| Categories | | • | Art, Architecture & Photography | | • | Audio CDs | | • | Audio Cassettes | | • | Biography | | • | Business, Finance & Law | | • | Calendars, Diaries, Annuals & More | | • | Childrens Books | | • | Comics & Graphic Novels | | • | Computers & Internet | | • | Crime, Thrillers & Mystery | | • | Fiction | | • | Food & Drink | | • | Health, Family & Lifestyle | | • | History | | • | Home & Garden | | • | Horror | | • | Humour | | • | Languages | | • | Mind, Body & Spirit | | • | Music, Stage & Screen | | • | Poetry, Drams & Criticism | | • | Reference | | • | Religion & Spirituality | | • | Romance | | • | Science & Nature | | • | Science Fiction & Fantasy | | • | Scientific, Technical & Mediacl | | • | Society, Politics & Philosophy | | • | Sports, Hobbies & Games | | • | Study Books | | • | Travel & Holiday | | • | Young Adult | | • | DVD |
|
|
|
|
Personal Days | 
 enlarge | Author: Ed Park
Publisher: Jonathan Cape
Category: Book
List Price: £12.99
Buy New: £4.00
You Save: £8.99 (69%)
New (25) Used (3) from £4.00
Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 15091
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.4 x 1
ISBN: 0224082418
EAN: 9780224082419
ASIN: 0224082418
Publication Date: May 22, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Dispatched from london on day of ordering,usually next day delivery, 2 days at most
| |
| Similar Items:
|
| Customer Reviews:
 For masochistic office workers perhaps June 13, 2008
It is difficult to see the point in Personal Days when the ground has been so thoroughly covered before by Joshua Ferris in Then We Came To The End.
Both books are mildly humorous, covering the intricate social world of office life, and both writers adopt the same devices throughout. There are firings, difficulties with computers and "I.T. Guys", thefts of post-it notes, exiled staff in remote corners, nervous breakdowns. People have mysterious personal lives which cause gossip among colleagues. Emails are mistakenly sent "reply all" causing embarrassment. More successful companies threaten take-overs, new management impose new disciplines which the staff spend their time trying to get round, etc, etc, etc (hard to suppress a yawn at this point).
Far from finding these books humorous, they were actually both rather depressing. Jokes about problems with Microsoft Word, or how voice recognition programs come up with funny text are not exactly original and sound better in the real-life context of work rather than written down on the page - we've heard them all before anyway. I used to work in an office and there are things to recognise here, but why on earth would one want to read about it in leisure time having just escaped for the daily commute home? The blurb writers say that this book has "Kafkaesque plot, full of the tedium of corporate life". While totally disagreeing with the "Kafkaesque", the book is certainly full of the tedium of corporate life".
 Not funny June 5, 2008
This seems to be promoted as a humorous book about office life. If so, I do not share their sense of humour. Anyone who works in an office will recognise some of the stupidities reported here in this rather sad tale of a pointless New York organisation being slowly dismembered. I managed to persevere until the last section, where all is revealed in a stream of consciousness monologue purporting to be an email typed in the dark in a stuck "elevator" on a laptop lacking a full stop. It became as tedious as it sounds and, after first skimming a few pages, eventually I gave up.
|
|
|
| |
|
