The Bob Watson

by Greg Bardsley, Roger Wayne (Narrator)

From the author of Cash Out, a hilarious novel about one working stiff’s day of hooky—reminiscent of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Office Space—and the insanity that ensues.

Rick Blanco walks out of meetings. He’s a serial meeting ditcher. A walk-out artist. He’s so good that no one seems to notice when he just gets up and walks out. A corporate illusionist of the covert kind, he learned his trade studying a former colleague, the master of meeting ditches, Bob Watson. Rick continues Bob’s legacy, going for more frequent and longer ditches, building on the art with every boring corporate meeting.

Now, Rick wants to pull off his most important Bob Watson yet—skipping out of work to see his young nephew before he moves with his parents to Argentina. But things soon get complicated. As Rick leaves the office, he’s mistaken for the company’s human resources executive Dick Rayborne, a man made famous in HR circles for creating the hot new labor practice of “consourcing”—like “outsourcing” but with convicted felons. Convinced that he is the scummy Dick Rayborne, two cons, and a granny they call Mama, force Rick into six hours of mayhem, complete with home break ins and emergency board of directors meetings. Along the way, Rick realizes he has the opportunity to pull off the most meaningful Bob Watson imaginable, and still give his nephew a hug goodbye.

Refreshing, witty, and clever, The Bob Watson is a madcap tale of danger, adventure, and personal discovery.

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Novels, Literary Fiction, Comedy

Audiobook

Published November 8, 2016

About the author

Greg Bardsley is the author of The Bob Watson [2016] and Cash Out [2012], which was listed by the New York Times as one of five notable novels written about Silicon Valley. His award-winning short fiction has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. A former columnist and speechwriter, he lives in the San Francisco Bay area.

Reviews

[Greg Bardsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Giving your own book a 5-star review is so wrong, you think? Well, this review actually is from my mom, who doesn't do computers, but wanted to say, "Who wouldn't think my Gregory's book isn't absolutely amazing?"

[Jessie]

Dnf. Gross.

[Julie Sandel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bizarre, hysterical and very moving in the end. (Neanderthals, Conployees, Mandarin speakers, the "Bob Watson".) Read it.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you've ever been trapped in a boring meeting, you will find the opening to The Bob Watson hilarious. Bob Watson is an expert at ducking out of meetings. That alone is enough to make this a fun read. But as the plot develops and the characters are piled on, the story starts to feel like a crazy clown car whose brakes have been sabotaged, careening down a canyon road. At one point I was convinced that every single character was insane. Then the bricks all fall neatly into place and it has an extremely satisfying ending.

[Paul McBride · Rating 2 out of 5]

Clearly I wasn't paying attention when I bought this book or didn't remember the book Cash Out, but one chapter in and it all came back to me. Like Cash out The Bob Watson sounded like a promising story. Sadly with both books the writing just isn't that funny, and wandering off on side stories and tangents doesn't make the book more interesting, as well as using weird pet names and other creative writing tools to tell the story, throwing adolescent sex descriptions and predictable stereotypes but not in a funny mean way, but just doing it for the heck of it, all of this just says you didn't think out the story any better. Like Cash Out this book should have been funny and it wasn't. I definitely will not be reading another book by this author.

[Lora]

I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway and will review once I've read it.

[Doctor Moss · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first, I was a little worried that The Bob Watson did not have a booklength idea. The idea is fun — Bob Watson is a kind of superhero, with the power to slip out of a meeting unnoticed, and even slip back in (the “reverse Bob Watson”). But that idea only goes so far. Fortunately, the Bob Watson sprouts into something much bigger.

The first part of the story is about the Bob Watson. Rick Blanco is a Silicon Valley grunt, working in “bottom tier data transformation”. His hero is a former colleague named Bob Watson, whose abilities Rick has emulated and, as the story goes on, seems to have extended and perfected. And he puts them to use for his own sanity in a mind-numbing, never-ending, acronym-laden operations meeting.

But a superhero needs to serve the good. And that’s where the bigger story comes in. Rick has a nephew, Collin, who needs his help. The day of the story is Collin’s last day before his success-obsessed parents, Rick’s sister and her husband, move to Argentina, taking Collin away from the normalizing influences of his nanny, Audrey, and his Uncle Rick.

Audrey is really the catalyst for Rick’s heroic mission. She promises to go to the Greek Theater in Berkeley to an English Beat concert with Rick if he will do something special with Collin. That’s Rick’s dream date.

The story becomes a mega Bob Watson for Collin, driven by Rick’s genuine care for the kid, the kid’s obsession with Neanderthals (you have to read the book to find out about that), and Rick’s dream for a date with Audrey. Rick has to rescue the kid from his parents’ obsessive drive to make him a success (at age 8, he’s already taking an SAT prep class) — a Bob Watson from the deeply controlled life he lives. And if Rick is successful, Audrey will go to the concert with him.

Things get pretty surreal from that point on — but Rick’s and his sister’s dealing, mostly unsuccessfully up to now, with the circumstances of their parents’ death, intertwined with Rick’s deflating attempts to find romance in his life. Neanderthals, inhumane HR strategies, ex-cons, a seemingly crazy old lady, and other things I can’t even remember flow into the hero’s struggle.

In the end, like a lot of heroic struggles, the hero may not get what he was searching for, or he may, just differently than he thought.

