Published June, 2022-She Writes Press-261pp
Book Summary:
If you’re stressed and unhappy because of problems with a boss or colleague, you pay a price. Not only can your mental and physical health suffer, your nearest and dearest get sick of hearing about it. Going to bed angry and waking up only to dread a new workday is a terrible way to live.
Remote work may have lessened the impact of annoying colleagues for a while, but they can still find ways to irritate. If you’re co-located, the “mute” and “stop video” buttons don’t exist to diminish your exasperation. Not all jerks are the same; the person you find to be a nightmare may be perfectly acceptable to others. And, astonishingly, someone else may even think you’re the jerk!
Author Louise Carnachan has the credentials and experience to make her an expert in this area, but more importantly, she’s been in the trenches herself. With an emphasis on the positive actions you can take while being attentive to your specific situation, Work Jerks provides practical advice on how to deal with a variety of problematic coworkers—whether in-person or remotely—so work can stop being something you dread and start being something you enjoy.
Grateful Reader Review by Dorothy Schwab
Work Jerks is not about changing or fixing the person causing you problems, but it is about changing what you think, say, and do. Louise Carnachan has been a trainer, coach, and employee for over forty years. The book, organized by “Jerketypes,” compares figuring out a problem person to shoe shopping: you must try on, walk around, then make up your mind. The Table of Contents names ten types of Jerks along with the last chapters on toxic work culture and a summary on how to see results and take action. The reader should attempt to narrow down the most obvious issues of the problem person, realizing that there are a lot of overlapping characteristics and even variations or a spectrum within each jerk category.
Each chapter is divided into types, traits of each, a case study, and a set of questions and practical advice for a manager, a coworker, or maybe the description is of YOU! My favorite chapters are #4 The Incompetent Jerk and #8 The Jokester Jerk, but really once you start reading the traits and case studies, the analysis and advice is so compelling you’ll keep reading and remembering past bosses or colleagues, wishing you’d had Work Jerks in your desk drawer!
For over forty years, Louise Carnachan has worked as a trainer and organization development consultant helping thousands of leaders and staff members achieve interpersonal success with challenging work relationships. She has worked in manufacturing, education, healthcare, and scientific organizations. As a consultant, her clients have included Head Start programs, PNW Fertility, Bastyr University and Clinic, VA Puget Sound Health Care, a variety of Washington State departments, Boeing, McDonalds Corporation, Starbucks, University of Washington Medical Center, and the Port of Seattle. She is former adjunct faculty at Seattle Pacific University and Seattle Community College and taught a course for the University of Washington’s MBA program. Currently, she is a semi-retired coach for leadership clients and pens a workplace advice blog on her website (with debatable input from her feline office mates). She lives in a suburb of Portland, Oregon and enjoys Powell’s Books, coastal beach towns, and her local library, where she can most often be found browsing the mystery section. http://www.louisecarnachan.com.
The Grateful Reader 