Thursday, June 9, 2011

Somehow I Manage

If you’re a fan of The Office, you surely know about the management manual Michael Scott cleverly called “Somehow I Manage.” You can actually read a few extremely short chapters of “Somehow I Manage” (and by chapters I mean paragraphs) on NBC’s website.

I was reminded of this is because I was in my boss’s office today and saw a book on his desk called “Don’t Take the Last Donut: New Rules of Business Etiquette.”

Me
Once I got past the sheer ludicrousness of not taking the last donut (Do we just stand around the last donut saying things to each other like “After you, sir,” and “No, I couldn’t possibly take that donut my good fellow,” and “Please, YOU have it, I insist,” until one of us gets a phone call and the group disperses and the last donut goes to waste? Fools!) I started wondering how many other business books have similarly stupid titles. I remembered seeing one at work called “Eat That Frog!” with the exclamation point and everything. A quick Google search tells me that the title is from a Mark Twain quote:

“If you eat a frog first thing in the morning that will probably be the worst thing you do all day.”

That’s actually a pretty good quote, and I like Mark Twain, so let me stop making fun of it and get on with making fun of other books that I haven’t put any effort into researching:

Poke the Box
Unfolding the Napkin
Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance
Juggling Elephants
Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite
The No Asshole Rule
Fish!
Whale Done!


Now let me come up with a few of my own:

Smelling Your Cubicle
Help! I Spilled Gatorade on my Pants!
Some Enjoy Marmalade
Rollerblading Douchebags
Bringing Back the Bowl Cut
Work First, Self Last


If you think up any of your own, please post them below. Whale done everybody!