although the typist has disappeared, her work has not: now you do it yourself. ... Since most companies have reduced the managerial ranks, there are fewer and fewer bosses, so you become a manger, his boss, and his secretary all rolled into one.

Corporations never actually mention 'money'; that would be vulgar. They prefer such words as 'turnover,' 'profit,' 'salary,' 'revenue,' 'budget,' 'premium,' and 'savings,' all much more refined.

When you're 'recruiting' people in temporary positions for the firm (short-term contracts, free-lancers, etc.) treat them well: remember, they're the only ones who actually do any work.

we live in a world of excess: too many kinds of coffee, too many magazines, too many types of bread, too many digital recordings of Beethoven's Ninth, too many choices of rearview mirrors on the latest Renault. Sometimes you say to yourself: It's too much, it's all too much.

Ethics is a bit like culture: the less one has, the more one flaunts it.

The more big business talks about something, the less of it there is. For example, it 'values' jobs just at the moment when they disappear; it revels in 'autonomy' when in fact you have to fill out forms in triplicate for the slightest trifle and ask the advice of six people to make insignificant decisions; it harps on 'ethics' while believing in absolutely nothing.

Ethics is a detergent word, used time and time again to clean consciences without scrubbing.