Surviving the Daily Grind

Bartleby's Guide to Work

Philip Coggan

One of today's pre-eminent financial journalists, and the Bartleby columnist for the Economist, reveals strategies and tips for surviving—and making the most out of—the work week.

We spend a lot of our time at work and would be depressed with nothing to do. But when it gets to Monday, many of us are already longing for the weekend and the prospect of escape. How did work become so tedious and stressful? And is there anything we can do to make it better?

Based on his popular Economist Bartleby column, Philip Coggan rewrites the rules of work to help us survive the daily grind. Ranging widely, he encourages us to cut through mindless jargon, pointless bureaucracy and endless meetings to find a new, more creative—and less frustrating—way to get by and get things done at work.

Incisive, original, and endlessly droll, this is the guide for beleaguered underlings and harried higher-ups alike. As Rousseau might have said: "Man was born free, but is everywhere stuck in a meeting." If you've ever thought there must be a better way, this is the book for you.

Philip Coggan is the former writer of the "Bartleby" and "Buttonwood" columns for The Economist. He previously worked for the Financial Times for twenty years. His other books include The Money Machine, The Economist Guide to Hedge Funds and More. More was an Financial Times Book of the Summer.

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Endorsements & Reviews

"In this chipper send-up, Coggan, who wrote the Economist’s Bartleby column on work and management until 2021, provides an irreverent accounting of how overlong meetings, noisy office plans, incompetent managers, and other exasperating eccentricities of the modern workplace burden employees. A pleasantly peppy lampooning of the plight of the modern professional." Publishers Weekly

Praise for Philip Coggan

"Big and timely. Coggan's account of the rise of the world economy is accessible and mercifully free of jargon." The Sunday Times (London)

"A comprehensive and lucid account." Financial Times

"This is economics entertainingly and expertly demystified. Coggan is one of the best financial journalists of his generation." The Times (London)