3 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
Gold Diggers, Bean Counters & Miss Management by Mack Stout is the author’s work-related memoir. He has been working in the corporate world for most of his adult life. During this time, he has encountered the usual office discrimination, bullying, and harassment that anyone with a boss and colleagues has faced.
Mack’s situation is not unique, but it highlights the main issues often over-qualified employees reaching that critical age encounter: the threat of being made redundant and the fear of not finding something else of equal pay to keep food on the table. While reading the book, I remembered how much I used to hate working for entitled and petty managers on power trips. It comes to no surprise that many people nowadays are switching to freelancing. It might not come with health insurance and other main benefits, but for anyone who has experienced arrogant bosses and incompetent colleagues, this is an option that gives a person peace of mind and the ability to work undisturbed from home.
I found the book engaging, and I enjoyed reading about the author’s adventures at work. Many corporate employees who are unhappy about their circumstances will feel the writer’s pain. Some might even chuckle at the various comical or annoying anecdotes mentioned throughout the pages. For example, when Miss Fyre got fired, everyone in the office that day was walking on eggshells just to avoid a similar fate. Another example that made me chuckle was when Mack wanted to get transferred to another department. When it finally happened, he realized that his life under his previous manager, Ana, had been much better than under the new department’s manager, Talia. The author even mentioned, “be careful what you wish for, because you might get it.”
One point I need to make is regarding the names of people the author met over the years. I understand that he wanted to protect their identities; however, I felt there was no need for 45 names to be distorted like in the following examples: “not this person’s real name but you could rearrange the letters in his real name to spell ‘heil transgender ice jug’” (I actually cringed at this specific example), or “This is not his real name, although the letters in his real name could be rearranged to spell ’Photon Bombs’.”
The book is, otherwise, reasonably well written. The author’s sense of humor and sarcasm show through the pages, and his disdain for incompetent colleagues and bosses is evident. Nevertheless, some sentences need tweaking to work better, repetitions could be removed to make the story tighter, and the 40+ parentheses involving names should be erased or at least moved to the Footnotes section.
Overall, I award Gold Diggers, Bean Counters & Miss Management 3 out of 4 stars. I recommend it to people who are working 9-5 jobs and are looking to make a career change. Reading about the author’s struggles might give them a fresh perspective on the issues they are facing every day. If you’re working in a corporate environment, you can relate to most of what the author has been going through at work over the years.
******
Gold Diggers, Bean Counters & Miss Management
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
