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Cube farm /

Truth is often stranger than fiction, especially when it comes to the workplace. In Cube Farm, author Bill Blunden recounts his three years in Minnesota performing research and development for Lawson Software. Riddled with intrigue, duplicity and collusion, this story offers a trench-level view of a...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Blunden, Bill, 1969-
Corporate Author: SpringerLink (Online service)
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Berkeley, CA : Apress, [2004]
Subjects:
Computer software industry > Management.
Industrial management.
Electronic books.
Online Access:Connect to the full text of this electronic book
Table of Contents:
  • Chapter 1 The Ivy League Advantage 1
  • Don't Drink the Kool-Aid 2
  • Scarcity, Dependence, and Leverage 6
  • Back to School 8
  • Deathmatch 11
  • Aggressive Salesmanship 12
  • Chapter 2 Blazing a Trail to Minnesota 15
  • Job Offer #1 15
  • Job Offer #2 19
  • Job Offer #3 22
  • Chapter 3 First Impressions 27
  • The Minnesota Experience 27
  • Minehsootah 29
  • Sad Faces and Bad Smells 30
  • The Twilight Zone 35
  • Chapter 4 The Illuminati 39
  • Prehistory: Single-Tier and Two-Tier Applications 40
  • A BriefTour of Lawson Internals 42
  • The Rise of the Illuminati 45
  • In Secrecy, There Is Power 47
  • The Superset, Novell's Illuminati 51
  • Chapter 5 Vanishing Act 55
  • The First of Many Failures 55
  • The Mad Prophet 62
  • The Truth About Reorganization 67
  • Chapter 6 The King's New Clothes 71
  • The Old Gray Mare 73
  • Enter: Dr. Theopolis 75
  • What's in a Name? 79
  • The King Is Naked 82
  • A Brief Rant on Fashionable Technology 84
  • Chapter 7 The Great Escape 87
  • LSU 88
  • Cobol: Cumbersome Outdated Badly Organized Language 93
  • Reclaiming the Repository: Part I 95
  • Man Overboard! 97
  • Waiting for Godot 99
  • Chapter 8 It's the Nature of the Beast 103
  • Case Tool Conundrum 103
  • Failure As a Way of Life 109
  • Kamikaze Engineering 110
  • Chapter 9 A Fixed Fight 115
  • Reclaiming the Repository: Part II 117
  • The Power of a Paper Trail 118
  • Treason 121
  • Alpha Male 122
  • Blowback 125
  • Chapter 10 The Y2K Time Bomb! 129
  • Cube War 130
  • Office Supplies 131
  • $900 Chairs 132
  • Setting the Stage 135
  • Certification 136
  • Y2K in Minnesota 137
  • Death Race 2001 139.