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    Company
    Company
    Company
    Audiobook10 hours

    Company

    Written by Max Barry

    Narrated by William Dufris

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Nestled among Seattle's skyscrapers, The Zephyr Holdings Building is a bleak rectangle topped by an orange-and-black logo that gives no hint of Zephyr's business. Lack of clarity, it turns out, is Zephyr's defining characteristic. The floors are numbered in reverse. No one has ever seen the CEO or glimpsed his office on the first (i.e., top) floor. Yet every day people clip on their ID tags, file into the building, sit at their desks, and hope that they're not about to be outsourced.

    Stephen Jones, a young recruit with shoes so new they squeak, reports for his first day in the Training Sales Department and finds it gripped by a crisis involving the theft of a donut. In short order, the guilty party is identified and banished from the premises and Stephen is promoted from assistant to sales rep. He does his best to fit in with his fellow workers-among them a gorgeous receptionist who earns more than anyone else, and a sales rep who's so emotionally involved with her job that she uses relationship books as sales manuals-but Stephen is nagged by a feeling that the company is hiding something. Something that explains why when people are fired, they are never heard from again; why every manager has a copy of the Omega Management System; and, most of all, why nobody in the company knows what it does.

    "Always entertaining, Dufris reads this story of corporate revolt with comic timing and tongue firmly planted in cheek, making it an ideal audiobook to enjoy on one's way to work." -AudioFile
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJan 17, 2006
    ISBN9781400172023
    Company
    Author

    Max Barry

    Max Barry began removing parts at an early age. In 1999, he successfully excised a steady job at tech giant HP in order to upgrade to the more compatible alternative of manufacturing fiction. While producing three novels, he developed the online nation simulation game NationStates, as well as contributing to various open source software projects and developing religious views on operating systems. He did not leave the house much. For Machine Man, Max wrote a website to deliver pages of fiction to readers via e-mail and RSS. He lives in Melbourne, Australia, with his wife and two daughters, and is thirty-eight years old. He uses vi. www.maxbarry.com

