Parasitic consultants, weaselly stockbrokers, masochistic coworkers and the ever-present, evil-plotting pointy-haired boss? Welcome to the seventh circle of hell, er, the 22nd collection of Scott Adams¿ stupendously popular comic strip, Dilbert! Words You Don¿t Want to Hear During Your Annual Performance Review updates loyal readers on the mind-numbing careers of Dilbert, Wally, Alice, the PHB himself, and an ever-expanding cast of walk-on ¿guest stars.¿ In this installment, a cash-sucking ¿consultick¿ burrows under the boss¿s skin, a not-so-grim reaper pops anti-depressants, and a lab accident turns Dilbert into a sheep¿a transformation which goes barely noticed by his beleaguered coworkers. All the while, Adams takes his patented over-the-top but right-on-the-money jabs at the inanity of the corporate world. Dilbert¿s fans are legion and loyal. They have purchased seven million cartoon collection books and counting. The Dilbert comic strip appears in 2,000 newspapers and in 65 countries in 19 languages.

From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together

Do you supervise people? If so, this book is for you. One of a manager’s toughest—and most important—responsibilities is to evaluate an employee’s performance, providing honest feedback and clarifying what they’ve done well and where they need to improve. In How to Be Good at Performance Appraisals, Dick Grote provides a concise, hands-on guide to succeeding at every step of the performance appraisal process—no matter what performance management system your organization uses. Through step-by-step instructions, examples, do-and-don’t bullet lists, sample dialogues, and suggested scripts, he shows you how to handle every appraisal activity from setting goals and defining job responsibilities to evaluating performance quality and discussing the performance evaluation face-to-face. Based on decades of experience guiding managers through their biggest challenges, Grote helps answer the questions he hears most often: • How do I set goals effectively? How many goals should someone set? • How do I evaluate a person’s behaviors? Which counts more, behaviors or results? • How do I determine the right performance appraisal rating? How do I explain my rating to a skeptical employee? • How do I tell someone she’s not meeting my expectations? How do I deliver bad news? Grote also explains how to tackle other thorny performance management tasks, including determining compensation and terminating poor performers. In accessible and useful language, How to Be Good at Performance Appraisals will help you handle performance appraisals confidently and successfully, no matter the size or culture of your organization. It’s the one book you need to excel at this daunting yet critical task.

Why is Dilbert such a phenomenon? People see their own dreary, monotonous lives brought to comedic life in the ubiquitous strip. In the 23rd collection of Scott Adams¿ tremendously popular series, Don¿t Stand Where the Comet Is Assumed to Strike Oil, suppressed and repressed workers everywhere can follow the latest developments in the so-called careers of Dilbert, power-hungry Dogbert, Catbert, Ratbert, the pointy-haired boss, and other supporting¿but don¿t you dare call them supportive¿characters. Each ¿funny because it¿s true¿ scenario bears an uncanny, hysterical, sometimes uncomfortable similarity to cubicle-filled corporate America. But the United States clearly hasn¿t cornered the market when it comes to drone-filled offices: Dilbert appears in 65 countries in 25 languages and in 2,000 newspapers. The strip has 150 million fans worldwide.

The performance review. It is one of the most insidious, most damaging, and yet most ubiquitous of corporate activities. We all hate it. And yet nobody does anything about it. Until now... Straight-talking Sam Culbert, management guru and UCLA professor, minces no words as he puts managers on notice that -- with the performance review as their weapon of choice -- they have built a corporate culture based on intimidation and fear. Teaming up with Wall Street Journal Senior Editor Lawrence Rout, he shows us why performance reviews are bogus and how they undermine both creativity and productivity. And he puts a good deal of the blame squarely on human resources professionals, who perpetuate the very practice that they should be trying to eliminate. But Culbert does more than merely tear down. He also offers a substitute -- the performance preview -- that will actually accomplish the tasks that performance reviews were supposed to, but never will: holding people accountable for their actions and their results, and giving managers and their employees the kind of feedback they need for improving their skills and to give the company more of what it needs. With passion, humor, and a rare insight into what motivates all of us to do our best, Culbert offers all of us a chance to be better managers, better employees and, indeed, better people. Culbert has long said his goal is to make the world of work fit for human consumption. "Get Rid of the Performance Review!" shows us how to do just that.

If you've ever thought, "There must be more to life than this," The Art of Non-Conformity is for you. Based on Chris Guillebeau's popular online manifesto "A Brief Guide to World Domination," The Art of Non-Conformity defies common assumptions about life and work while arming you with the tools to live differently. You'll discover how to live on your own terms by exploring creative self-employment, radical goal-setting, contrarian travel, and embracing life as a constant adventure. Inspired and guided by Chris's own story and those of others who have pursued unconventional lives, you can devise your own plan for world domination-and make the world a better place at the same time.

The twenty-fifth collection of comics about the work-place antics of Dilbert, his dog Dogbert, and their co-workers.