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orla_h 's review for:
I'm maybe a decade younger than Lyons, and I know firsthand the struggles of finding work in the tech industry when you're over 40. I used to think I was a bit of a curmudgeon. Turns out, I've got nothing on this guy.
This book's an easy read, it's (mostly) enjoyable and (sometimes) trenchant and smart. HubSpot sounds like a seriously dysfunctional place, Trotsky was an unmitigated nightmare of a boss. But...there's a little too much "I work at a zoo, let's throw shit at these monkeys!" happening, and there are some telling instances where Lyons is overly cruel to or dismissive of people that probably don't deserve it (the blog ladies, for example - he does eventually admit that they are doing what they are asked to do, and doing it well, but it's a grudging admission and he buries the lede).
He's petty about small things in a way that makes him sound like that always-complaining co-worker you avoid, peeing in everyone's Cheerios and then wondering why no-one wants to have breakfast with them. In the face of all the dysfunction, harping on about small, harmless stuff is a little bizarre (the sincere but over-effusive pep messages exchanged between young and enthused co-workers were surely not worth the vitriol he spent on them). Stuff like that, coupled with some of the things he said in meetings, and his utter conviction that he knows better than everyone else at HubSpot about pretty much everything, makes him a lot harder to root for.
Maybe that doesn't matter, maybe he is smarter than them all, but, as a woman working in tech, I had a few too many eyerolls of recognition, a few too many "Really, now?" raised eyebrows and a hard-to-dispel feeling that if HubSpot had made Dan Lyons feel appreciated enough, this book may never have happened at all.
This book's an easy read, it's (mostly) enjoyable and (sometimes) trenchant and smart. HubSpot sounds like a seriously dysfunctional place, Trotsky was an unmitigated nightmare of a boss. But...there's a little too much "I work at a zoo, let's throw shit at these monkeys!" happening, and there are some telling instances where Lyons is overly cruel to or dismissive of people that probably don't deserve it (the blog ladies, for example - he does eventually admit that they are doing what they are asked to do, and doing it well, but it's a grudging admission and he buries the lede).
He's petty about small things in a way that makes him sound like that always-complaining co-worker you avoid, peeing in everyone's Cheerios and then wondering why no-one wants to have breakfast with them. In the face of all the dysfunction, harping on about small, harmless stuff is a little bizarre (the sincere but over-effusive pep messages exchanged between young and enthused co-workers were surely not worth the vitriol he spent on them). Stuff like that, coupled with some of the things he said in meetings, and his utter conviction that he knows better than everyone else at HubSpot about pretty much everything, makes him a lot harder to root for.
Maybe that doesn't matter, maybe he is smarter than them all, but, as a woman working in tech, I had a few too many eyerolls of recognition, a few too many "Really, now?" raised eyebrows and a hard-to-dispel feeling that if HubSpot had made Dan Lyons feel appreciated enough, this book may never have happened at all.