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    Reviews for Company

    3.5/5

    428 ratings25 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      A re-read, because this book is too damn hilarious. Barry mocks large corporations, how they function, and how they treat their employees. I can't say too much about the plot because the main idea is a big twist that is too fun to discover as you go. If you've ever worked in an office, you must read this one and feel better about your job. Or read it if you want to laugh. Or just read it.
    • 4/5
      A wonderfully over the top satire at the expense of any and all corporations. Set in the fictional corporate world of Zephyr Holdings; all of the small minded, seemingly petty politics in the office are pointed at, exposed and ridiculed. A must for any office worker who feels that their boss is not entirely sure of the real world around them!Jones is starting his first new day at Zephyr a company where no-one knows exactly what they are doing, why they are doing it or indeed how it is going to get done. Desperate to know more Jones starts to dig around, ask questions he shouldn’t and talk to people (notably senior management) thought to be un-reachable. Without wishing to give too much more of the story away for fear of giving clues to the twist in the story suffice to say that nothing in this office is quite as it appears to be.This book reminds me of Joseph Heller and I think the best description for it is Catch 22 in an office. Having said that it doesn’t quite match the continued satire and humour of Heller’s anti-war masterpiece, the twist to the novel occurs very early on and I think that it would have been better had Barry explored the office a little bit more before revealing what is really going on. The rumours that run around the Zephyr office started by the employees (typical, I think, of any business) could have had the readers’ imagination going off in several directions trying to work out the plot. Having said that it is the characters and the ridiculous and often surreal situations that the management put the staff in to that really drives the novel. Every aspect of the office from the mundane filing and photocopying to the rather less mundane fear of being downsized and fired is explored by Barry and no-one clocks out at 5pm to go home without having been made to feel a little bit foolish first.
    • 5/5
      My favorite part? When the departments fight- HR and IT showdown. Who has the most power? Read and find out!
    • 1/5
      The hacking character grossed me out every time he spoke. Reader was banal as the plot.
    • 4/5
      A novel about the absurdity of corporate life, and the soullessness of companies that treat their workers as expendable, exploitable assets, rather than as human beings. The satirical humor is decent, though never laugh-out-loud funny. In fact, on the whole, it may be more depressing-because-it's-true than it is funny-because it's true.There is also something of a sense of over-familiarity to it, although an interesting twist a hundred pages or so in makes it feel at least a little less like yet another variant on Office Space, which is good.
    • 4/5
      Hilarious and absurd corporate satire about a company where things just are not quite what they seemed. Things make less and less sense, until they do. Fun book.
    • 3/5
      So I "read" this audio book after listening to Jennifer Government, Berry's previous book, and completely loving it. However, this was not nearly as good. Berry's social agenda wrapped in so-called workers' rights certainly shines through again. But unlike Jennifer Government there is not the hint of truth, there is not the tongue and cheek nature of the previous. Basically Jones gets hired by a company and he eventually realizes he doesn't know what it does. Upon further investigation no one else does either. But what important is someone stole my doughnuts months ago. And don't forget the underlying theme that corporations have no reason to make money, they just should provide jobs. This one's worth skipping, unless you are a union loving liberal who thinks that office workers need a union and you want a fictional adventure to re-enforce your pre-conceived notions.
    • 3/5
      I basically enjoyed this, but the last chapter felt rushed and unnecessary. It was like those end montages of movies where they write text on the screen about what everyone is doing now. I'd rather it had just ended before "April."
    • 4/5
      view by: Ben Q This book provides an insightful look into the inner workings of the corporation. Max Barry is a brilliant writer who has obviously spent a lot of time working at large companies, secretly plotting to bring them down with his wit. This book is full of that and has a good story too. Jones is the new hire at Zephyr Holdings, a company whose purpose is unknown, even to its employees. No one has ever seen its CEO, and a missing dounut is cause for a full-scale investigation. Jones is a curious guy, and decides to investigate despite the warnings of his co-workers. What he discovers will astound and amaze you. This book works on many levels: as satire, as a drama, and as a protest against the corporate workplace. Barry succeeds in all the areas a writer needs to by making you care about the characters while providing an interesting and fast-pace storyline. The book is an easy read and will entertain you for hours.
    • 5/5
      This book is absolutely hysterically funny - especially for anyone that has worked for a big corporation (still funny if you haven't). I didn't really guess the ending and even afterward- I still felt the idea was worth pondering over.
    • 3/5
      While I feel that Company was funny and an interesting take on the lunacy of the corporate world, it got a bit much.
    • 4/5
      Much better than I expected. Real insight into the corporate experience. A believable ending for the most part. Satisfying. Reminds me of Christopher Buckley - Thank You for Smoking, etc.
    • 4/5
      Max Barry's latest novel Company is a fantastic satire on the business world and those corporate "fad" management techniques that already seem absurd in real life, and more so as exagerated in this story. It is a hilarious glimpse into a company where monkey see monkey do and the blind leading the blind take on whole new meanings. Company makes you think about all of the things you take for face value in your career and life that really if you dive down to the why would make you insane if you tried to comprehend it!Company provides a lot of laughs, makes you sympathize with the corporate drones encountered and gives you the ambition to think, I'm not going to take some wackos word for why this is best practice. Barry's ability to create characters that you really connect with, become emotionally involved with, and feel sorry and happy for is what makes this a great read, and in the meantime if it makes you think, geez this sounds a little like the crazy things my managers do, then it will have brought a little more spice into your life (just don't blame me if you read this and decide to have a revolution in your office!)
