Read this book: The Ape in the Corner Office

Lounge
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Yes… I know… it doesn’t sound like a PUA manual… it doesn’t even sound like a tempting business book.

Forgive a benighted editor in his cubicle for the choice of The Ape in the Corner Office… versus something imformative, like Human Behavior In Competitive Space… Ok, so it isn’t Origin Of Species…

That said, it is a most useful look at the common monkey-mind programming that makes office politics and getting laid both strangely deterministic and impossibly irrational at the same time…

Conniff, Richard… the author also wrote a near satire “The Natural History Of The Rich, A Field Guide”… Conniff’s mark of distinction is that he seems to be exquisitely tuned to the nuances of pack behavior, tribal clusterings, hidden politics, dominance-submission rituals as opposed to the highly one-on-one focus of the PUA community…

Ah… the best sleeper book you would never expect to be as useful and informative as it is ?

Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by Danny Meyer… this guy has lived the things he teaches, unlike many pundits out there, and he has one hell of a lot to say about the incredible power that comes from being very smart about people and being a good host as well… IMHO everyone should read this as a textbook on the power of positive thinking done right…

Then there is :The Social Atom: Why the Rich Get Richer, Cheaters Get Caught, and Your Neighbor Usually Looks Like You by Mark Buchanan… a quick, informative, non-academic book that ties is nicely with the Ape book… so much so that they almost seem wriiten by two people sitting next to each other… could also be titled “Why The Landscape Never Seems To Change”…

Books I’m considering but haven’t had the chance to look at yet:

Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts by Carol Travis… could be timely because the national personality disroder of the 21st century seems to be a wholesale inability to admit error…

and finally:

Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious by Gerd Gigerezner

Our Friend tacitus - RIP 12/2010 - A compilation of brilliant and exhilarating posts
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Thanks for the leads. They look interesting.

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On my Amazon list now, Tac. Thanks for the heads up!

… When’s the book report due? :o:D

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Another surprise goodie… I almost refused to buy it because of the orange cover… there’s a good example of how hidden prejudices often make raving fools of all… orange is my no-go color… to many associations with electrical power cords maybe… don’t know how many good books never got read because the cover was offfensive ?

Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time by Keith Ferazzi…

Anyway… almost everything K.F. is talking about in a business context is the same set of problems confronted by the PUA community, only taken to a higher level… not rocket science either… just the basics of building a relationship functional existence… with a lot of suggestions for groundwork building, the fundaments that most people don’t bother with, and thus never profit from…

And of course, Tacitus #1 Rule… Don’t Chew Gum… ever, like NEVER… this keeps coming back to me, whenever I see someone chewing gum it is as if 20 I.Q. points were shaved off… the magic of television makes it worse, watching someone chew gum on television makes it look like they are mentally retarded… for real mentally retarded… a week ago there was a moderator on a literary discussion, one of those affairs held at bookstores where the author speaks, maybe an extra guest speaks, and there was the moderator, trying to be impressive, smacking away like a contented capuchin gnawing on a nut… watching this was truly cringe inducing, wanted to phone in and have a clerk hand him a note… lose the gum, fool… people are watching, and they are grossed out, and they won’t be asking you to ever moderate another thing… :open_mouth: