Management by Vice : A Humorous Satire on R&D Life in a Fictitious Company

By C.B. Don

Book Overview

A business humor book with a perspective unlike any other to date. A unique and thoroughly enjoyable science/management satire, "Management by Vice" is a hilarious new book by C.B. Don that portrays... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0967008441
• ISBN13: 9780967008448
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Sterling Ter Libra
• Length: 229 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.0" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Highly recommended reading for business management students

Management By Vice: A Humorous Satire On R & d Life In A Fictitious Company vividly portrays the tensions between managers and their technical staff in a typical high-tech firm called "The Company". Eleven episodes showcase highly memorable, wickedly entertaining, lampooned characters. C.B. Don's totally engaging text is enhanced with satirical verses and hand-drawn illustrations. Highly entertaining reading (especially for anyone who's "been there, done that"). Highly recommended reading for business management students and anyone working in today's volatile dot.com environments, Management By Vice will also have the reader responding with serious reflection concerning the basic underlying issues portrayed including such true-life realities as project mismanagement, inequities in profit sharing, patent authorship, commandeering innovative concepts, grievance proceedings, and more.

A Laboratory Superintendent's Comments

C.B. Don's highly amusing and wry insight into the stresses and strains of laboratory and business life is strongly recommended for anyone who has experience of either. And absolutely essential to anyone with both! Expressed in an enjoyable and easy-read style, the various characters which colour The Company with their devious ploys, underhand tactics, greed and bungling incompetence provide the reader with a verbal picture which is larger than life. Thinking back on the last thirty years I have spent in laboratories, there is not one situation I have experienced which has not been highlighted in this book. Each has been closely scrutinised, squeezed for the last exquisite drop of human nature, embellished with wonderful characters with outrageous names such as Loyola Fraise and VP Barron, and delivered back in such a witty style that the frustration of life's experiences are forgotten in waves of humour.But there is a moral to every good tale; behind the fun is a message that those in positions of responsibility would do well to heed and those in lesser roles might use to prepare themselves better for the trials of life.

Instructive, Useful, Funny and Well Worth Your Time!

Management by Vice is a very perceptive, interesting, biting, witty and down-to-earth statement of how organizations, systems, managers and executives live their lives within the corporate setting. Yet, it's novelized and told as an episodic tale of an R & D battle between scientists and their managers and executives...I especially liked the battle of a female scientist vs management in the episode "A Taste of The Company Justice". The book could be a case study for any organization, except that the excerpts, rhymes and witticisms are so humorous, satirical and to the point you might think you're reading a script for an all-too-familiar play --- the play of life. Yet, the bottom line ethical, moral, ugly and devious ways people go up and down the corporate ladder are plain for all to see. This book REALLY points out how important it is to "think for one's Self and not be a member of the 'herd'". Instructive, useful, funny and well worth your time and that of your (management consultant) clients...This book will provide chuckles, ideas, case studies and opportunities to reflect!

A Lot to Laugh, Talk and Think About

Great stuff with wonderfully barbed humor and not a dull edge anywhere throughout the book! Management by Vice is the kind of book that one could read and read again, each time finding a new character and situation detail to laugh, talk and think about. My personal favorite episode is "The Doughnut Deal". Check it out to see whether you are getting a share of the ring or the hole? I definitely recommend Management by Vice for anyone with a sense of humor on either side of the bench!

The "Parkinson's Law" of the High-Tech World !

As "Parkinson's Law" (by C.Northcote Parkinson, 1958)addressed the malpractices inherent in big business and government administration, so "Management by Vice", with like wit and satirical humor, exposes the managerial "vices" of the science/management world of high-tech Research and Development. The book is superbly written, the characters made me laugh out loud and the pointed message in the verses and the corresponding illustrations, make this book a must-read for anyone in management,R & D research staff or any other workplace. Very well done!