A bitingly funny take on corporate life by the author of acclaimed bestseller Jennifer Government
Company: the Novel... read full description
Company: the Novel... read full description
reviews
Nov 30, 2007
Trevor
rated it: 
This book could have been so good - but wasn't.
Anyone who has worked anywhere in the last 20 years will recognise, with some pain, stuff written here - the nightmares of quality improvement plans, the language mangling this is ‘mission statements’ and the feeling that work has become an experiment performed on us by our less than benevolent overlords – all of this ought to have made for a very funny book. You know, in the all-too-uncomfortable sense that we laugh and cry about the More...
Anyone who has worked anywhere in the last 20 years will recognise, with some pain, stuff written here - the nightmares of quality improvement plans, the language mangling this is ‘mission statements’ and the feeling that work has become an experiment performed on us by our less than benevolent overlords – all of this ought to have made for a very funny book. You know, in the all-too-uncomfortable sense that we laugh and cry about the More...
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Dec 16, 2009
Grumpus
rated it: 
This is based upon the audio download from [http://www.Audible.com]
Narrated by: William Dufris
There have been various comments about this reader…either love him or hate him. I happily align with the former.
Since there are many other sources for a review of the book, I’ll comment only what makes this different, the reader. With so many characters in the story, I found different voices the reader used for each helpful and delightful in the reading of this very More...
Narrated by: William Dufris
There have been various comments about this reader…either love him or hate him. I happily align with the former.
Since there are many other sources for a review of the book, I’ll comment only what makes this different, the reader. With so many characters in the story, I found different voices the reader used for each helpful and delightful in the reading of this very More...
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Sep 06, 2011
Alex
rated it:
With Company, author Max Barry, writes a fine entry in contemporary satirical business writing. As silly a genre as that sounds like it is a well populated one, with The Office (both versions) and Parks and Recreation and even The Crimson Permanent Assurance (the short film in front of Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life about a company in the middle of a takeover which suddenly turns into a pirate ship/building and assaults their new bosses with the weapons available to any average office worker
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Jan 08, 2011
Christopher
rated it:
Anyone who has worked in corporate bureaucracy would find something to laugh about in this book; which tells the story of a company that exists only as a research lab for the authors of the "Omega Management System". This should give you a good idea of the books tone:
There are stories — legends, really — of the “steady job.” Old-timers gather graduates around the flickering light of a computer monitor and tell stories of how the company used to be, back when a job was for life,More...
Jun 29, 2010
Stephanie
rated it: 
Max Barry’s Company is his third novel, and it’s one that helps position him as one of the more prominent Australian satirists working today. Barry is known for his previous books Syrup and Jennifer Government, both touching on themes of consumerism and corporate greed, and Company continues in this vein.
The context of Company should be instantly recognisable to virtually anyone who’s ever, well, been employed. Barry’s insider research was apparently conducted whilst working at globa More...
The context of Company should be instantly recognisable to virtually anyone who’s ever, well, been employed. Barry’s insider research was apparently conducted whilst working at globa More...
Mar 16, 2010
Bill
rated it: 
I wanted to like this book, just like I wanted to like Jennifer Government but ultimately it fails and for the same reasons. There's just no depth here. Maybe I shouldn't look for any, just accept it as light-hearted satire. Still, the entire story line feels contrived, existing only to point out truths that we all know anyway: big corporations don't care about their employees. Maybe if just one senior manager was given a small amount of depth, rising above the expensive suit-wearing, golf-playi
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Oct 19, 2009
Michael
rated it:
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 More...
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 More...
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Jul 24, 2010
Greg
rated it:
Max Barry's Company is a corporate satire for those that might find Douglas Coupland a bit too challenging.
One of the many problems with humorous satires (oh there are many, the number one problem being tied between them not being very astute and not being funny) is that once the premise (joke, social observation) is set up then the author has to make a book out of it. Like just about every movie made that is based on a Saturday Night Live skit, there is painful a realization, whi More...
One of the many problems with humorous satires (oh there are many, the number one problem being tied between them not being very astute and not being funny) is that once the premise (joke, social observation) is set up then the author has to make a book out of it. Like just about every movie made that is based on a Saturday Night Live skit, there is painful a realization, whi More...
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Feb 13, 2012
SandHouse
rated it:
You may remember when I read Machine Man by Max Barry and I remember it being enjoyable. I decided I need something lighthearted to read right now and what better than some crafty satire.
This is the story of a strange Company in which nobody really knows what the company does and everyone’s job sort of folds back into the company. The sales reps sell training packages to the rest of the departments. Infrastructure management charges everyone for management in the building, charging d More...
This is the story of a strange Company in which nobody really knows what the company does and everyone’s job sort of folds back into the company. The sales reps sell training packages to the rest of the departments. Infrastructure management charges everyone for management in the building, charging d More...
Dec 20, 2011
Derek
rated it:
NOTE: This review pertains to the Audible.com audiobook version.
I had high hopes for this one. I somehow missed out that this book was satirical, but, even in that context, the plot of "Company" was inane and meandered through 80% of the book until it rapidly came together in a slightly satisfying finish. Even for satire, the themes were so implausible and the characters so barely interesting that even proceeding with the book at times was a chore. (Had I not had just given u More...
I had high hopes for this one. I somehow missed out that this book was satirical, but, even in that context, the plot of "Company" was inane and meandered through 80% of the book until it rapidly came together in a slightly satisfying finish. Even for satire, the themes were so implausible and the characters so barely interesting that even proceeding with the book at times was a chore. (Had I not had just given u More...
Feb 06, 2010
Merrill
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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May 14, 2011
John
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Feb 05, 2009
Barry, an Australian writer, cut his teeth at Hewlett-Packard, and he's never been the same since. As Entertainment Weekly points out, his third novel owes a debt to The Office, The Truman Show, Animal Farm, and The Fountainhead, among others. Yet Company is truly Barry's own absurd satire on office politics__HR and outsourcing and all. Critics overlooked some of the flimsier premises, such as repeated discussion about the missing donut, because they found the novel so terrifyingly real. Its gen
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Feb 23, 2009
Kristin
rated it:
This is March's Book Group selection
From the jacket blurb: Stephen Jones is a shiny new hire at Zephyr Holdings. From the outside, Zephyr is just another bland corporate monolith, but behind its glass doors business is far from usual: the beautiful receptionist is paid twice as much as anybody else to do nothing, the sales reps use self help books as manuals, no one has seen the CEO, no one knows exactly what they are selling, and missing donuts are the cause of office intrigue. Whil More...
From the jacket blurb: Stephen Jones is a shiny new hire at Zephyr Holdings. From the outside, Zephyr is just another bland corporate monolith, but behind its glass doors business is far from usual: the beautiful receptionist is paid twice as much as anybody else to do nothing, the sales reps use self help books as manuals, no one has seen the CEO, no one knows exactly what they are selling, and missing donuts are the cause of office intrigue. Whil More...
Jan 03, 2010
Nate's
rated it:
What a great way for closure after leaving a terrible job...write a satirical novel, allow it to percolate a while, and then start naming names! I enjoyed this tale of corporate contempt in an overly-identifying way and not so much as a story that expanded my horizons.
Interesting look at Corporate America as seen through the eyes of a Sci Fi writer and former Hewlitt Packard employee. Identifying with my own corporate career, I found this book scathing, poignant and hilarious. I can More...
Interesting look at Corporate America as seen through the eyes of a Sci Fi writer and former Hewlitt Packard employee. Identifying with my own corporate career, I found this book scathing, poignant and hilarious. I can More...
Oct 05, 2009
Benjamin
rated it:
Company by Max Barry is set in a milieu that I love to explore, the corporate office world. It’s full of office politics; the mundane and the ambiguous. I’ve often been fascinated with the world. And this novel explores it in hilarious and thought provoking fashion.
The story is about Jones, a new employee at Zephr Holdings who cannot work out exactly what the company does other than the deals and interactions between of the various departments. The question is what Zephr really does More...
The story is about Jones, a new employee at Zephr Holdings who cannot work out exactly what the company does other than the deals and interactions between of the various departments. The question is what Zephr really does More...
Jan 17, 2011
Larry
rated it:
This is the third Max Barry book I've read and like the others it was a huge disappointment. He specializes in hip, dystopian black comedies. But his plots are so over the top and characters so cardboard that his fiction seems to be an exercise in "look at me and how clever I can be" rather than an attempt to create a satisfying read. Anyone who has worked in a corporation knows how soul-sucking they can be. In fact it is hard to satirize such an environment. Barry chooses to do so by
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Dec 31, 2008
Christine
rated it:
I really enjoyed it. It falls into my Fun/ Fluff/ Vacation read category. I found it very entertaining and perhaps in part since I work for a STATE Government...
Part of me frankly wondered if I in fact actually do have a real job. Reorganizations are par for the course as are unexplained and bizarre mandates for no apparent rational reason (in the book, as at my job). Management is removed and out of touch with the peons...
Is this what people with "real jobs" experienc More...
Part of me frankly wondered if I in fact actually do have a real job. Reorganizations are par for the course as are unexplained and bizarre mandates for no apparent rational reason (in the book, as at my job). Management is removed and out of touch with the peons...
Is this what people with "real jobs" experienc More...
Jul 21, 2011
Brad
rated it:
Jones is a new hire at Zephyr Holdings, and he has trouble actually figuring out what the company does. As he pokes around, he discovers that things are not what they seem--<spoiler>Zephyr is actually an experiment being run by a small group of people who write the books that other companies use to become more efficient.</spoiler> Jones gets involved and then faces some tough decisions.
This book was like Dilbert in the form of a novel. There is some pretty strong mocke More...
This book was like Dilbert in the form of a novel. There is some pretty strong mocke More...
Jun 23, 2011
neko
rated it: 
Let me get this out of the way: I loved ‘Company’. I think that everyone in the corporate world should read it, and that they would find it not only immensely relatable and entertaining, but also incredibly insightful; it is obvious that Max Barry writes from his own personal experiences.
I’ve recently landed a graduate position at a rather large company myself, and figured that this was as good a time as any to finally get around to reading ‘Company’, after having vowed to do so years More...
I’ve recently landed a graduate position at a rather large company myself, and figured that this was as good a time as any to finally get around to reading ‘Company’, after having vowed to do so years More...
Nov 14, 2011
JJ
rated it:
I would almost call Company a parody of the corporate world, but a parody is an intentional exaggeration. Company, I suspect, is only a very marginal exaggeration - the story is more of a hypothetical spin on the bureaucratic and counter-intuitive quirks of the real corporate world. I can't say that this is certainly the case, because my experience within large corporations is very, very limited, but the story is presented in a very believable way.
The first hundred pages of this book w More...
The first hundred pages of this book w More...
Mar 21, 2009
Julie H.
