Company

By: Max Barry

Narrated by: William Dufris

Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

©2006 Max Barry (P)2006 Tantor Media, Inc.

Critic reviews

• Audie Award Finalist, Humor, 2007

"Mr. Barry is a deft and focused satirist, and his sense of business ethics is right on the money." (The New York Times)
"[Barry's] at his funniest lampooning the suits that tread the stage, consumed by the sound and fury of office politics that signify nothing." (Publishers Weekly)

Hilarious

I love Max Barry's sense of humor, and if you worked for a dot com during the late 90s boom and early ought's bust, you will have a special appreciation for the absurd situations and characters Barry weaves into his story. Enjoyable listen.

too "cute"

This is good satire - not great - perhaps because Office satire is becoming common. Also the pace was slow, not manic like a PG Wodehouse. The occasional "gems" of insight and humour were not worth the listening time consumed, at least to me, especially because the narration style was not to my taste -- too Dr Seuss. Most satires seem to have their quota of obvious humour, but something in the pacing or narration of a better satire allows the writer to get away with the necesssary fill. That said, the central twist in the plot is good. Perhaps "Company" is more enjoyable for those who work/ worked at a Company. Or perhaps this would work better as a movie, with body language carrying the slow parts and visuals abridging the text.

I agree with those that say this would make a better read than listen. This was not "dense" enough as a listen to hold my attention. If you are looking for something light to listen to while you are doing something else that requires attention, this would be a good download, especially for the price.

Fun Listen

I loved this book and the characters. It definitely held my interest. If you have ever worked for a corporation that just didn’t make sense it is a book for you.

Not sure about this one.

Not his best work. I think you'd have to be an office worker to get behind this one. I kept losing track since I couldn't stay interested in it.

A Wonderful Experience

If you're a fan of "The Office" - either the BBC version or the one with Steve Carrell - you will love this book. The book includes everything you've ever been afraid of if you've worked for a large company.
Great narration by William Dufris, and funnier than most things out right now.
Very enjoyable.
Highly recommended.

Totally Fun

You don't have to work in a large, nameless corporation to enjoy this terrific novel. But it won't hurt.

The characters and situations are very funny and while the premise is outlandish, everything is very real.

It's one of those books I was sorry to see end.

Entertaining satire

This is a good listen, the narrator helps bring the characters to life, and the story moves along at a brisk pace. Very entertaining.

Funny and easy listen

I have read a lot of comments about the narrator and I personally liked the voices and enjoyed the book. I thought it was pretty funny, not really what I expected but I still liked it alot.

Not as sharp as it pretends

Although I like to read/listen sharp prose about modern business life, this isn't it. The story line isn't too bad, and with several of the things that go on, you can shake your head, or grimace, and think sadly that these things really do go on in our world today.

My problem is more with the reading and writing styles themselves. The narrator holds a smarmy additude through the entire book, and every time I started up the story, I just wanted to reach in an throttle the guy. Maybe it was intentional -- I just found it annoying.

The writing style also got to me after a while. Every time a new character was introduced, we'd get this long list of adjectives, "He was...", "She was wearing...", and it just sounds like beginning writing. I've always felt that dialog was the best way to introduce your characters, and when I run into this stuff in real book, you just want to skip it and get to the rest of the story. It was happening enough in this story, that I almost did it.

I try not to be too critical, but nobody has written anything else about this book, and I was disappointed when I got it myself. On the flip side, I also just finished Stephen King's "Cell", and it's not very deep, but it was very entertaining.

Totally Entertaining

Throughly enjoyable. The narrator was great. His light voice helped the story remain humerous throughout the story. This is my first hear of this author, but I enjoyed the story so much, I'm going to listen to it again as well as look for other books by him.