. Does your job make a meaningful contribution to the world? In the spring of 2013, David Graeber asked this question in a playful, provocative essay titled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs.” It went viral. After one million online views in seventeen different languages, people all over the world are still debating the answer. There are hordes of people—HR consultants, communication coordinators, telemarketing researchers, corporate lawyers—whose jobs are useless, and, tragically, they know it. These people are caught in bullshit jobs. Graeber explores one of society’s most vexing and deeply felt concerns, indicting among other villains a particular strain of finance capitalism that betrays ideals shared by thinkers ranging from Keynes to Lincoln. “Clever and charismatic” (The New Yorker), Bullshit Jobs gives individuals, corporations, and societies permission to undergo a shift in values, placing creative and caring work at the center of our culture. This book is for everyone who wants to turn their vocation back into an avocation and “a thought-provoking examination of our working lives” (Financial Times).




Effective Christian Leaders in the Global Workplace


Book Description

Amazon.com lists thousands of books dealing with Christian leadership. That begs the question, Why do we need another one? It's a good question but the answer is simple. Getting to the bottom of being a Christian leader in this complex and constantly changing global society is tough and we need a book that is not another easy how to. This book is not full of pat answers but draws from the wisdom of a wide range of Christian leaders including private sector chief executives, politicians, senior police leaders, international bankers and senior government officials. It provides prompts for thought, reflection, conversation and prayer, which will enable you to be more confident in your global worldview as a Christian leader.