Works Well with Others

August 3, 2015
Esquire editor McCammon has written an entertaining but ultimately superficial guidebook to creating and navigating a career. Aimed at people who feel like outsiders in the workplace, the book advises readers on handling workplace anxiety, inexperience, and imposter syndrome with panache. McCammon frames his advice through the narrative of his own career path, from in-flight magazine writer to savvy, polished magazine editor, addressing how to master the small skills—soft and otherwise—that can help launch and nurture a career, such as interviewing, working with recruiters, managing intimidating people, pitching ideas, entering a room, smiling, and making small talk. While the presentation is funny and encouraging, and the suggestions about understanding and working through insecurities (and succeeding in spite of them) are helpful, McCammon’s survey-course approach is too scattershot to allow any real depth and is unlikely to be targeted enough for any individual reader.

July 1, 2015
A handy how-to guide on cultivating and applying today's most useful business skills. Despite its relentlessly droll delivery, media editor and etiquette columnist McCammon's office primer provides pages of valuable advice for anyone already working in or hoping to score a rewarding office job. Drawing from his personal experience, the author knows well the insecurities that can sabotage self-confidence and productivity. After years editing an in-flight magazine, the author was recruited in 2005, at age 30, for an editing job at Esquire, a position for which he considered himself seriously underqualified. "I didn't know how to work at a big magazine and I didn't know how to live in a city like New York," he writes. Yet a decade later, the author remains with the publication, and he chronicles his Manhattan awkwardness (spun into learning experiences) while dispensing the proven employment tactics that made him a comfortable and more self-assured professional. McCammon's material covers many situations and common conundrums encountered both inside and outside of the business world. Job-seeking readers will scrutinize chapters on assertive interviewing strategies (express authenticity and candor), the importance of discretion, effective speechwriting, and honing underappreciated talents like small talk and firm handshakes. McCammon's checklist on maintaining proper office decorum encompasses everything from emailing and social media restraint to sartorial guidelines, avoiding "assholery" (there's a quiz), and the timeless values of punctuality, contact, and a positive attitude. Though some of his advice won't resonate with every reader ("apologies are purely emotional"; "one drink is just the right amount"), the author's alacrity at dispensing these office-centric gems is infectious. The condensed appendices at the end of the book include a reading list and a refreshing rundown of general business rules. An effective amalgam of satire and practicality, McCammon's functional playbook takes the guesswork and much of the mystery out of job searches and appropriate office etiquette.

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July 1, 2015

Entrepreneur etiquette columnist McCammon writes for the uncertain person in everyone, providing simple instructions for everyday situations (e.g., topics for making small talk) and suggestions for the more difficult scenarios such as working alongside a resentful colleague. McCammon humorously details ways in which workers screw up early on (e.g., speak very loudly owing to anxiety) and what they should never say in a professional setting (e.g., "I had this dream last night..."). Self-quizzes, in which readers can score and laugh at themselves for the more commonplace etiquette missteps are provided throughout. VERDICT McCammon offers beneficial information in a delightful package. Recommended for all adult readers.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 1, 2015
How to achieve success in the workplace is the gist of this humorously effective handbook, and the specific person to whom it is addressed is the person who often feels inadequate to the job they are doing (all of us?) or inadequate to even successfully getting through an interview to get that job. The author, an editor at Esquire and business etiquette columnist for Entrepreneur, calls this mind-set impostorism because an impostor is what people feel like when their insecurities are being allowed a too-strong voice in how they conduct themselveshow we do our jobwhen, in his estimation, successful people work from their insecurities to perform well. In other words, harness your fear to work for you. The most resonant and valuable statement McCammon makes may perhaps be Embrace your mistakes. His guidance that follows this dictumthe meat and heart of the bookis built on understanding using the small things, the customs and practices that make up the workplace culture. From interviewing ( Never pretend you're something you're not ) to how to enter a room ( Eye contact, do not look down ) to screwing up early on in the job ( If you don't screw up when you start out, then you are overqualified for the position ) to how to smile and when to shut up, McCammon's lessons have the ring of universal applicability and honest truth. Read this delightful book, and relish its never-highfalutin approach.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)