What do fairy tales and difficult people at work have in common? Authors Terrence L Gargiulo and Gini Graham Scott use twenty four fairy tales to demonstrate different personality types at work, what makes them difficult to deal with, and tactics of how to make it through the workday around them.
As an example, Tale #4 is a tale from Tibet called "The Cat and the Mice." In it a mouse who is growing old convinces the local mice that he will no longer eat any of the mice, as long as they come to him twice each day and bow to him to give homage. The mice thought this was a great deal, so each day they went to the cat and bowed before him. What they didn't realize was that each time, the cat would snatch the last mouse in the line and eat it.
Two mice who were friends thought there was something going on, so they teamed up to outwit the cat. One walked at the front of the line and the other brought up the rear. Once the first mouse passed the cat, he started calling back and forth with the last mouse. Since they were calling to each other, the cat didn't dare touch the last mouse. After two days of this the cat was hungry and angry, and tried to attack the mice, however, since the two friends warned all the other mice, the cat ended up empty-handed and eventually died of starvation.
The moral of this tale was that sometimes there is a seemingly helpful person who actually has a more nefarious objective. The author give examples of what these people might be like and then gives suggestions on how to deal with the office plots that might be underway.
Twenty four different tales from around the world cover a variety of personality types that you may run into at work or in your private life. Examples of how to identify the individuals and how to deal with them, will equip you with a battery of life skills to help defend yourself at work. In the Land of Difficult People is one of the most unique and memorable books I've read on how to manage difficult work relationships, and definitely worth the read.
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