Bulletproof Your Job
Stephen Viscusi
HarperCollins
166 pages
$32 excluding GST

AS job cut announcements make regular appearances in news headlines, Bulletproof Your Job may very well be a godsend for those fearful of becoming another unfortunate statistic.

Stephen Viscusi certainly frames this endeavour as one that requires dedication and more than a streak of ruthlessness as his self-help book reads like a riveting take on Sun Tzu's The Art Of War.

The introduction sets the ruthlessly pragmatic tenor of the book as he exhorts readers to 'quit crying about merit and fairness and start improving your chemistry with your boss . . . if someone is going to get fired, let it be the guy your boss doesn't like, not you'. Don't have the stomach for it? 'Hand this book to someone who does and watch him keep his job.'

He sets out four precepts: be visible, be easy, be useful, be ready. While this could easily fall into the trap of being an amorphous oversimplification, the successful executive headhunter and career specialist shows his mettle by attaching 50 concrete steps to these precepts.

But the defining feature of the book is the cache of throwaway vignettes and assorted fragments of true stories that give context to the strategies involved which make for a vastly entertaining read.

His strategies range from the mundane (be in the office five minutes before your boss, leave 10 minutes after), to the novel (use Google and Technocrati to monitor your boss's and company's every move in the off chance that you can use your knowledge to flatter your boss) all the way to the downright appalling (crying for emotional leverage when in a difficult situation). Some will definitely test your ethical boundaries, but the most sinister is left to a personal Viscusi success story, one he euphemistically terms as a 'sneaky' tactic, where he provokes a hot-headed colleague in order to get him fired.

If your office is the microcosm of a Machiavellian state, this guidebook will be a treasure trove of ideas for you to keep ahead of the game. For those who find the realpolitik approach to work slightly distasteful, you can still take away one or two reminders of appropriate work behaviour. If all else fails, morbid fascination will keep you glued to the end.

This article was first published in The Business Times on November 07, 2008.