The Art of Asking Your Boss for a Raise

In 1968 members of a French company that made supercomputers for industry were eager to learn if their computers could be used to create works of art. A Parisian computer expert wrote a flowchart for an employee of a large corporation to use to obtain a raise, which was given to the supercomputing company, who proposed the challenge to Georges Perec (one wonders if the company knew what it was getting into when Perec was chosen to write this book!).

The book consists of a one sentence monologue by a hapless employee of a large company, whose life and most of his work career seems to focus on obtaining a meager raise from his boss, Mr X. In his quest, which smacks of Kafka mixed with Don Quixote, our hero must navigate dangerous cafeteria show more food, the fickle moods of Mr X and Miss Y, recurrent outbreaks of measles, the all too frequent weekends that disrupt his plans, and, most importantly, his own incompetence and bad luck. This was a very entertaining, witty and quick read, which made for a perfect book to read on a short flight.

Anyone who wishes to get a taste of the book is encouraged to check out a flowchart based on it, at http://www.theartofaskingyourbossforaraise.com. show less

Unlike anything I've ever read. The true title is the art and craft of approaching your head of department to submit a request for a raise. Although the book's cover says something different, this is listed in all its long-winded glory on the title page.

Weird little book. No punctuation. No capitalization. I would recommend stealing away to a comfy, quiet spot to take in this book-length sentence. Let the narrator's anxiety wash all over you. Is the boss in? Is your coworker in a good mood? What the hell is a T60? Will the office need to be quarantined to prevent an outbreak of measles!? But more importantly, how many times can I approach my boss and fail to get this raise?

It's a challenge to find a suitable place to pause and set the show more book down. I don't really think there is one. Trying to jump back in, even a few minutes later, is disorienting. Perec dances circles around me. Here is his experiment. A short book, presenting a problem, and working it out as if a computer were thinking things through. show less

Com um humor judaico neurótico obsessivo digno de Woody Allen e Larry David, Perec descreve matematicamente um organograma de forma linear em suas infinitas possibilidades e sem pontuações, o que o torna realmente cansativo de ler, mas que é de uma genialidade sem volta.

A funny little book recommended by Darryl (kidzdoc) in which Perec set out to write an "unreadable" circuitous text which is free of punctuation and based on a flow chart that describes the almost insurmountable challenge that an employee faces when attempting to ask for a raise from his superior. Perec attempts to present every possibility demonstrated in the flow chart: You go to see your boss, Mr. X in his office. Is he there? No. You stop by the PA, Miss Y's desk for a chat. Is she in a good mood? No. Too bad, you walk around the office for a while and try again. Is Mr. X There this time? No. You try Miss Y again: is she in a good mood now? Yes. Good, you chat with her for a bit until Mr. X arrives. Does he invite you into his show more office? No. He tells you to come back later. Only later, he might be felled by an attack of measles, and you'll have to attempt the circuit one more time when he's recovered. This time trying to overcome the possibility of your boss suffering from food poisoning, sending you to another irrelevant department, or maybe not one but two of Mr. X's daughters having caught the measles, with risk of contamination, and so on. The book is only 100 pages long, and what makes it amusing is the repetition of the same actions over and over again, into which Perec introduces tiny variations for great comic effect. I liked it a lot, though I made the mistake of putting it down about halfway through and when I picked it up again on a different day and in a different mood, I must say I couldn't help but ask myself why I was even bothering. Recommended if you're into experimental and quirky. If you're curious, the interactive flow chart is right here: http://www.theartofaskingyourbossforaraise.com show less

It was Perec, so: It was fun, it was exhausting, it was a delight.

This is either an amazing litereary achievement or it isn’t it’s one or t’other but let’s just assume to keep things simple – for we must do our best to keep things simple – that it is a work of art where perec demonstrates a unique ability to think like a computer so far ahead of his time and let’s not forget a marvellous translation by david bellos but what if it isn’t an amazing book in which case you circumperambulate to the beginning of this review and

So I heard of Perec and wanted to peruse his ingenuity, so I got a hold of Life . . ., but although I could see it was very clever, it was not the right thing at the moment for me, so I got a hold of three other of his books, now I had a choice of which to read, I could read any of the three, so say I started with a book which did not contain a particular symbol, this is so nifty, but just writing this part without that symbol shows how nifty that is, translation on top of that, but did not go smoothly as far as clarity or rationality, so on to another, phew, even eek for noise, uneasy being e-less, another book was Ok, but say my attention was instead drawn to this little number, and indeed I settled into reading this, and the flow was show more quite nice, and even though the flow was quite nice, after a while, being necessary to wrap around again, the flow was still nice, quite, but one wanted to get on with things, which after enough loops, not inevitably, but nevertheless, coming to a finality, but that would be a spoiler, and I have to consider that not everybody has read the book, certainly some people who have not read the book may not want to view a spoiler, now I have two obvious choices, I can conclude this with a spoiler, in which case, I would have to block it off for those who have not read the book and who furthermore do not care to see the spoiler, or I could leave the ending as such, spoiler, I am leaving it as such. By the way, I highly recommend procuring a beat up copy of this book to preemptively place in the workplace or interview background, to demostrate quite how clever one is in a overtly cleverly concealed way. show less