JANE CHIN, PH.D. ∞

When you read David St. Lawrence’s Danger Quicksand – Have a Nice Day, you may smile ruefully and say, “I wish I had this book years ago when I was going through the corporate crap described in this book,” or your eyes may open wide and you may say, “Is what’s described in this book really going to happen to me?” My reaction was the former.

The astute professional can easily accumulate an impressive library collection. My shelves are choking from books I thought I should read for my own good, purchased, then abandoned quickly. However, Danger Quicksand – Have a Nice Day will not join the ranks of my dejected acquisitions. I am keeping this book within easy reach for reference, inspiration, and a periodic shot of reality we can all use.

I finished reading this book within two days, and already I’m preparing a re-reading. The first round is just an alcohol swab against the skin, the kind you get before the thick metal needle hooked to a syringe pierces through. This is your warning. This will be one of the more cringe-inducing books you will read, and is the case for me. Chapter 4, “Preparing for Change” made me squirm: I was reading a “wreck-umentary” of my prior employment experiences. Many readers of this book felt the same, and I read quote after quote from readers who wondered if St. Lawrence had a camera set up at their companies. Unfortunately, the corporate insanity that occurs on a daily basis is a universal employment archetype rather than isolated incidents.

Whether you are a veteran professional or a company neophyte, you will find yourself in this book. Hopefully for the neophytes, you will avoid the corporate landmines laid through management rituals and gross lack of logic or common sense. Others will take refuge in an enlightened state of camaraderie – a mercenary camaraderie. I joined the rank of those who faced up to the truth: I’m too much of a maverick to stay in corporate employment. It was barely five years ago when I declared that I couldn’t imagine NOT working for someone else.

Now I can’t imagine NOT working for myself.