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Identities
Identities is a satirical look at materialism, corporate greed and constructed identities.
Dave Locke just got the call all executives in corporate America dread: the company is going in a different direction, thanks for all of your hard work, but we don’t need you any longer. His sense of self and his place in the world shattered, Dave’s experience and connections quickly land him a role as a senior partner in a management-consulting firm.
As he settles into a new position, Dave takes a hard look at how narrowly he has defined himself and his life so that the mere loss of a job could be so personally devastating. He is disturbed by the greed, selfishness, and shallowness of some of his fellow partners, clients, and even his own son, Jim, a Wall Street executive. At the same time, thanks to his wife Jill, who is doing meaningful volunteer work with the less privileged, and his younger, rebellious and altruistic son, Alex, he learns to see the world differently.
Dave evolves a new perspective on life and career, and he decides to change corporate culture and the capitalist system from the inside. A lot of people don’t like change, however, and Dave finds that he has to pick his battles carefully. His mission sets him on an entertaining collision course with entrenched bureaucracies and office politicians as well as his ambitious son. It turns out to be a frustrating and risky business.
Identities challenges our definitions of success with a fine-tuned understanding of collective behavior. As inspiring as it is insightful, Identities is a thought-provoking commentary that redefines the modern landscape and encourages us to change our world for the better.
Dave Locke just got the call all executives in corporate America dread: the company is going in a different direction, thanks for all of your hard work, but we don’t need you any longer. His sense of self and his place in the world shattered, Dave’s experience and connections quickly land him a role as a senior partner in a management-consulting firm.
As he settles into a new position, Dave takes a hard look at how narrowly he has defined himself and his life so that the mere loss of a job could be so personally devastating. He is disturbed by the greed, selfishness, and shallowness of some of his fellow partners, clients, and even his own son, Jim, a Wall Street executive. At the same time, thanks to his wife Jill, who is doing meaningful volunteer work with the less privileged, and his younger, rebellious and altruistic son, Alex, he learns to see the world differently.
Dave evolves a new perspective on life and career, and he decides to change corporate culture and the capitalist system from the inside. A lot of people don’t like change, however, and Dave finds that he has to pick his battles carefully. His mission sets him on an entertaining collision course with entrenched bureaucracies and office politicians as well as his ambitious son. It turns out to be a frustrating and risky business.
Identities challenges our definitions of success with a fine-tuned understanding of collective behavior. As inspiring as it is insightful, Identities is a thought-provoking commentary that redefines the modern landscape and encourages us to change our world for the better.
366 pages, Paperback
First published October 17, 2012
139 people want to read
About the author
T.E. Stazyk
2 books2 followersI was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and studied business and accounting at the University of Dayton, Ohio. After graduating I spent twenty-eight years with an international accounting firm in the US and Japan as a certified public accountant, certified fraud examiner, and certified information systems auditor. During that time, I worked with numerous large and small, local and international organizations and learned firsthand that organizations have a personality that reflects the people in them. I then moved to Auckland, New Zealand, and in 2003 earned an MA in English from the University of Auckland. Since then I have completed post-graduate study in world literatures including Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. My wife, Mahrukh, and I currently divide our time between Auckland and CUE Haven, a fifty-nine acre pastureland north of the city that we restoring to a native New Zealand forest preserve.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 19, 2013
Stazyk has a mischievous and deep -- and sometimes dark -- sense of humor. The parts of his satire/manifesto in which he describes business meetings, with their pompous jargon and otherworldly logic, rival Swiftian parody. The main character, Dave Locke, and his wife and business partners get our empathy. Some of the minor characters -- Locke's son, Jim, and in-law, Jennifer -- could have been painted with more texture and come across as caricatures. But the overall flow and gist is compelling and makes you think about the intersection of American capitalism and human morality/sensibility in a new way.
February 12, 2014
Tom Stazyk knows what he writes about. Identities takes you into the world of big business and the minds of those playing the game especially in the waters of Corporate America. Great dialogue and an intriguing set of characters.
December 9, 2022
Typically I don't read fiction, but was interested to read this book as I personally know the author. I loved this book!
It is a story told from the viewpoint of Dave Locke who starts the book a little lost and out of sorts after losing his career. He gets given an opportunity to go into consulting and progresses quickly into a CEO type position. During his tenure in this role he makes changes to his company which involve taking risk and doing things differently.
As a NZer reading this, many of the conversations around corporate life and pitfalls were familiar to me already. I could relate to this and even chuckle to myself with my own experiences. However there were also many conversations that were very American and wouldn't make sense outside America. E.g. I had no idea that US corporates generally all donate large sums of money to political groups. I also don't think there is that great a divergence between the mega-wealthy and poor as there is in the USA.
There were some neat themes about collective good and individual good and explaining these difficult concepts in easy language. I would recommend this book to anyone. It isn't a difficult book to read but to maximise the enjoyment, I think it helps to have worked in a corporate environment before otherwise you won't believe what is written! It is almost like an episode out of "The Office".
It is a story told from the viewpoint of Dave Locke who starts the book a little lost and out of sorts after losing his career. He gets given an opportunity to go into consulting and progresses quickly into a CEO type position. During his tenure in this role he makes changes to his company which involve taking risk and doing things differently.
As a NZer reading this, many of the conversations around corporate life and pitfalls were familiar to me already. I could relate to this and even chuckle to myself with my own experiences. However there were also many conversations that were very American and wouldn't make sense outside America. E.g. I had no idea that US corporates generally all donate large sums of money to political groups. I also don't think there is that great a divergence between the mega-wealthy and poor as there is in the USA.
There were some neat themes about collective good and individual good and explaining these difficult concepts in easy language. I would recommend this book to anyone. It isn't a difficult book to read but to maximise the enjoyment, I think it helps to have worked in a corporate environment before otherwise you won't believe what is written! It is almost like an episode out of "The Office".
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews