Healthy Living Books Books

Rating: - Amazing little book that has tranformed my life (I joke you not)
I have been going through an intensive 2 years of being bullied by a manager that I have come to the conclusion is a psychopath. I quit a month ago (I should have moved when I realised that ghastly smell of rotting kraft cheese spread wasn't really cheese at all!... You will understand when you read the book...)

I was actually looking for some ideas about how to present a 'short guide to psychopathic management' as a spoof management 'how not to' tool (if you are a publisher let me know). I should have left in the first 6 month but kept being 'hemmed in' (haw haw) by a psycho-manager who promised that there would be cheese if only I just worked harder, worked longer, when 'this person was dealt with', 'when that contract was ended' - all the while reporting my successes as failures to her manager... and as I was seaching for my writer's inspiration, I found this little gem.

Within an hour I totally got the grip on it. I let go of the anger. Instead of letting stuff spiral in my mind (as it does after a couple of years of persistent bullying!!!) I had invented new and somewhat cryptic responses to her intrigue which I must bear yet for another month (stuff like 'I just can't bear the smell of rotting kraft cheese spread' that would do her control freak head in), and I realised that my fundamental failing was exactly that I had stayed, contained my joy de vivre, killed my creativity to meet her demand for undead employees, tried harder, believed a liar, and allowed a vampire to suck the life from me rather than trusting my instinct that the situation was total rubbish and just getting up and leaving ... just to get away from that rotting cheese spread that they spray on the walls to pretend there is cheese.

Yes my manager kept me down and 'hemmed me in' but only because I was too sentimental to realise that there wasn't any cheese, there had never been any cheese, and there was never going to be any cheese... and I really like to believe the best in people even when every pattern in their behaviour points to pscyopathic tendencies, rather than trusting my instincts and going with the cheese.

I have just seen a Christmas email from the head of the department listing some of our monumental failures as successes??? Alice wants to go back to the maze now!

Unlike other learned reviewers I did not find this book to be "'Let us keep the employees down' propaganda" at all. Yes the 'Friend's scene' is truly gut knawing. I will grant any critic that... but you can alway go straight to the happy little parable.

I also, contrary to some reviews, found it extraordinarily empowering. It says precisely that if where you are doesn't have what you need, get up and find somewhere that does. You don't need your employer's permission to live your life and you don't owe it to your employer to stay in a redundant and moribund situation. I also gave it to my boyfriend who was stuck and pretty close to being dumped... having resisted for two weeks, he also got it in an hour even though english isn't his first language... (his major complaint was that it was very anglo saxon - I defended the rest of the the anglo saxon culture and told him it was american - anyway I don't mind a bit of Disney ocassionally, but he genuinely embraced the parable and and found some real hope in it - I was genuinely surprised, since he is a miserable git at times ... we even had our own little 'Friend's scene' style conversation about where the cheese might be!!! (really, honestly, I need to know, how did Alice get out of the mirror? somebody please remind me)

I don't think that the writing is exceptional and as with a lot of american stuff they can't help explicating the moral in the middle of a good picture (I blame Louisa Alcott and that awful moralising 19th Century american puritan literary movement myself) but seriously guys, try it. I am going to buy copies for a few of my Friends, so that we can meet in a coffee shop and have some embarrassing discussions about cheese and change.

To those who find this book patronising and simplistic, all I can say is I am terribly clever too, and I also found it patronising and simplistic. But sometimes we can be so clever we forget Occam's razor - the simplest solution is normally the best.

And he wrote on the wall 'get with the cheese' and drew a picture of a chunk of swiss around it...

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Rating: - A simple but seminal text
This title is heavily written in the metaphor and conversational style that Dr Spencer Johnson uses in his works. The storyline is simple and the forewords of use in 'using' the book.

The book is divided into three sections; setting the scene; the tale itself; and analysis of the tale and it's meanings in life (ie how it can be applied).

If you take it at face value then it does either provide an insight into our psyches and how we do deal with change and change situations; or it reinforces something that we already knew about ourselves.

In a world where change is a constant and business is adapting to new technologies and theories, this text is still important....provided the reader is willing to consider the lessons and, where appropriate, change.

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Rating: - Compulsary
Everyone should have not only have one of these but lend others it.
I'm surprised by the number of people that have never heard of this book.

-- Lee

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Rating: - Like stilton, this stinks.
I guess the book's okay if you consider yourself to be a mouse, that its legitimate for unseen others to experiment upon you and that you should just go with it when they do. The book leaves little room for the kind of critical insight that might lead 'mice' to escape the maze or simply to give up cheese.

It's not a book I'd recommend to anyone, but I'm sure 'Doctor' Johnson won't miss my sales recommendation.

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Rating: - A Kick Up The Butt!
Since reading this book I've bought it for other people, all who seem to be stuck in a rut, or unable to move themselves forward.

It's a very quick and easy read (read it in a couple of hours) but it presents a logic that seems just that ... logical.

If you're scared of change but don't want to continue along the path that you're currently on, this book offers a great perspective. Don't be afraid of what's around the corner ...