It’s a good book — I felt better for having read it. And if there’s a moral to the story, it’s that “Maybe it’s about getting a little crazy.” Stay in the meeting, where it’s safe and boring, or slip out and take your chances. There’s more to life than Key Performance Indicators.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a trip this book was! Reminded me a lot of Carl Hiaasen’s novels. What begins with Rick Blanco explaining how he has perfected the art of walking out of meetings at work quickly turns into a fast-paced, highly weird journey as he is kidnapped by a confused old woman who mistakes him for an executive at his company and he is forced to spend the day with the woman and her “sons,” who are part of a program the corporation has to employ people with criminal histories. These “conployees” are treated only a step above how they were in prison. Rick must survive the next several hours of mayhem so he can spend some time with his neglected nephew before his wealthy sister whisks him away that night to live in Buenos Aires, and, if all goes according to plan, meet up with his long-time crush, his nephew’s nanny, for a date that night.

While the absurdity of this story and its characters sometimes feels like a bit too much, this was a highly enjoyable read with a satisfying ending that ties Rick’s present in with his past.

[Jay French · Rating 2 out of 5]

“The Bob Watson” started very strong. Disappearing from corporate meetings, formalized with best practices…that could be a real thing. A fiction book you could learn from. But then, after the story starts with a very familiar setting of an IT planning meeting, the story gets extremely bizarre, and stays there for the rest of the book. Left behind is much of the promising initial premise, although it makes some minimal appearances in the plot. It took about 2/3 of the book to get somewhat comfortable with the characters and the odd plot that tries too hard to be wacky, but by the last bit I was interested enough to see how it ended. There were some times I chuckled, or even guffawed, while reading this. I won’t be rushing out to buy any other books by this author, but I’d consider well reviewed ones.

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

As intended, the novel was comical and downright hilarious in parts. I checked this book out because I work in an office, and sometimes being in an office, day in and day out can be a rather dry experience. I really enjoyed reading about Rick's antics in disappearing and the methods that he uses in order to appear "invisible, yet visible." I'm not sure if I would be able to pull off a Bob Watson myself at work, but it's funny envisioning myself pulling a Bob Watson off successfully.

The story was rather simple and I read the entire book throughout the weekend. It was definitely a feel good book with parts that made me laugh out loud and smile.

Read this if you work in an office environment and just feel like laughing :)

[Jacob · Rating 3 out of 5]

This subject matter wouldn’t normally be something I’d grab, but it came in a mystery bag so I gave it a chance. And I’m sort of glad I did, as I think the author is talented and a good story teller, and it was a fun read. But on the other hand, there were moments where I couldn’t wait to finish it because the plot was so wild and the characters were weird enough to make me uncomfortable and I didn’t really want to spend too much time with them. The ending of the book made me rate is 3 instead of 2 stars - oddly touching finale.

[Angela Sunshine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Okay, I gave it a full hour of audio to grab me but it just didn't happen. The narrator was fine, it was the story that I didn't enjoy at all. If the guy was 17 I might have thought he was funny, but not at his age. I gave up, glad audible has a return program.

[Kaiti Laughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was not at all what I expected, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I was hoping for a more fun, less graphic romp in comedy. I got a heart-felt message about what really matters in this world.

[Sam Doolittle · Rating 2 out of 5]

While it got slightly more cohesive and entertaining towards the end, this book is a fucking disaster. There were so many points during the course of the novel where I asked myself, “what the fuck am I reading?”—and not in a good way.

[Debbie Gortowski · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought this was going to be humorous
It started out good and half-way funny.
Then it got creepy and not funny at all.
I got thru the first 5-6 chapters and then quit.
Not my style

[Rob Stuart · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whimsical, zany, far-fetched! Also a little dumb.

[Kristina Schwartz · Rating 3 out of 5]

The fantasy of "pulling a Bob Watson" bought the book, and it was enjoyable to read, but took a turn I didn't anticipate which halted my reading flow. Bob is still my inspiration!

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can’t say I’d recommend this. It’s crude and hard to follow at times. I picked it up because I work with a Bob Watson and thought it was funny.

[Rich · Rating 1 out of 5]

Blah. Not sure why I bothered to finish this book.

[Leah Boudreaux · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t really like this book. It’s just really weird.

[Kay McAdam · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe it just me but i didn't get this book at all.

[William · Rating 2 out of 5]

It had its funny parts but a little too contrived. Very far fetched but meant to be so that was fine. The commentary on horrible corporate meetings was right on for someone who has suffered through a few.

[Laura Lewakowski · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't get past the first chapter. Just not my style.

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun and unusual book. Sometimes one doesn't know where the story is headed, then suddenly it all becomes clear. What seems like a tale of a bored worker trying to find ways to get out of work, but it really is a story about love, guilt, commitment, and coming to grips with life itself.

There is humor along the way, and some really unusual characters, which make it all the more interesting.

I would give this book a 4.5.

[Jim Beilstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wild Ride!

What a crazy story! Multiple twists and turns, but filled with reflective lessons on life. At several points, you can't even tell where the story is going, but somehow The Bob Watson all comes together with a surprising end... if you like wacky and unexpected story telling with a touch of humor and intrigue, you'll like The Bob Watson.

[Al Riske · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fasten your seatbelt. The Bob Watson is a madcap race against time and conflicting priorities in California's go-go Silicon Valley - a raucous parody of the valley's twisted family and corporate values.

[Kerry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Either I am not smart enough to understand satire (which is entirely possible), or I just didn't care for this book. I (think) I understood some of what he was trying to say, but the characters were so over-the-top that it lost its satirical bent. And really not very funny, either. Just confusing.

[Andrea Eckelman · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn’t finish this book, which is a rare and hard decision for me. I just didn’t enjoy it. The characters weren’t sympathetic, and I didn’t like the writing.

[CHAD · Rating 5 out of 5]

hilarious