While I gave a quick glance at The Asshole Survival Guide by Robert I Sutton, it was not a top priority and by the time I was ready to take a closer look, my ARC of this title (provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review) expired. Unfortunately, my initial impression was it was rather lengthy and not in a quick, easy to read, format which would have made it more inviting. Perhaps if I had spent a little longer and read more of the anecdotes It might have led to a more favorable outcome.

This is a business book book written about how to deal with difficult people at work and how not to be difficult at work. The author offers lots of examples and some real solutions. There is some repetition and the book could have been shorter. Anyone who deals with other people will enjoy this book.

Do you work with assholes? Do you dread getting up every day to go to work because you have to deal with them, when all you want to do is light that ass up? Is your family full of assholes? Do you avoid holiday gatherings so you won’t have to encounter that asshole aunt or other relative? Well, you aren’t alone!

The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal With People Who Treat You Like Dirt by Robert Sutton is the book I’m reading to help me tactfully deal with the many assholes in my life, especially the ones at work that I cannot run over with my car.

This book is pretty darn good. It is funny and informative and can help anyone who is going through some issues at work with co-workers or bosses who are making your work life unbearable. Sutton includes many rules or tips, including making sure we aren’t the assholes in the situation. Look at ourselves first before pointing the finger at someone else. Now that we know it isn’t us, hopefully, what kind of asshole are we dealing with and how bad is it? Once we know that, we should try Sutton’s strategies to help us. Additionally, what I appreciated Sutton stating is it is ok to quit; in fact, it is easier to get out early on than to stay and become just like those assholes or stay and try to make it work and be miserable.

Without telling too much about this book, all I will say is that I am happy to see that I have applied some of Sutton’s tips, yay me! However, I think I should apply some others so I can start living my best life. Like he states, if one strategy isn’t working, we should revise it or try something else.

So, in short, if you need some tips on how to handle yourself and the assholes in your life, give this book a shot!







I received an advanced ebook copy from NetGalley to read and review.

I also received a book copy from my job.

WARNING!!!

While useful, this book is also very, VERY depressing, because it basically says, here's how you can cope if you can't escape, but if you can, escape. It's not big on fighting, but I think that is because people only act like huge jerks when they can get away with it. If they couldn't, they would have been brought down by now.

So, unless I want to have Mutually Assured Destruction, my game plan is avoidance at all costs.

Not what I wanted to hear, but perhaps what I needed to hear. I just bought a copy of this book for a friend in a very VERY toxic work environment. His health is suffering, so I hope that this book will help him figure out a game plan that can keep him out of the doctor's office or ER for more than a week! Stress can kill you folks. This book can help when it's caused by a particular person/persons.

So, depressing, but even more depressingly, so SO important for us nowadays. 4 stars. Would be five, but it depressed me too much to be happy enough to give it five. Sigh. I need a palate cleanser!

My thanks to NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.

Let's face it, we all come across some less than savory people like this that make us uncomfortable and sometimes feel defenseless. Catchy title. You won't be able to resist picking it up and skimming through it.

Since writing his book about “building civilized workplaces,” The No Asshole Rule, author Robert I. Sutton was besieged with questions by readers about what they should do to deal with abusive people at work.

In The Asshole Survival Guide, Sutton shares strategies and tips that he developed over the years.

I approached this book from the perspective of a person who was bullied and ostracized in school, and who has encountered incidents of bullying during my professional career. As a lifetime stakeholder, I was therefore greatly appreciative to be able to read Sutton’s new work.

I'm sure Robert I. Sutton isn't an asshole, but The Asshole Survival Guide sort of paints him as one. Having not read his original "Asshole" book, I can't compare the two. However, I firmly believe this could've been a ten-page article and contained just as much usable content. Sutton provided lots of great examples that did enhance his strategies, but it almost became a book of assholes at work stories (which could do really well if marketed that way!). It's an interesting read and worthwhile if you've got a co-worker making your everyday life miserable; because of all the examples provided, the readers might even get a laugh once they realize the stories Sutton shares came from someone's daily life!

A short and simple title that accurately describes this book’s raison d’etre. Fortunately, it need not apply to this author to deal with reviewers of his excellent book, which mixes humour and sage advice together to deal with what can be a very serious and troubling problem for many, especially at work.

It is more than just a book with a humorous title, mouthing a few platitudes. It has the benefit of ‘science’ - well academic research to be precise – and the author could informally be described as a professor of asshattery and assholes, although you could imagine that the field of academia is not yet ready for such descriptive faculty titles.

This non-medical man (whose day job is being a professor at Stanford) has been examining a-holes for well over a decade and he is not a closet proctologist. Instead he looks at how bad behaviour can destroy the workplace environment and all that should go on there. Of course, much of the same advice and observations can be applied to one’s private life, but there you can often choose friends… it is harder to choose your family and work colleagues though. As well as giving advice to identify the problem and hopefully reduce its impact, if you cannot exclude it, the author is also wise enough to know that we can all be a bit rogue at times, so we can look inwards and, if necessary, remove our head from butthole and behave better.

The tone of this book is perfect. It is a serious read with a humorous overtone, giving authentic, credible and valuable advice. Hyperbole and false hope has been left at the door, something many other self-help book authors could well emulate. It might not be the cheapest book at the bookstore, but if you are suffering from external asshattery it can be a worthy purchase and what price is your sanity in any case? Many people tend to write to this author, based on his previous books and ongoing research, and it did make me nearly spit coffee over my tablet when reading how a Lutheran pastor even wrote to complain about dealing with some volunteers with asshat tendencies, even though it was not confirmed whether the reverend gentleman let his Christian good thoughts slip and use the a-word!

The author pulls together a great mix of research, case studies and real-world ‘unscholarly’ examples to great effect to highlight the extant problems, before seeking to show strategies that may reduce or remove the problem. No guarantees are given, but the advice is worthy of a try in any case. Even a slight respite or reduction is better than nothing. If all else fails, then give the book anonymously to the chief offender with a taped note to the front saying “read this, you need it!”

As you may guess, it was an enjoyable read, even though I have no need for its intelligence presently. Mind you, if I sent it to my CENSORED I am sure…

The Asshole Survival Guide, written by Robert I. Sutton and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9781328695918. YYYYY

There is a audience for this type of book and Sutton knows how to cater to them. It was a bit surprising for me not being familiar with her previous work but I was amused and entertained just the same. I could see why he is a best seller.

I was pleased to find actual strategies for dealing with those unavoidable assholes we have in our lives. The practical applications of this book will keep readers coming back for guidance again and again.