This is kind of an advice column for your professional life. There is a lot of practical advice about how to handle tough situations with respect, maturity and decency. I really wish that more people would read this so we could be on the same page in the workplace but i think they might be offended if I suggested it to them! The people who couldn’t benefit from this book are those with jobs that aren’t a typical office environment. I just don’t think the cultural norms translate well to other types of workplaces. Overall, though, very fair and authentic voice, good advice, and helps people to see the heart of the matter even when emotions get in the way.


I received a DIGITAL Advance Reader Copy of this book from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I'm a huge fan of the Ask a Manager blog and I recommend it any time someone has a work-related question. The book is a great extention of the blog.

'Ask a Manager: How to Navigate Clueless Colleagues, Lunch-Stealing Bosses, and the Rest of Your Life at Work' by Alison Green is the kind of practical no-nonsense type of book to help folks survive at the office.

There are all kinds of weird and awkward situations that can crop up at work, from accidentally throwing up during an interview and graciously handling not wanting to work overtime or attend after work functions, Alison Green helps guid the reader. There are a series of helpful responses to make in these circumstances and reasons why some situations need to be dealt with more forcefully.

The work comes out of a workplace advice column, and is all very solid. I've consulted the column at times, and shook my head at the kinds of situations people find themselves in. A very good reference guide.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.

I am very sorry to say that I didn't get all the way through this book before my time to read it expired. I liked the beginning, though!

I've worked in an office setting for a decade, and I still found this book to me very informative. I read the website everyday, and will be filing this away in my HR reference file.

I have not yet written about this book in a blog but have referred it to people and will look for spots to mention it. It's a very well-written and practical book. It's also a fun, accessible read. I get a lot of business/ self-help titles to review and don't showcase most of them but this is one that I do recommend.

WHY DID I LISTEN TO ASK A MANAGER BY ALISON GREEN?
Ask A Manager: How To Navigate Clueless Colleagues, Lunch Stealing Bosses And The Rest Of Your Life At Work by Alison Green REALLY appealed to me. I enjoy reading her blog time to time. Personally, I love career related books. As a supervisor, I am trying to soak up as much knowledge about being a strong leader as I can. When I saw that my library had this on Overdrive, it was a no thoughts given immediately put a hold kind of situation.

WHAT’S THIS BOOK ALL ABOUT?
Okay, so I feel like every time I review a book with a long subtitle, I just tell you all that the book is what the subtitle says. AND WELL THIS BOOK IS. I just like when the subtitle is accurate. Ask A Manager essentially is a book of people asking Green for work related advice. There’s different sections for different grouped scenarios – like with coworkers, with bosses, with promotions, etc. It actually is pretty well organized to tell the truth.

HOW DID I LIKE IT?
Overall, I really enjoyed Ask A Manager. I feel like Green gives advice that is thoughtful and well measured. She never tells the writer to do something unreasonable. In fact, she uses this common thread through her advice. That is the advice to communicate. She occasionally provides a script for the writer/reader as well. I appreciated that because sometimes parsing out the right language in difficult or stressful situations is not easy. I especially liked how useful Green’s advice was as well. This is a book that I think should go on your shelf if you are a young professional still navigating the waters at work. As a person in a leadership role, I loved all that I learned from this book about effective communication and handling things with grace and professionalism.

HOW’S THE NARRATION?
The audiobook is narrated by the author herself. Typically I do not like when the audiobook is narrated by the author. HOWEVER, this book is well narrated. Green obviously knows her book and her material well. Plus, it helps that her voice is not weird or annoying. I listened to this book both at 2x speed and 1.5x speed. It was easy to follow at both speeds.

I absolutely love Alison Green and the advice she gives on her blog is always spot on! If you are a new manager, or feel like you could develop your management skills a bit more this is the book for you. Her examples are drawn from real questions and real life, and cover a wide variety of situations (wider than you think you need, but you are wrong, you need these.)

I read this cover-to-cover to review. I don't recommend doing that since it can get rather repetitive. I appreciate that it is broken into sections whether you're dealing with your boss, coworkers, interviewers or direct reports. I really wish I knew about the blog this is based from when I was a manager before. It is still helpful to me now as an employee. I realize my current boss already communicates this well and seeing this advice was like hearing her talk to others regarding difficult topics. Most things come down to communication. The author is realistic in terms of realizing that sometimes people (including ourselves) don't always act in a rational manner and the outcome could be tricky if that is the case. However, if you approach others with a respectful demeanor you are more likely to have positive results.

I've enjoyed reading Green's website for several years, and she has created a great resource for those who need career assistance at any stage of their careers. I am ordering a copy for my library's collection, and also ordered two copies for two recent graduates.

This book helped me from the first few pages!

Excellent resource for all.

With snapshots from her advice column to well-thought examples, Alison gives sound answers to some of the most common issues faced in the workplace and beyond.

If you haven't heard of the Ask a Manager Blog, this book will get you hooked to it. The book is written from different points of view, as a Manager and someone who works with a manager. The best part is that the entire book is very readable and not dry and boring.

