ABSTRACT
The Little Book of Management Bollocks (Beaton 2001) contains a hundred or so management clichés, nostrums and homilies. It is presumably the sort of thing that you might give to one of your colleagues at work. You might even give it to a manager who, for whatever reason, would be unlikely to retaliate. Or perhaps you would give them a coffee mug which claims ‘You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps’; rear view mirrors for their PC; a ‘52 ways to have fun at work’ pack of cards; a poster that says ‘Sarcasm. Just one more service we offer’; a Dilbert cartoon; offi ce voodoo kit; or a David Brent screensaver. Giving work the fi nger, in a wide variety of ways, is the small act of revolution which makes these artefacts work. The assumption that work is boring and degrading, and satirizing it can be fun, is one part of a culture that simultaneously celebrates and denigrates management and organizations. This is the culture of organization, and it doesn’t look much like the sort of excellent corporate culture that is supposed to characterise twenty-fi rst-century western workplaces.
