A Bull in a Glass House
A Former Marines Manifesto on Surviving the Corporate Jungle and Taking Control of Your Life
“In a nutshell corporate survival is about competence and relationships just like the Marines” author José Astorga writes. “If I were to come up with a very short recipe for survival or success it would have to be: Competence Passion Relationships (CPR). My experience has taught me all three—not just one or another—are required in varying degrees.”
Astorga’s book A Bull in a Glass House is a manifesto for working in and surviving the corporate world. With its hands-on approach the book is designed for people who work in the intense and often frustrating corporate environment.
A Bull in a Glass House reflects the author’s personal experience from more than twenty years in corporate America. He offers real-life examples giving an employee’s—rather than an employer’s—outlook on the workings of a large business. Astorga includes dialogue from conversations that took place between him and his managers or co-workers and between others who worked around him. The book also gives readers dozens of tools for navigating and communicating in the workplace. With more than fifty “Bull’s Rules” to consider Astorga helps people stay motivated and inspired.
“No matter what ‘it’ is acquire your target focus and pull the trigger…but don’t you dare give up” he writes.
Astorga’s experience working in a large corporation and his disconnect with upper management inspired A Bull in a Glass House. He began writing the book while still entrenched in his job as a way to creatively vent his angst. His background as a Marine also helped inspire the tips he shares from effective ways of communicating to being a flexible employee. Astorga offers ways for all employees especially those in a larger corporate setting to learn ways to take charge of their role in the workplace.
With a strong work ethic and much dedication which Astorga attributes to his training in the Marines he writes about his challenging days at work: “Yes I was deconstructed but my foundation was solid and out of the debris rose a much stronger and wiser man.”
While the author provides plenty of firsthand accounts as well as humor some of the writings sound like personal journal rants from a frustrated worker. The examples are so generalized at times they seem impersonal. But for the most part Astorga is easy to relate to as most people have witnessed on-the-job frustrations.
A Bull in a Glass House is a worthwhile tool for those suffering in the sometimes harsh and impersonal corporate world.
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
