So the game DOES have rules. I just thought they were evil for the sport of it. What if I don't want to play the game?" What if I want to change the rules?

This is a great manual for finally understanding how corporate culture works. And it does have prescriptions for what ails you. The problem is that finding out that all your paranoia is justified really turns your stomach against wanting to play this game anymore. A lot of this stuff won't work for me because I've already been branded but what if it did? Great! Now, I'm part of the machine that perpetuates this evil.

The comfort of knowing my fears were justified didn't last long before despair set in.

Shapiro does give advice for fixing your mistakes and reclaiming your place as a trusted employee. But it's a lot of work. Your paycheck may or may not justify humiliating and overworking yourself on a daily basis until your slighted boss trusts you again. But then if you do get promoted, she gives you the opposite advice that she just gave you when you were an employee. Now you have to earn your employees respect and loyalty, give credit where credit is due, and make sure your employees are motivated - things that you had no right to expect in the employee advice section.

There's just got to be a better way. ( )

I'd recommend this book to anyone starting their career, and anyone who is having trouble getting ahead at work. The book's message, in summary, is to conform and put your employer's interests above all else. It's a tough message, but it needs to be said and understood. That doesn't meet you have to comply with everything in the book, but at least you'll be making an informed decision about the possible consequences of the decisions you make.

For example, I found this particularily hard to accept:
"Successful people project optimism. ... Optimists appear more sucessful because they tend to look to the good around them, and to positive possibilities for the future."

I think she's right that the optimists are more successful, but the pessimists are the ones who recognize and champion changes to improve. Check out this link:

http://www.jimcollins.com/lib/goodToGreat/ch4_p83.html

I choose to be a pessimist, and I recognize that that's going to make some people uncomfortable. ( )