What compels us take jobs at a desk in an unadorned cubicle doing tasks that are completely pointless and irritating? If you want the answer to that, this is the wrong book. If you want to survive your tenure of ‘working for the man,’ well, this book might help you out.

Working For the Man: Inspiring and Subversive Projects for Residents of Cubicle Land was written by Jeffrey Yamaguchi, a devious and bored man who's created a website complementary to his earlier book, 52 Projects. Writing Working was obviously therapeutic for Mr. Yamaguchi. He took the vengeful, playful, spiteful and delightful ideas brewing in his slightly-off mind and breathed a quasi-life into them by committing them to writing. It was therapeutic for him, entertaining for us.

Some of the projects include: writing your novel on the clock. This is a classic idea to which Yamaguchi adds some clever nuances. I loved the suggestion about spreading your work (your novel, that is) all over your desk so you seem to be a dedicated employee. I totally agree with the suggestion to do your novel writing first thing in the morning, right when you sit down at your desk, before the life has been sucked out of you.

His techniques for meeting survival were humorous. I have used the 'Replay Classic Movies in Your Head' technique during some of my meetings. Of course, I’ve also just blatantly slept.

There are also some lame ideas, like the suggested conversations to have in an elevator. Discussing how many meatballs should be included in a spaghetti and meatball dinner just makes you look foolish, not devilishly spiteful.

It’s a well organized tome and the first third of the book will certainly keep you engaged, likely even laughing in a subdued manner (face it, reading this book anywhere else but at work would be morally wrong, so your laughter must be subdued). But you may start to lose interest.

The ideas and projects become repetitive, and repetition begets staleness. For example, there are a number of 'rules' strewn throughout the pages. Some are funny, some insightful, but many of them are just restatements of an earlier rule, such as ‘if you wear a white shirt you’ll spill coffee on it.’ Repeating the sentiment and replacing 'shirt' with 'pants' seems, oh, I don’t know: repetitive? Then there are some rules that just don’t seem to fit into the whole scheme of the book.

It suffers, too, from a bleak outlook. The blurbs say it’s 'inspiring … projects for the residents of cubicle land.' However, many projects are vindictive, not inspiring; juvenile, not distracting. And every once in a while, it almost seems like you’re encouraged to actually do a good job. There’s a whole section devoted to getting up early and being in a good mood and being nice to your mate, etc. It just seems so out of place in a book full of spite.

At the end of the day (an overused metaphor that, paradoxically, is also what we dream of throughout the workday), this book gives tangibility to the sundry desires populating the minds of labor whores around the world. Doubtless, Yamaguchi wrote this book on the clock. For that he deserves applause.