The Jackass Whisperer

With a humorous approach to life's frustrating situations, the authors break down the most common 'jackass' situations and offer up a jackass response and a 'whisperer' response to each one. Sometimes the solution is as simple as understanding that the other person may be having a really bad day, and then offering up a double dose of grace. Other times (rarely), the whisperer solution and jackass solution are quite similar. Then there's the final tug, when the reader comes to grips with the fact that everybody plays on the jackass side of the equation at least once in a while... This light-hearted approach helps readers to re-evaluation their circumstances and realize that, no, they aren't really a jackass magnet.

The Jackass Whisperer by Scott and Alison Stratten is a lighthearted look at how to deal with the many forms of jackass you’ll encounter – including yourself. And these encounters are inevitable; “When you put a lot of humans into one space, Jackasses happen. It’s just science.”

The book caught my eye because in Daring Greatly, Brené Brown uses this fabulous quote from the book, “Don’t try to win over the haters; you are not a jackass whisperer.”

The book is divided into sections based on where you would find the jackass: in the wild, at work, at the gym, at the mall, online, at school, in transit, and with a kid. Each page has a scenario followed by a jackass response and a jackass whisperer response. And judging by my response preferences, I am much more of a jackass than a jackass whisperer.

When the jackass wants you to smile, the jackass response is: “You stare them down with the rage of a thousand customers. Possible replies include, ‘Maybe you should smile less,’ or, ‘I can’t; smiling killed my father.” Meanwhile, the rather dull whisperer response is to just smile. Come on, now, who wants to be boring?

For the jackass who is always trying to one-up everyone, the jackass response is to “name drop and tell them the story about breaking every bone in your body when skydiving with a chinchilla. Let’s see them top that!”

I was particularly interested in the Jackass who leaves work early and shows up late, as there are a number of those at my own workplace. The jackass strategy: “You call a meeting to discuss ‘new’ technologies such as GPS and Google Maps and include a copy of Captain Late-to-Work’s route from home for everyone to evaluate.” The whisperer response: “You let them know privately that this is affecting everyone because they’re such an important part of the team.” Jackass all the way, baby.

There was the “deep-googling Jackas (a.k.a. Captain Creepy)”, which would be me except that in their scenario, the deep-googler lets you know; I keep my Google-stalking private. There was also mention of the TMI Jackass, to which I saw bring on the warty feet!

The section on travel notes that air travel is “basically a Jackass stew.” One of the jackass varieties that showed up was one with an emotional support squirrel. Personally, I’d prefer a llama; the spitting could come in handy.

The Jackass who comments that you must be pregnant and about ready to pop – the Jackass response: “Yes I am, and the Big Mac I ate earlier is the father.” I might have to use that someday.

This book is a lot of fun, and a great way to get down with your jackass self.



I received a reviewer copy of this book from www.netgalley.com.

The Jackass Whisperer is a humorous and informative book that I would buy. It makes some great points and it is well written.