    • 4/5
      For want of a doughnut, a company is reorganized pretty much sums up Max Barry's latest novel Company. If the premise sounds absurd, you're right. But just like the corporate world, a single dougnut brings about the decline and fall of a company. It serves as a catalyst for the absurdity that can be and is corporate life. What Jennifer Government did for the advertising industry, Company does for corporate life. But where Company trumps Jennifer is that the story follows a single protagonist in the story of corporate absurdity. If you've seen Office Space or The Office, you have a taste for what you'll find in these pages. Thankfully, the story is more linear and doesn't work as hard to have characters' lives intersect ala Crash as was the case in Jennifer Government. Stephen Jones is hired right out of college to work for the Zephyr Company. Within a day he's promoted over people who have been with the company for years and tries to discover the rhyme and reason as to why certain decisions are made. As he tries to figure out the mind of the suits and just what it is Zephyr does, he's drawn into a whole different world, one he never expected. Max Barry's satire is biting, especially as you recognize fellow co-workers in the pages of Company. The absurdity of behavoir from Roger the guy who can't let go of his doughnut being eaten to Elizabeth, the sales rep who falls uncontrollably in love with her clients...that is until they sign the contracts, you will recognize people you know and have worked with. Yes, Barry does make some of the characters one-dimensional but overall, his wry comments on corporate life and the corporate world are dead-on. The only negative is that the reveal of what is really behind Zephyr comes to early in the story and the novel coasts from there.
    • 4/5
      Barry's imagination is wonderful in this novel, as was expected. I have enjoyed his writing about 'real world' scenarios -- especially when you can only fear this is what we may be coming to. Company makes light of the worker bee and takes a different look at needing meaning in our work. How far can people be pushed if they think their career and everything they have worked for is on the line? I was disappointed in the ending, but the overall book held my attention and left me wanting more.
    • 3/5
      This book was so much fun to read. I was seriously laughing out loud at many parts. I had the audiobook version of the book and it was outstanding. They did a great job with it and made it very entertaining. I think it is very relevant to read for anyone who has been in an office setting. I definitely could relate to much of what went on. I think it is an interesting take on how mega corporations are turning their employees into nothing but cogs in a wheel.
    • 3/5
      A rare book for me that starts good and goes downhill from there. A very biting satrical look at corporate America. Most office dwellers will identify with portions of this book. However in the end I felt this was just too over the top and I never really identified with Jones or was invested in his success. Very quick read.
    • 5/5
      This is a delightful little novel to read over the holidays. As if the movie Clockwatchers and Orwell’s 1984 were put into a blender and told through the voice of Douglas Adams…sort of, anyway. I have had my fair share of working for big corporations and this book convinces me of what I already felt, that it is not me who is crazy, it is the corporations. What is insane is that some of the stuff that happens in the book is really not far off base from what big companies are actually doing.
    • 5/5
      Company tells the story of a man named Jones that starts working for a company named Zephyr that provides training services. He's not there long, however, before he discovers that there's more to Zephyr than meets the eye ...I thought this was a fantastic book. On one hand, it had the same type of "offices are crazy" comedy that you'd find in Office Space, or an episode of The Office, but at the same time with a more bitter, angry edge to it. Barry's main objective with the novel seems to be a reminder that capitalism can't exist without an underclass - one character muses that there would be no point in being rich if there wasn't an underclass to lord it over.
    • 2/5
      I was pretty disappointed. The premise was, for lack of a better word, cute. But it was so flat, two-dimensional, and predictable. I couldn't see the characters. Jennifer Government is 1,000 times better in terms of corporate satire. I struggled through this one because I liked Government so very much.
    • 4/5
      If you have ever had a Total Quality Management, SIgmz Six, Moved my Cheese, ISO9000, ISO 14000, or 7 Habits SHOVED down your throat at work. You'll love this satire.
    • 3/5
      A satirical look at corporate culture, that attempts to pierce deeper than t.v. Office or film Office Space, but seems uncomfortable going for the jugular. First 2/3 are great last 1/3 loses steam.
    • 4/5
      With a style and message similar to Jennifer Government (also by Max Barry), Company just isn't as compelling.To review the general plot of both books, the protagonist is stuck dealing with company politics and bureaucracy, but generally stays above and outside it. Ultimately, there is conflict, things come to a head, and the resolution is gratifying and comedic.Actually, that last bit is less relevant to Company than Jennifer Government. I felt no particular resolution at the end of this book. The social commentary was amusing, the corporate structure was amusing, the characters were amusing, but mostly this story was just air. I read it in one sitting, not because it was so compelling but rather because it was so light and weightless. I never had to stop to think, to ponder the ramifications of the plot or character development. It made no particular impression on me, despite the flagrant parallels between the fictional company upon which the book centers and real world companies we've all seen, experienced, and been baffled by. I read it, laughing out loud perhaps once or twice, then set it aside. It would have been good beach reading or airplane reading, but that’s about it.
    • 5/5
      A great parody of life at a big company that pokes fun at how management treats employees, how employees (some of them) take whatever is dealt to them like sheep, and all the other things you'll be familiar with if you've ever worked for a large organization
    • 4/5
      Bizarre but totally engaging story of a group of office drones, one of whom breaks away from the pack to lead a mini-revolution. Excellent characterizations, great humor; timely and observant portrait of corporate wage-slavedom.