Executricks: Or How to Retire While You're Still Working

by Stanley Bing

People in the high flush of a successful but sometimes frenetic business career often look with envy at those who have entered their golden years. Ah! they think. To be retired! Free to wake when you wish, to have the time to reflect on the deeper things in life, play golf or quoits, or just go fishin' in the middle of the day. The stressed-out mind boggles at the prospect, and the lip cannot help but tremble and drool.

At the same time, you may not be emotionally or financially ready to hang it all up. Which is why, whether you're a withered graybeard or a teeny young future hotshot in leather jodhpurs, you need Stanley Bing's global positioning system for a sane and pleasantly successful life: Executricks, or How to Retire While You're Still Working.

Bing is the ultimate corporate insider, one who has attained nosebleed altitude and worked long and hard enough to lose his desire to work long and hard enough. Over time, he has watched the power players who have made their jobs into a waking festival of indolence and fun, and gleaned a vast range of executricks they have developed over the years, based around several core concepts:

Delegation, or getting other people to do the stuff you don't want to Absence, or the ability to get "work" done while not being physically on the scene Abuse of status Acting visionary when confused Intense engagement (used only in crisis)

A wellspring of executricks flow from these simple precepts, including:

The use of the cell phone and BlackBerry to establish a permanent state of simultaneous Omniscience and Not-Presence Roping off mealtimes as zones of defensible entitlement Travel as an alternative to work The art of the nap Golf-the ultimate dodge Philanthropy and social activism, a pleasant parallel universe

Executricks is the most precious of resources for those who work hard but would rather be hardly working: a secret handbook that lays bare the stratagems of those who have already ascended to the pinnacles of power. No office, home, or backpack should be without a dog-eared copy. Early adopters earn extra points.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Humor

1 pages, Audio CD

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Gil Schwartz, known by his pen name Stanley Bing, was an American business humorist and novelist. He wrote a column for Fortune magazine for more than twenty years after a decade at Esquire magazine. He was the author of thirteen books, including What Would Machiavelli Do? and The Curriculum, a satirical textbook for a business school that also offers lessons on the web. Schwartz was senior executive vice president of corporate communications and Chief Communications Officer for CBS.

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook and it is humorous and sometimes hysterical and I wondered several times if this was not a parody.

I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to be this guy. He is my new idol.

[Kate Draper]

This book disgusted me. It was a book written by a user, manipulator, and overall disgusting human being. It is only useful is you have no ethics.

[Kimberly Landerfelt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not entirely sure what just happened- is this meant to be taken literally or all satire? It was somewhat entertaining and might make us Type A overachievers stop and think a little differently. But for the most part, the "advice" was less relevant in the post-covid era.

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 4 out of 5]

At some point in my career (it might have been yesterday, a Sunday, as I read this book and contemplated my workaday status), I realized that I was never going to invent flubber, direct "The Dark Knight", or craft a clever and historically-lauded Wall Street bailout plan, all of these having been done and properly credited, and therefore that I would never make Trump-size money. So at that point, probably yesterday as I lay awake after reading this book, I realized that my career goals were beginning to align with Bing's as outlined in this book.

So its subtitle, "How to retire while you're still working", represents to me a realization that at 49, too old to be taught new tricks and too young to actually retire to golf and death, and incapable of any world-changing feats of finance, art, or history, what I really want is to work just enough to sustain a comfortable existence. So, with that realization, "Executricks", despite its too-precious title, is actually a serious career guide to how to manage just enough to look busy and not mess up, delegating work and taking credit where ethically possible, while navigating the necessary communications and image control in today's disconnected work world.

Seriously, while tongue, in cheek, Bing is dispensing good career and business advice here. Following his guidelines on meetings, for example, will lighten everyone's work schedule, improve productivity, and accomplish much greater results than you are probably getting out of your overmeetinged, underworked schedule today. His table listing the six forms of email (p. 38) and how to use them will at least help trim down the deep weeds of wasted email writing, reading, and responding, and in some extreme cases (you know who you are, about to hit send on that 1,000-word profanity-laced rant about why your manager is a knot-headed dolt, in a reply-all with 17 cc's including your knot-headed dolt of a manager, and HIS manager and . . . . ) may be career-saving.

Of course, Bing tells it all with a steady veneer of humor so that the serious advice sneaks into your brain in stealth mode, where it can percolate and do the most good later. Suggestion to managers: buy each of your team members a copy of this book, especially if your team is distributed and relies on conference calls, Blackberries, email, and instant message to be productive

[Brian]

This was an enjoyable quick read. Hard to tell if it was written as a serious slacker's how-to guide on how to become the cream of an organization and rise to the level where you can utilize position, organizational bureaucracy, and delegation to "retire while still working" or as a sarcastic look at management at the executive level. Either way there are some actually good points that can be taken from this book and put into application. My favorite tip was:



[After the crisis] this means ferreting out all those who did not perform as required during the recent fire drill and cutting them from the team. Players who can't play in the rain, can't play hurt, can't do their best work under pressure, just have to go. It's not personal. It's business. Send them to their great reward and start filling the gaps they leave with the kind of mofos you can count on when you're in the red zone.

[Donald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Casting Alan Sklar as the narrator for this book is absolute genius. His psuedo-sarcastic tone of voice is such a snappy addition to the material that I would not doubt it if someone told me it was written specifically for him to read instead of the other way around.

That being said, I enjoyed this title for saying a lot of what I had probably thought at one time or another. I find that I get more out of my current employment when I am not so intense about it. I do delegate more and find the saying 'if you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself' as so much hogwash. Make suggestions and walk away. It'll get done. And you can achieve something else while it happens; like more delegation, perhaps.

Get the audio version of this. Listen to it on your way to work each day. Thank me later.

[Kambin Pillay · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read Stanley Bing's column in Fortune magazine for years so when I came across this at the local bookstore I immediately sat down and started reading it. Although I finished the book in the bookstore, I nevertheless bought a copy as I found it hilarious. Well worth reading.

[Dad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tongue-in-cheek fluff from an amusing storyteller about how to make work more fun. Hint--it helps to be a powerful, unaccountable, senior executive with a fat expense account.

[Moses · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is hilarious. Unfinished on p93

[Michelle Winters · Rating 3 out of 5]

funny...but so TRUE!!!!

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book very funny. Perhaps a bit scary too as I wondered what the executives at my company really do all day. Anyway, if you work in an office, it will make you laugh.

[Rhodes Hileman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Dilbert for the Netjets set. Both hilarious and insightful. And, actually, some useful advice. If you're under 60, don't read this; it's not for you.

[ilham.mukhtar · Rating 2 out of 5]

an OK book with a different perspective. Embrace the perks and never retire! Interesting way to look at employment and a funny view. Enjoy it to love it.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A humorous take on how to be a "retired" working Executive. Lots of ways to make your life at work the best it can be.