A collection full of office disasters, ideal for readers who need a refresher course on the consequences of impropriety.
A debut collection offers bawdy true stories of workplace misbehavior.
Lawler draws from a 30-year career in corporate employee relations to share these fact-based vignettes chronicling red-faced embarrassments at work. He believes most “Americans are bound together by three common experiences: working, sex, and intermittently bad judgment.” The 32 tales he shares—some no longer than a page in length—reinforce this opinion and explore themes of the interpersonally inappropriate, the messy office affairs, and the self-sabotaged careers at the “intersection of Bad Choice Boulevard and Sex Drive.” The stories’ titles alone allude to what’s in store for readers (“Nipple Clamps in the Mailroom”; “You Gonna Eat That?”), and much of the subject matter ranges from the innocent office faux pas to the full humiliation of exposed employee fraternization. In the opening tale, a disgruntled, passive-aggressive, 50-something senior buyer is caught on camera licking the car doors of her office nemesis. The next story focuses on a long-standing mailroom supervisor’s alarm at the discovery of a box of sexual accessories sent to the office by a clueless employee. Elsewhere, calling the boss’s boss a dildo has repercussions for a human resources expert, and a wrongful termination lawsuit exposes details of covert polygamy. Lawler’s tenure in human resources for a commercial bakery provided fodder for more scandalous tales. A production worker on the layer cake line faints after relating the intimate details of two co-workers’ public fondling session; a female employee gets an uncomfortable reminder about proper hygiene; and a frisky couple become caught in a walk-in freezer. Sexual innuendos are misinterpreted; calls get recorded; company cellphones harbor compromising photographs; hickeys raise eyebrows; and tempers flare. But overall, the stories amount to good, clean fun even if they are at the expense of employees who sometimes forget they’re at their place of employment. The book’s second half is decidedly a bit racier, with episodes of narcotic misappropriation, porn surfing at work, and trouble with tricky company emails. Of course, the generally provocative nature of the tales as a collection ebbs and flows, with some pieces reading more like dirty jokes than actual events. Still, the entertainment factor is consistent and the laughs should come easily for readers who fancy the awkwardness of workplace weirdness.
A collection full of office disasters, ideal for readers who need a refresher course on the consequences of impropriety.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-7340799-0-6
Page Count: 140
Publisher: Rockhampton Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A daunting but worthwhile journey through the material and divine realms of our universe.
An intriguing if sometimes ponderous examination of man's place in the universe.
Bartow creates a systematic philosophic framework for integrating concepts from diverse disciplines, such as astrology, psychology, metaphysics, theology, eastern and western mysticism and quantum physics. The author uses complex–and often unintelligible–diagrams to create a visual representation of the corporeal and spiritual universe, building layers of complexity that illustrate the dynamic interaction of mind, matter, energy and spirituality. He divides man’s perception of the universe into objective and subjective categories with distinctive subcategories, using piano keys as the primary metaphor–the black keys represent the objective planes, embodied in the concrete laws of science, and the white keys represent the subjective interior planes. The author makes frequent use of the philosophies from such ancient traditions as the Kabbalah, Buddhism, the teachings of Don Juan and Tibetan thought. The massive scope of Bartow’s vision eventually becomes overwhelming, and the esoteric nature of the study will deter casual readers. Ultimately, however, the text will prove thought-provoking and rewarding for the diligent.
A daunting but worthwhile journey through the material and divine realms of our universe.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 0-9760863-0-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Problematic structure aside, a comprehensive history of Latin America's largest country.
A thoroughly documented scholarly treatise on Brazilian history.
In the first of two volumes spanning 500 years of Brazilian history, Hufferd focuses on the first 300 years of colonization in the northeast region. Portugal was seeking to build maritime trade to compete successfully with archrival Spain and to retain its national identity. The colony expanded westward from a number of large tracts of lands called captaincies, granted by Portuguese monarchs to wealthy royal favorites in return for profits gained through trade, breeding cattle and other ventures. These captaincies eventually gained the status of states, including São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Mato Grasso, Manaus and Amazonia. Over subsequent decades, enterprising adventurers and explorers from these captaincies ventured inland, establishing sugar mills, cultivating grazing land and extracting gold, silver and precious gems. All ventures were highly labor-intensive, requiring massive amounts of manpower driven by slaves from Africa and native tribes. In the second volume, Hufferd focuses on the final 200 years of Brazil's rapid industrialization. After the Portuguese monarchy was forced to relocate its base from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, it became the fulcrum of a delicate political system within the new country. The social and political structure favored privileged hereditary landowners, even after the last reigning Emperor Pedro II was deposed amidst strong republican sentiment. Continuing the narrative through 2000, Hufferd chronicles upheavals most often caused by the chronic underdevelopment of existing resources, as the landowners maintained authority over the land, to the detriment of the black, mulatto and tribal segments of Brazilian society, who remained disenfranchised until recent years. In each volume, the author illustrates his vast knowledge of the topic, and he weaves political, economic, social and biographical threads throughout the panoramic narrative. While the expansive footnotes demonstrate impeccable research, they eventually hinder the narrative flow, requiring endless paging back and forth–the dissertation-style format ultimately detracts from the book's impact.
Problematic structure aside, a comprehensive history of Latin America's largest country.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2006
ISBN: 1-4208-0278-X, Vol.
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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