I'm a huge fan of the Ask a Manager blog and I couldn't wait to get my hands on this book. I first came across Ask a Manager a few years ago and have always found the advice to be spot-on. It's smart, yet relatable. If you love the website, you'll want to read this. I would especially recommend it to new graduates who are just entering the workforce.

Disclaimer: This ARC was provided free by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

For all of those people who have wanted advice about any number of potentially awkward workplace discussions, without reading dry tomes on how to be a better person, Alison Green's Ask A Manager is the answer! Green approaches workplace issues with both experience and humor, and the realization that people are only human- and need to be treated as such.

Ask A Manager is broken down into 4 sections: you are the manager, you have a manager, you work with others, you're interviewing for a job. Even if you don't necessarily fall into all those categories (maybe you aren't a manager yet) the entire book is well worth reading. You get excellent advice about real world situations- and I, for one, always find it helpful to read as many other views as possible. I felt better about some of my own work experiences after reading this and discovering I wasn't the only one who had ever had to deal with X, Y, or Z. Since Green is an advice columnist, each section is short and to the point. She mixes the more general situations ('how do I ask for a raise') to the still common but awkward ('I totally got drunk at the office party) to the (hopefully) less common ('my boss always steals my lunch out of my desk'). Even those situations you haven't dealt with yourself are good opportunities to think about what you would do in a similar situation.

What I really enjoyed about Ask A Manager was the light, humorous, and down-to-earth style of writing Green uses. You can easily imagine you're having a quick phone conversation with a friend who's giving you the support you need to handle any situation. Humor and kindness are Green's recipe for handling many of the awkward interactions humans have with each other and I found myself wishing everyone would read this book and follow its advice.

A fast, fun read that will help give you confidence as you maneuver not just your professional life- this book is full of advice that should certainly be applied to daily life in all aspects! Not your regular book on how to manage others, but one that makes you reflect on your interactions in a whole new way. A must read for everyone who has to deal with people.

I have been a long-time fan of Alison Green’s Ask A Manager blog, where she dishes out practical advice for workplace questions all week long. The letters she answers range from the mundane to the absolutely absurd and hard-to-believe. I am so excited about her new book, where she distills years worth of advice into a handy workplace manual that will be useful for new grads and seasoned professionals alike.

The great thing about Alison’s advice is that she empowers readers by giving them scripts, and suggestions on how to approach scary conversations about raises, promotions and asking your manager to step in when your coworker is cutting you out of important conversations.

The scenarios Alison addresses in her book are real scenarios, sent in by letter writers asking for advice on how to handle specific challenges they are facing in the workplace. Dedicated readers of the blog might recognize a story or two, and a lot of the advice will feel familiar, but many of the letters included are new content, never seen on the AAM blog. Alison has distilled years of her best advice into an easy to access guide.

I can personally attest to drawing confidence from Alison’s posts on how to ask for a promotion. Her scripts and framing were so crucial to my approach, which was successful.

Alison’s advice is useful for anyone with a reasonable boss. As Alison herself notes – an unreasonable person won’t be reasoned with. The scripts and advice Alison shared aren’t magic bullets, but they are wonderful tools for anyone in a workplace to have at hand.

You can be sure I am purchasing a copy to gift to my about-to-graduate-from-college little sister.

Ask a Manager was just what I needed to read. I loved the format of question and answers and found the questions asked were super relatable to my life working in a hectic information technology office. I could relate to many of the scenarios and suggestions.
I am not a manager but still found the book very informative and helpful. There were many portions about job interviewing and also how to bring up things to your boss like asking for a raise etc.
And when this book comes out, I am going to give a copy to my manager as there are many great ideas in the book for management!
If you are a worker. A manager or interviewing for a job, I would highly recommend this one!

I first found Ask a Manager while googling "quit new job" on my phone in the bathroom at said new job seven years ago. Her blog is a daily visit for me. I'd hoped this book would be an expansion on that, but frankly it's a recap-something that might make a nice gift for the college grad in your life, but fans will have already read most of the stories and concepts. Also, there are infantile doodles throughout the book which are off-putting. 3.5/5 starts

This book is great if you are a soft spoken wall flower who needs a great big push into the world as a brand new employee. If this is your first job, buy this book. But if you're just looking for a few tips to make business conversations more smoothly, this is not the book for you. You must at this point just get through the sludge of chapters as you see things you already know. Overall I learned a few useful things but nothing new to me.

I read the Ask a Manager blog pretty religiously. Like, every new post, going back and reading old posts, following comments. I was really excited to get this book. And it really is a good book with practical details for everyday working life (more geared toward office work.) There are sections based on your role in the office (boss, employee, etc.) and they include bullets of practical advice, scripts for difficult situations, and stories taken right from Green's blog. It is a little dry in points but it's a nonfiction advice book. I liked the stories pulled right from the blog, they injected some life into the book.

If you are already an Ask a Manager reader, it's all the advice you've read but organized into neat lists. Nothing new really so longtime (years) readers probably won't gain much. For people just entering the workplace, just becoming mangers, or conducting interviews, this would be an invaluable book.

Three and a half stars
This book comes out May 1
ARC kindly provided by NetGalley