21 Dog Years: A Cube Dweller's Tale [Paperback]

Granted that he keeps on bring in new "characters" into the story (he actually seems pretty good at disclosing when he's talking about a real person -his BizDev boss, Employee #5, for example- as opposed to when he's aggregating traits from several different characters into one, as a literary license -his peer Cody, for instance), the problem with the book is that his humorous style starts getting old after a few chapters. So, you can see how, when I was close to the middle, the book felt quite heavy. Yet I stuck with it. While I don't feel particularly fond (or sorry) that I did finish it (it is not like a lifechanging book, if you must know), I did find a couple of things of value beyond the sheer fun he insists on making of Amazon:
1) Regardless of what company you work for, it is not healthy to idealize them. All companies (like the people they're made up of), even the best ones have flaws, which makes any idealization of them a flawed process, destined to disilussion those who can't deal with anything but perfection from their "idols".
2) What goes around, comes around. The author (apparently) tried to go against what he truly was, in trying to be corporate, and it bit him back, because he was a slacker at heart, and as much as he satirized the company's behavior, his was no example to be followed. Simply put, no "wrong" deeds by an employer justify a wrong response by an employee. Still, it took him 21 dog years (3 human years) to realize he was just in the wrong place to start with: good for him that he left!

All in all, a book to read in little chunks or in one sitting. Not a source of overwhelming wisdom or a source of endless laughter, but a quite humourous & "philosophical" dot-com-mentary of sorts. A straight-up 3-star book.

Once Daisey is promoted out of customer service into the nebulous "Business Development" department, the book loses some of its steam. Not because there aren't more amusing tales of co-workers and pointless busy work, but because Daisey tries to turn his personal story into a commentary on the rise and fall of Amazon.com (if not the entire dot.com industry). When he discusses the folly of Pets.com, it's nothing we haven't already heard, nor does it bring any additional insight to the countless news stories and books on the dot.com boom and bust.

I also found his self-analysis to be a bit overdone. For the most part it didn't bother me, but by the end of the book he seems too determined to find meaning in his time at Amazon.com, when it is clear there is none.

It also struck me as ironic that he could find so much fault in Jeff Bezos and the Amazon.com organization. If anything, he got exactly what he wanted -- material to write and perform with.

To really understand this book you need to do continual translation. A desperate lateral move, under threat of termination for slacking off, was apparently a "promotion". Getting caught lying about goofing off gets recast as a clever ruse to get ahead. A department name ("Business Development") does false double duty as a job description, when in fact the poor schlub did nothing but customer service email for every day of his 21 tortured dog-years. Who but an overheated venture capitalist would buy this package? Calling a chronic underperformer an insightful social historian doesn't make it true.

In the upside-down dot.com world where crushing losses became pro-forma profits and the "new economy" briefly replaced common sense, is it any wonder that such a book would emerge? Step through the looking glass with Mike if you choose but look closely; it's a funhouse mirror to begin with.