rated it:
As with his previous, Jennifer Government, Barry is particularly adept at skewering corporate greed and those who make their living (if it can be called that) feeding the corporate dragon. Our hero, a new employee named Stephen Jones who is recently out of business school, joins the Sales Team at Zephyr. Interestingly, neither Jones nor his coworkers (including his supervisor) seems to know what the Seattle-based holding company actually does. The story starts with Roger, who has been cheated
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Jan 07, 2010
Elizabeth
rated it:
Max Barry takes us on the entertaining journey through the goofiness and sadness of corporate America through the fresh eyes of a newly hired college graduate. The premise is familiar to most of us (corporate office, hero, wacky co-workers), but his approach succeeds where other writers have failed. Barry’s satirical prose is tight putting just the right amount of description into a scene creating both beauty and humor. You can see and feel yourself in the room with his characters. Barry h
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Oct 02, 2011
Dj
rated it:
I finished reading Max Barry’s latest book, Company, while I was at the gym on Wednesday. I usually don’t read books while I work out, only magazines or newspapers. But, I simply couldn’t put this book down. Whether I was nodding my head in understanding or laughing my butt off, I loved this book from the first to the last page. I’d read Jennifer Government, his second novel, last year. I liked that book a lot but felt it was a bit rushed and Hollywood-y at the end. His new book didn’t suffer fr
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May 10, 2010
Tony
rated it:
Ah carrots. The brutal reminder that Troy’s new diet wasn’t working. Of course, this being Troy, a stalwart college junior, measuring his diet’s effectiveness not on inches being lost at the waist, but rather glances being given by her, had thusly declared carrots the absolute bottom of stack food options to which he would resort to in an attempt at getting in “shape”. You can forget about the curious Jennys or the lustful Monicas; no, Troy’s eye had only room for one apple. And that apple’s nam
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Aug 10, 2008
Sara
rated it:
Parts of this book I really liked, but overall I thought it failed to live up to its full potential, which is disappointing.
The book opens with a guy named Jones getting a new position at a company named Zephyr. The company - and his department in particular - is completely dysfunctional, and Jones, who aspires to make something of himself and knows a little about business, is frustrated because he can't even figure out what the company does. He asks around, but everyone basically More...
The book opens with a guy named Jones getting a new position at a company named Zephyr. The company - and his department in particular - is completely dysfunctional, and Jones, who aspires to make something of himself and knows a little about business, is frustrated because he can't even figure out what the company does. He asks around, but everyone basically More...
Dec 20, 2008
Trish
rated it:
Re-read: December 2008
Originally read: June 2006
I've enjoyed Barry's other books, particularly Syrup, but this is his best and my favorite. A satire of corporate culture that will resonate with cube-dwellers everywhere.
"You don't get to be manager of a sales department by the cuteness of your nose. Manager of marketing, yes; sales, no. In sales, you can't hide behind glossy brochures and manipulated reach figures. You either sell or you don't, and your perform More...
Originally read: June 2006
I've enjoyed Barry's other books, particularly Syrup, but this is his best and my favorite. A satire of corporate culture that will resonate with cube-dwellers everywhere.
"You don't get to be manager of a sales department by the cuteness of your nose. Manager of marketing, yes; sales, no. In sales, you can't hide behind glossy brochures and manipulated reach figures. You either sell or you don't, and your perform More...
Sep 23, 2007
Megan
rated it:
Max Barry loves to play with the themes of the evils of corporate culture, taking common flaws of companies to their ultimate extremes. He did it with absurdly amusing effect with his novel Jennifer Government, and he does it again here in Company. Jones is a new hire at Zephry Holdings, who is baffled by his new corporate home. A hopelessly complicated hierarchy, paranoid interdepartmenal competitiveness, and a certain ambiguity about what the company actually *does* causes Jones to start as
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Dec 07, 2009
Ross
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Jones (the company does not use first names as a way of de-humanizing employees to coworkers and thereby increasing production) is your typical post-college, corporate drone who dares to ask the question, "What exactly does this company do?" The story that follows can be best be described as The Secret of My Success meets The Matrix. What Jones uncovers blows the cover of all the Sigma 7 or Six Secrets of Highly Successful People disciples and shows them all as being full of crap (bu
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Jan 18, 2012
Nathan
rated it:
Corporate hijinks based on the author's own experiences at Hewlett Packard. Starts out reasonably enough but then gets a bit odd. I'm still not sure whether I liked it or not, but one thing it has done is attune my work radar for finely so now I pick up all sorts of Company-esque goings on. I'll compare the whole thing to the business card scene from American Psycho (which would have fit in quite well, I think). Rated PG. 3.5/5
