TOP DRAWER BOOK REVIEW
by
HL Carpenter

 

Fire Your Boss
by Stephen M. Pollan and Mark Levine
273 pages; hardcover; $23.95
HarperCollins, New York, 2004

Fire your boss. And do what? Work for yourself?

In a manner of speaking, yes. But Fire Your Boss is not about entrepreneurship in the usual way you might think of it.

Instead, Stephen Pollan, lawyer and self-described ‘life coach’, wants you to consider yourself a freelancer – while keeping your job.

How? By taking a clear-eyed look at why you head off to the workplace every day. Mr. Pollan believes you should be working for – are you ready? – money. And only money. Any other psychic benefits, like status, respect and security, should come from other areas of your life.

Once you embrace this attitude shift, you’re on your way to having your own best interests in mind at work, as opposed to being defined by your job. Mr. Pollan says you’ll be happier. He even claims your boss will be happier. To support his assertions, Fire Your Boss employs an ambitious amount of anecdotal evidence in the form of client profiles.

The book also offers plenty of common sense counsel – and a few curiosities. For instance, you have to wonder if Mr. Pollan wants his own employees to change jobs every two years, as he advocates. In addition, asking your employer to lie (he uses the term ‘negotiate’) so you can file for unemployment compensation after losing a job seems like unusual advice, especially from an attorney.

Despite these anomalies, Mr. Pollan lays out a practical plan for assuming control of your work life. All you have to do is Fire Your Boss.

 

Review originally published October 2004.