Summary: "Esquire editor and Entrepreneur etiquette columnist Ross McCammon delivers a funny and authoritative guide that provides the advice you really need to be confident and authentic at work, even when you have no idea what's going on. Ten years ago, before he got a job at Esquire magazine and way before he became the etiquette columnist at Entrepreneur magazine, Ross McCammon, editor at an in-flight magazine, was staring out a second-floor window at a parking lot in suburban Dallas wondering if it was five o'clock yet. Everything changed with one phone call from Esquire. Three weeks later, he was working in New York and wondering what the hell had just happened. This is McCammon's honest, funny, and entertaining journey from impostor to authority, a story that begins with periods of debilitating workplace anxiety but leads to rich insights and practical advice from a guy who "made it" but who still remembers what it's like to feel entirely ill-equipped for professional success. And for life in general, if we're being completely honest. McCammon points out the workplace for what it is: an often absurd landscape of ego and fear guided by social rules that no one ever talks about. He offers a mix of enlightening and often self-deprecating personal stories about his experience and clear, practical advice on getting the small things right--crucial skills that often go unacknowledged--from shaking a hand to conducting a business meeting in a bar to navigating a work party. Here is an inspirational new way of looking at your job, your career, and success itself; an accessible guide for those of us who are smart, talented, and ambitious but who aren't well-"leveraged" and don't quite feel prepared for success. or know what to do once we've made it. "-- Provided by publisher.
Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* How to achieve success in the workplace is the gist of this humorously effective handbook, and the specific person to whom it is addressed is the person who often feels inadequate to the job they are doing (all of us?) or inadequate to even successfully getting through an interview to get that job. The author, an editor at Esquire and business etiquette columnist for Entrepreneur, calls this mind-set "impostorism" because an impostor is what people feel like when their insecurities are being allowed a too-strong voice in how they conduct themselves—how we do our job—when, in his estimation, successful people work from their insecurities to perform well. In other words, "harness your fear to work for you." The most resonant and valuable statement McCammon makes may perhaps be "Embrace your mistakes." His guidance that follows this dictum—the meat and heart of the book—is built on understanding using the "small things," the customs and practices that make up the workplace culture. From interviewing ("Never pretend you're something you're not") to how to enter a room ("Eye contact, do not look down") to screwing up early on in the job ("If you don't screw up when you start out, then you are overqualified for the position") to how to smile and when to shut up, McCammon's lessons have the ring of universal applicability and honest truth. Read this delightful book, and relish its never-highfalutin approach. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.
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