Picture the scene: The boardroom at French electricity giant EdF. The subject: 'Motivation'. One of the senior economists piped up: She came to work, she declared, because she was paid to. The stunned silence lasted a full 15 seconds. The woman was Corinne Maier and she had dared to voice the unspeakable - we go to work not because we love it, not because we love organising childcare, and cramming onto public transport for 45 minutes, but because we have to.
This sets the tone for Maier's revolutionary book on getting away with doing as little as possible at work. Full of practical tips as well as insights into the workings of the modern company, Bonjour Laziness is as inspirational as it is enlightening. Covering subjects ranging from getting promoted, to managing in meetings and dealing with colleagues, Bonjour Laziness is a witty antidote to the rash of American motivational books on the market. It is a call to the office-workers of the world to rise up and throw their laptops and mission statements in the air. Bonjour Laziness will make you laugh, then make you wish you'd known all of this years ago!
Read Morea warm salut for Maier's droll diatribe on the idocies of office life - a comic hit...Her witty proof that "There is no va-va-voom in business" calls on not just Foucault but Dilbert to make a sassy slacker's manual - INDEPENDENTaccording to Corinne Maier's hilarious hommage to the lazy git, sometimes it actually pays to be on the horizontal side of idle - DAILY RECORDThis slim book is aimed specifically at French corporate culture but its observations are sufficiently universal to warrant a translation - DAILY TELEGRAPH - Toby Clements