Am I the Only Sane One Working Here? by Albert J Bernstein, PhD

Always wondered that
New work year is here, and it’s time to deal with those work issues. Al Bernstein, psychologist and conflict resolution specialist, gives his ‘101 Solutions for Surviving Office Insanity’.
Solutions? There are solutions?
Turn straight to Albie B’s ‘Worst Case Scenarios’ chapter - losing jobs, losing work, losing income, facing the dole - Bernstein’s advice is so useful.
Like what?
Simple advice in the first place: don’t get stuck in one stage of dealing with things, take rumours with a grain of salt, know you’re in charge of your own feelings.
Sounds like flabby self-helpism to me
Some of it is. Some not. In ‘Companies that Offer Human Sacrifice’ he talks about how to survive the ‘dangerous ritual’ of random sackings and ‘appease the angry gods’.
Funny! And how?
He says these Aztec-style companies value workers for loyalty, not competence (not a good sign for the company). If you’re in a firm like this, he says, keep your network and CV up to date - and if you lose the job, ‘make finding a job your new job’.
It all sounds so sensible
Bernstein also has good advice on alcohol, work affairs (‘Flirting with Doom’), temper tantrums, office parties. All those things that make working life the joy it is.
All for the workers?
Most of it, in fact, is for managers, including how to criticise (four praises for every criticism), how to be promoted (be a positive-thinking conformist), how to get slackers to work.
You can do that?
So he promises - and Bernstein is writing with the expertise of a professional. Really a pretty useful book.
What else has he done?
Emotional Vampires: How to Deal with People who Drain you Dry; Dinosaur Brains: Dealing with all those Impossible People at Work; Neanderthals at Work - you get my drift.




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