Book Review: How to be useful

How to be Useful: A Beginner's Guide to Not Hating Work

Author:
Megan Hustad

Publisher:
Simon & Schuster (2008), 232 pages

“How to be useful” is a wide-ranging review of some of the business literature of the ‘how to advance yourself in society and in business’-genre published over the past 150 years.

It would appear that the more things change, the more they stay the same, and that people in business have been seeking assistance and advice on how to develop and advance themselves for a lot longer than the idea has been around that business is a science.

As it turns out, people appear to have suspected for a long time already that their mother’s well-meant advice to “just be yourself” may not necessarily be the best approach to endearing yourself to your colleagues, getting that promotion or even just being noticed (whether for all the right reasons or otherwise).

The result is a book that is not only a treasure trove of wisdom (to use the word in its widest possible sense) ranging from the bizarre, through the obscure and all the way to some stuff that may actually be useful. It is also a guide for all the young and tender-hearted employees of all ages that may be clinging desperately to the idea that anyone out there might be even vaguely interested in the beautiful person you really are, deep down.

Happiness generally may be a function of following the call of your inner voice, trusting your gut and embracing a spirit of loving kindness; but advancement in business is not that easy.

In any event, if someone were to suggest that it should be possible to find true happiness by being true to yourself and to be successful in business at the same time, that would be a clear give-away that that person has not read James W. Alexander’s 1856 treatise on “The Merchant’s Clerk Cheered and Counselled”. Here he warns against misplaced intellect in the workplace, as this might lead to resentfulness and, ultimately, the practice of young men going to bars at night and drinking themselves into oblivion.

As its title suggests, “How to be useful”, is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek, somewhat serious piece of work. It is well written and brings home the point very clearly that the questions around ‘how to make friends and influence people’ (to borrow the phrase from Dale Carnegie perennial best-seller) are probably as old as humanity itself, and that the answers to those questions remain as elusive as ever.

A fun, though perhaps somewhat esoteric, read.