Ross McCammon’s "Works Well With Others": Things I Liked, Disliked, and Wondered About

Things I Liked About Ross McCammon’s Works Well With Others: An Outsider’s Guide to Shaking Hands, Shutting Up, Handling Jerks, and Other Crucial Skills in Business That No One Ever Teaches You:

1.       Chapter 2: Should You Keep Reading This Book established that I was well within my rights to skip around in the book. And so I did.

2.       Chapter 4: Classic Interview Rules, Plus One More is a good nutshell list. 

3.       Chapter 8: Ways in Which you Must Screw Up Early On: A Handy Checklist.  It made me feel good to read about someone even more horrible at First Day Jitters at a job than I [hope that I] am.

4.       “You cannot be an interesting conversationalist if you are faking interest in something.”

5.       I was so happy to have my “It’s a little earlier than I want to leave this party, so I’d better leave” philosophy validated. 

Source: http://s3.amazonaws.com/media.wbur.org/wordpress/12/files/2015/11/works.jpg

Things I Disliked About This Book As I Got Further Into It:

1.       Lots of swearing. It gets worse as the book goes on. See…or rather, do not see Chapter 47: The Case for Profanity.  He likes to elaborate with cursing as he explains why it’s good to be a jerk.  Honestly.  Profanity makes one seem less educated and their arguments, no matter how rational, more ludicrous. -well-reasoned arguments because he started by spewing four letter words. Case in point: I stopped reading most of this book and wrote off a lot of possibly-otherwise. Coworkers and clients want to be respected, and swearing is hardly the way to convey that.  

2.       Offhand dissing of Christianity in a sort of condescending, amused sort of way.

3.       Although this book says never to say it, there are times it is vital to say “I’m Sorry.” Like, say, when you’ve actually messed up and feel sorry.  Sometimes honesty and a willingness to admit mistakes and then take hold of correcting them goes a long way.  Not just at work, but in your own character.

4.       I get that the author works at a fancy New York magazine and has interviewed Rihanna.  I don’t care what to do at a fancy business dinner. 

5.       I also don’t care about how to find a good bar after work. Not only do I not drink, but even if I did, there’s more bars than churches around where I work. I could literally find one blindfolded. 

Things I Wish This Book Had Either Covered But Didn’t, Or Had Fleshed Out More But Remained Sketchy:

1.       In Chapter 12: How to Shut Up, I wish he’d expanded the list of businessese jargon that should be forever chucked out the window. I’m looking at you sternly, “moving forward” and “workplace culture.”

2.       More about how to make small talk. I am terrible at this. I want to get to the medium talk, or else don’t waste my time. I know it’s sunny out. I can see it from afar as I sit, inside, under the fluorescent lights, at my desk all day. Stop rubbing it in.

3.       Never say “It is what it is.” What if you don’t know what it is in the first place? That’s like saying “The sky was as blue as a blue sky.” It creates a Mobius strip of circular description and gets us nowhere. There, I fleshed it out for you, Mr. McCammon.

4.       “Sprezzatura” and “The Score”

5.       E-mail courtesy. And all other courtesy outside of e-mail. And, on the flip side of that, how to intimidate people.