We live in a vicious, highly competitive workplace environment, and things aren't getting any better. Jobs are few and far between, and people aren't any nicer now than they were when Ghengis Khan ran around in big furs killing people in unfriendly acquisitions. For thousands of years, people have been reading the writings of the deeply wise, but also extremely dead Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu, who was perhaps the first to look on the waging of war as a strategic art that could be taught to people who wished to be warlords and other kinds of senior managers.

In a nutshell, Sun Tzu...

The scholarly discipline of Bullshit Studies has blossomed in the last several years, fertilized by a number of critical works on the subject and the growing importance of the issue across a wide range of professions. Now, best-selling author and lifelong practitioner Stanley Bing enters the field with a comprehensive look at the many attractive jobs now available to those who are serious about their bullshit and prepared to dedicate their working life to it.

What, Bing inquires, do a feng shui consultant, new media executive, wine steward, department store greeter, and Vice...

Sit down. Breathe deep. This is the last business book you will ever need. For in these pages, Stanley Bing solves the ultimate problem of your working life: How to manage the boss.

The technique is simple . . . as simple as throwing an elephant. All it takes is the proper state of mind, a step-by-step plan, and a great leap of faith. This humble guide provides all these and more. It is Zen that enables one to take an object of enormous weight and size and mold it in one's grasp like a ball of Silly Putty. For senior management, in truth, is the silliest putty of them all.

This...

What Would Machiavelli Do?

• He would feast on other people's discord
• He wouldn't exactly seek the company of ass-kissers and bimbos, but he wouldn't reject them out of hand either
• He would realize that loving yourself means never having to say you're sorry
• He would kill people, but only if he could feel good about himself afterward
• He would establish and maintain a psychotic level of control
• He would use other people's opinions to sell his book

- How to make money

- How to make more money

- How to choose the right company (one big enough so that nobody knows exactly what anyone else is doing)

- How to cultivate the appearance of extreme busyness through strategic desk management

- How to delegate responsibility (have plenty of assistants )

First published in 1952, this guide inspired the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, which returns to Broadway in 2011 in a production that stars Daniel Radcliffe and John Larroquette....