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Title: How to Be Useful: A Beginner's Guide to Not Hating Work
ISBN: 0618713506
Author:
Megan Hustad
Publicate Date: 2008-05-02
Publish: 2008-05-02
List Price: $19.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $9.82
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $8.96
Amazon Merchant Price: $11.97
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Clever!
I took this book out at the library after looking at it a few times. As another reviewer put it, the title and the unique cover was interesting to me. I am 32 and just starting my career - I wish I had read this book 7 years ago, as a struggling graduate student interning in the workplace. Really useful, cleverly written, and great gift for any graduating senior or wet-behind-the-ears rookie.
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2: Engrossing
I found this book throughly enjoying and was pleased that it wasn't a typical self-help career book. The author examines self-help books through the last hundred years and reveals some common threads. She also gives some details of the personal lives of the writers of these books ( like Dale Carnegie and Emily Post) which really make you sit back and think about considering the giver of advice before leaping into some detailed plan for success.
She doesn't really give any ground breaking tactics for surviving the workplace. I think any self help book would tell you to dress nice as item 1. However she actually gives the reasons why such practices are in place and why you should play along. Rather than just stating that you should do x, she says you should do x because of y which is refreshing.
The style is crisp and to the point and I can tell the author is smart and spent a lot of time researching, thinking and writing this book which is reason enough to buy it.
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3: I bought it as a gift, and the recipient really liked it.
I gave this to a friend who's at a miserable office job. He's way too smart for it, but he took a few semesters off from college and hasn't finished up yet (so it's the best he can get right now).
I haven't personally read it, so I can't get too specific, however, he seemed to really enjoy it. He found her writing very entertaining, as well as informative. It's not a condescending, self-help type of book. It's a playful, but still helpful, look at how to handle the politics of work.
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4: How to Write a Useless Book
I couldn't find much practical advice in this book. Megan actually suggests people show up late to work and meetings. How is that good advice for anyone let alone a fresh college grad? Megan mentions researching hundreds of books on the subject but the majority of her suggestions come short of really addressing anything at all. It appears as if she lost interest in the middle of her research but published the book anyway.
Megan painfully dances around subjects while dispersing very little practical advice. Her writing is laced with vocabulary that would be hard to grasp for a typical entrant to the job market (unless perhaps they work in the publishing business like her).
It could be that Silicon Valley culture is different(which is where I work and reside) from New York publishing scene but this book was a colossal waste of time for me, which is ironic given the book's title.
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5: Must-Read for any new office entrant
A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to make a Downtown Women's Club event at Barnes & Noble to hear Megan Hustad speak on her new book, How To Be Useful. Hustad is a soft-spoken veteran of the book publishing world, and extremely nimble with her words. Despite the interference of the cafe machinery, Hustad read a few excerpts and explained the process of writing a retrospective of 100 years of Success Literature.
Now that I've finished this book (and already re-read a few sections), I place this at the very top of my list of recommended Success books. I have a certain amount of envy that Hustad thought of the project first, but really she does a fantastic job in surveying a long list of advice books and distilling the essence of each down to its most useful principles. Through interviews with contemporary colleagues and research on her fellow Success authors, she deftly equips the reader with a range of situations for practical application of the proffered career advancement methods.
Hustad's writing is at once intelligent, and easily digested. She adds a certain amount of fine dry wit to her work, as well as an icing of footnotes to flush out certain points. Any book she has gone over is helpfully included in the bibliography, for further reading, although this might be extraneous.
My personal favorite chapters are "2 - Dodging the Great Failure Army" and "8 - Self-Deprecation." In Chapter 2, we are introduced to Orison Swett Marden's ideas on being relentlessly cheerful and kind to everyone, from the CEO to the concierge. The idea is not new (Marden wrote in the early part of the 20th century), but the various applications of how to apply this optimism to career development is wonderfully explained. Marden's idea of the "Law of Attraction," the idea that people are drawn to the positive, is similar to the heart of "The Secret," but must less mystical. By applying pleasantries to our office mates, carefully and not gratuitously, one cultivates an air of camaraderie, and leaves the door open for others to follow suit. Chapter 2 is full of examples of how to deploy this cheerful method, as well as misguided attempts to avoid.
Chapter 8 covers the art of self-deprecation, which I think should be mandatory reading for new people in the office, particularly those guilty of over-sharing. Hustad here examines the rags-to-riches story, and how overcoming obstacles endears oneself to those around one, but conversely, stories about common problems can pile up and backfire on the teller. It's one thing to talk about overcoming a poor financial situation by winning a full scholarship to college, but another thing entirely to tell about one's embarrassing behavior while drunk last night on the way home from happy hour. As I was reading this chapter, I could feel myself cringe as I remembered telling self-deprecating stories that probably did more to decrease public opinion of myself rather that create a sense of "we've all been there" endearment.
I would highly recommend this book to career services offices, high school guidance offices, and any other place that prepares new graduates for the workforce. I'd add that this would make an excellent read for anyone who struggles with social interactions or anxieties, because of its easy to follow pedagogy on interpersonal communications. Even though it is written with career success in mind, the advice is extraordinarily useful in many situations from networking events to parties.
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