{"id":13616,"date":"2014-07-07T16:13:02","date_gmt":"2014-07-07T21:13:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=13616"},"modified":"2014-07-07T16:13:02","modified_gmt":"2014-07-07T21:13:02","slug":"book-report-the-curmudgeons-guide-to-getting-ahead-by-charles-murray-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/book-report-the-curmudgeons-guide-to-getting-ahead-by-charles-murray-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Report: <i>The Curmudgeon&#8217;s Guide to Getting Ahead<\/i> by Charles Murray (2014)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0804141444\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;creativeASIN=0804141444&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;tag=stlbrianj-20&#038;linkId=5NFVBKNNLEQPZIWG\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/bsgfx\/curmudgeonsguidetogettingahead.jpg\" width=\"200\" alt=\"Book cover\" align=\"left\" hspace=\"4\"><\/a>I bought <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0804141444\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;creativeASIN=0804141444&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;tag=stlbrianj-20&#038;linkId=5NFVBKNNLEQPZIWG\" target=\"_blank\">this book<\/a> because all the cool kids were reading it, and by that, I mean someone on some blogs mentioned it.  It sounded like something that might interest me, so I got it.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a book that aims at the <em>Elements of Style<\/em> for professional behavior and thoughts of millenials coming into the workplace without a sense of etiquette and how to work with others in adult jobs.  At least, that&#8217;s the way blogs have pitched it to me.  It has that, of course, as a bit of a sandwich among a big portion of how to write and think well.  So I was taken a bit aback by how much of the book was about how to work at a think tank and less about how to behave in the workplace.<\/p>\n<p>Because, brothers and sisters, that first part is something that was kinda lacking the last time my visage darkened a workplace lo those eight years ago. (Have I been a freelancer that long already?  Yes, yes I have.)  I can&#8217;t imagine they&#8217;ve gotten better as that next generation has come up.<\/p>\n<p>But this book didn&#8217;t ultimately resonate with me because its focus is split like that: workplace rules and writing well.  Murray says this came about as a collection of intranet postings of his at the think tank where he works, and that shows a bit.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d hoped I&#8217;d get a two-fer on this book and get to review it for my other blog, but meh.  It didn&#8217;t impress me that much.  And although you, gentle reader, get a couple of paragraphs blatted all over your monitor for every book I read, the professional blog only gets things that will fit and that impress me.  So take that as my final word on it.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><b>Books mentioned in this review:<\/b><br \/>\n<iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=stlbrianj-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=0804141444&#038;asins=0804141444&#038;linkId=RJBYM3C763T6BPXJ&#038;show_border=false&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I bought this book because all the cool kids were reading it, and by that, I mean someone on some blogs mentioned it. It sounded like something that might interest me, so I got it. It&#8217;s a book that aims at the Elements of Style for professional behavior and thoughts of millenials coming into the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-report","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13616"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13617,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13616\/revisions\/13617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}