Self-help book's tone patronizing, unrealistic

So, in case you haven't heard, it's tough to get the job you want when you get out of school. Difficult to leave the paper or plastic proletariat behind, rise to the grand bourgeoisie dream of house boating and a Chevy Suburban.

And thus, I'll read anything to get an edge.

"Welcome to the Real Working World: What Every Employee Must Know to Succeed"(GPG, $9.95, 160 p.) is author Frank Doerger's thesis on working in the late '90s.

It's a self-help book for the days of downsizing and the Dilbert blues.

And on some levels it is helpful. Doerger's simple advice on obtaining employment, for example, is nothing ground breaking, but worth going over. Presented like a check list, the book goes over preparing for an interview, from making sure your shoes are s hined to rehearsing your answers to possible questions. Important things to remember in order to sell yourself to whatever corporation club you want to join.

In fact, much of the work focuses on self-presentation or preservation, depending upon how you look at it. Doerger talks about the importance of walking and standing up straight. Of avoiding such bad habits as complaining and immodesty.

Doerger's advice is like the things mom told you when you went off to grade school. Don't laugh at others mistakes, own up to your own, don't take short cuts.

It's like Stephen Covey for college graduates. And perhaps that's the only problem with the work. Doerger can't avoid pedantry. Perhaps this is simply a facet of self-help writing, perhaps it is inherently patronizing. For example, when Doerger writes, "I f we're serious about a dream, it's attainable," sounds like such typical new age, I'm-secure-with-myself doggerel, that it makes me cringe.

This whole tone was very hard for me to get past. For example, if I want to be a good co-worker, I should clean up the vending room if I mess it up. This is in bold print. I took it personally because it makes me wonder what exactly Doerger's ideas on the working public are. Are we so unmannerly and stupid and rude that we need this point emphasized? Is this piece of advice as necessary for surviving in the real working world as learning to delegate?

Other things lead me to question Doerger's perceptions of the real working world. He constantly advises keeping your head down, being a team player, not complaining. Granted there are times when it is appropriate to do all these things. But I hope there i s a time to stand up at work. But how can you do that when we must always be on the look out for the motives behind the questions. And how can we lead when we're always being

"realistic"?

Don't get me wrong, it is important to have an advice manual for the now. Your Dale Carnegie is a little dated. It's important to advise employees that computers are out there, that handicapped people are people and that off-color jokes are probably a bad idea.

But advising employees to "dress up a level," but not up too many levels, rings of all the same organization-man bullshit that drove us all to watch so much TV.

And, after all, all this advice just to work at Kinko's.