How to Be Useful: A Beginner's Guide to Not Hating Work | 
| Author: Megan Hustad
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $8.00
You Save: $11.95 (60%)
New (37) Used (10) from $6.89
Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 55830
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.7 x 0.9
ISBN: 0618713506
Dewey Decimal Number: 650.1
EAN: 9780618713509
ASIN: 0618713506
Publication Date: May 2, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: NOT A REMAINDER, BARGAIN, OR CLUB BOOK; NEVER READ.
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Product Description
There's a lot of career advice out there. Much of it dumb. But what if someone read all the advice books -- over a hundred years' worth -- and put all the good ideas in one place? Could you finally escape the cube? Stop mailing things? Be happier?
In How to Be Useful, Megan Hustad dismantles the myths of getting ahead and helps you navigate the murky waters of office life. Humorous yet wise, irreverent yet marvelously practical, this book will help you learn
Why "just being yourself" is a terrible idea.
How to be smart, but not too smart.
Why you shouldn't be "nice."
When not to be good at your job.
How to screw up with grace and dignity.
Why shoes matter.
The right and wrong ways to talk trash about yourself.
That ambition, practiced wisely, is a noble thing.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 I bought it as a gift, and the recipient really liked it. July 22, 2008
I gave this to a friend who's at a miserable office job. He's way too smart for it, but he took a few semesters off from college and hasn't finished up yet (so it's the best he can get right now).
I haven't personally read it, so I can't get too specific, however, he seemed to really enjoy it. He found her writing very entertaining, as well as informative. It's not a condescending, self-help type of book. It's a playful, but still helpful, look at how to handle the politics of work.
 How to Write a Useless Book July 3, 2008
I couldn't find much practical advice in this book. Megan actually suggests people show up late to work and meetings. How is that good advice for anyone let alone a fresh college grad? Megan mentions researching hundreds of books on the subject but the majority of her suggestions come short of really addressing anything at all. It appears as if she lost interest in the middle of her research but published the book anyway.
Megan painfully dances around subjects while dispersing very little practical advice. Her writing is laced with vocabulary that would be hard to grasp for a typical entrant to the job market (unless perhaps they work in the publishing business like her).
It could be that Silicon Valley culture is different(which is where I work and reside) from New York publishing scene but this book was a colossal waste of time for me, which is ironic given the book's title.
 Must-Read for any new office entrant June 17, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to make a Downtown Women's Club event at Barnes & Noble to hear Megan Hustad speak on her new book, How To Be Useful. Hustad is a soft-spoken veteran of the book publishing world, and extremely nimble with her words. Despite the interference of the cafe machinery, Hustad read a few excerpts and explained the process of writing a retrospective of 100 years of Success Literature.
Now that I've finished this book (and already re-read a few sections), I place this at the very top of my list of recommended Success books. I have a certain amount of envy that Hustad thought of the project first, but really she does a fantastic job in surveying a long list of advice books and distilling the essence of each down to its most useful principles. Through interviews with contemporary colleagues and research on her fellow Success authors, she deftly equips the reader with a range of situations for practical application of the proffered career advancement methods.
Hustad's writing is at once intelligent, and easily digested. She adds a certain amount of fine dry wit to her work, as well as an icing of footnotes to flush out certain points. Any book she has gone over is helpfully included in the bibliography, for further reading, although this might be extraneous.
My personal favorite chapters are "2 - Dodging the Great Failure Army" and "8 - Self-Deprecation." In Chapter 2, we are introduced to Orison Swett Marden's ideas on being relentlessly cheerful and kind to everyone, from the CEO to the concierge. The idea is not new (Marden wrote in the early part of the 20th century), but the various applications of how to apply this optimism to career development is wonderfully explained. Marden's idea of the "Law of Attraction," the idea that people are drawn to the positive, is similar to the heart of "The Secret," but must less mystical. By applying pleasantries to our office mates, carefully and not gratuitously, one cultivates an air of camaraderie, and leaves the door open for others to follow suit. Chapter 2 is full of examples of how to deploy this cheerful method, as well as misguided attempts to avoid.
Chapter 8 covers the art of self-deprecation, which I think should be mandatory reading for new people in the office, particularly those guilty of over-sharing. Hustad here examines the rags-to-riches story, and how overcoming obstacles endears oneself to those around one, but conversely, stories about common problems can pile up and backfire on the teller. It's one thing to talk about overcoming a poor financial situation by winning a full scholarship to college, but another thing entirely to tell about one's embarrassing behavior while drunk last night on the way home from happy hour. As I was reading this chapter, I could feel myself cringe as I remembered telling self-deprecating stories that probably did more to decrease public opinion of myself rather that create a sense of "we've all been there" endearment.
I would highly recommend this book to career services offices, high school guidance offices, and any other place that prepares new graduates for the workforce. I'd add that this would make an excellent read for anyone who struggles with social interactions or anxieties, because of its easy to follow pedagogy on interpersonal communications. Even though it is written with career success in mind, the advice is extraordinarily useful in many situations from networking events to parties.
I'm giving this to all of the recent grads I know June 5, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book is chock full of hilarious office bloopers, so it took me a little while to stop cackling from schadenfreude and realize just how many thoughtful lessons about human behavoir I was learning, and how many practical tips I would be taking away to apply to my daily work life. I loved the chapter on the difference between good networking and the kind that's just a sleazy waste of time. Even though I've been in the workplace for twelve years I learned a lot from this book.
A very useful book May 27, 2008
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
I DON'T work in a cubicle and I DON'T hate my job (lucky me!) but still found this book incredibly useful. It gave me a lot of insight into how people (particularly bosses) view others in a business setting. Reading this book made me aware of some mistakes I have made in the way I interact at work, and I think it has prevented me from making more. Hustad writes well and her tone is friendly, so this is a quick read. But there is also a lot of good information in it, so I plan on returning to this book regularly. It's definitely a book worth owning.
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