The Big Bing : Black Holes of Time Management, Gaseous Executive Bodies, Exploding Careers, and Other Theories on the Origins of the Business Universe

Stanley Bing

With twenty years of experience as a self-described "mole in the heart of corporate capitalism," CBS executive Gil Schwartz a.k.a. columnist Stanley Bing, is a man of many words. The Big Bing, recycles two decades of artful and acid Fortune and Esquire columns into a coherent view of business as usual.

The pieces are sectioned into themes readers will recognize--office politics, technology, life on the road, men being men, job angst. A number of columns snap and sting. For example, in "You Da Man," Bing details six species of bad bosses including "Don King without the Hair" and "the last days of Dick Nixon." He spins tales from the political crypt, asking readers to join his amusement at "the range of goofy people who are thrown together in the pursuit of political advantage."

Bing is at his best in giving amusing advice (how to give good phone, win turf wars and get a room with a view) and in business travelogues about places like Las Vegas where he sees "several apparently dead people playing slots." The writing bristles with attitude. Only a moving essay on "the mourning after" September 11 interrupts the relentless cynicism of Bing's observations. Some readers will be able stay in on the jokes. Others may find his voice tiring or unkind and may note the difference between insight and wisdom. --Barbara Mackoff

1 Bing is the thinking man's Dilbert
This book was hysterical. Anyone who has ever worked in an office or a giant corporation will identify with the situations and the characters he so vividly brings to life. Plus, he has the best made up last names I've ever come across, but the funny thing is you know exactly who he's talking about. I may not fly with the chairman on the corporate jet, but I relate to most everything he writes about, and I laughed the entire time reading. Bing is the thinking man's Dilbert.

2 There Is Nobody Like Bing
For anyone who has ever worked for a living; for anyone who has ever had a boss or been a boss; THE BIG BING is a must read! The collection is a quick and humerous study of human behavior in corporate America. Nobody tells this story better than Stanley Bing!

3 FANTASTIC ... A MUST READ
This was one of the best reads of the year, honestly. I didn't expect to like it as much as I did. I took it on a six hour train ride and couldn't put it down. The collection of columns run the gamut of emotions -- most of them really, really funny, but others are eerily prescient, especially for anyone who has worked in corporate America -- and before I knew it, the train ride was over and I was still reading. Whether you're a fat-cat CEO, mid-level pencil pusher or rookie junior executive, this book has it all. Just don't try to expense it.

4 Fragments of Brilliance
I had high expectations for this book after reading "Throwing the Elephant: Zen and the Art of Managing Up" and "What would Machiavelli Do?". Bing's black humour brought some relief to the entirely too serious business of business. After all, we all need to be able to laugh at ourselves, right?

This book is a collection of snippets on a wide variety of business experiences written between the late eighties and the present day. Given that there is no explicit theme for this book (apart from the madness of business and the people within it), I struggled to finish it.

Although some of the material provides 'applied learning' that will be universally relevant and recognisable, frankly chunks of it just aren't that amusing. Weird - yes, ironic - yes, funny - sorry, no.