CHARACTERS: 2/5
WRITING STYLE: 2/5
CLIMAX: 2/5
ENTERTAINMENT QUOTIENT: 2.5/5
The title would be more apt if I were to read it in my office. I would be shocked & I would be at the office. But luckily I was at home and a disprin was at hand.
Rupa & Co. was celebrating the launch of its new website and offered a 50% discount on all books for one week and that is when I purchased this book.
I would like to start the book review of Office Shocks with a question. ‘Do you remember your first day at the office?’ I remember being a bit afraid, a bit happy, a bit worried and a bit of all other emotions possible.
But I don’t remember being in a mood for humour. The author has tried to create a humorous story around ‘first-day office experience’ and I must say that this is not a bad idea.
What better way than to have a confused & new bakra as the central character of a humour plot. But sadly, the story has failed in making me laugh.
The story is about the first day of Aniket as a Junior Associate in Cairn & Company.
The author has tried his best in bringing a humour quotient into the plot by using the boss’s character, the nosy colleagues, the training seminars, the client meeting, the lunchtime, the fag sessions and the womanising manager etc.
I didn’t much enjoy most of these scenes because of the writing style of the author. Instead of creating a funny situation, the author has tried to bring humour by using jargons, slangs & funny language.
Say, for example, to describe a colleague who has thick & bushy eyebrows, the author writes, “One of the guys was the embodiment of a lesser-known corporate adage that told something about working to make both ends meet, through a rather endowed and bushy uni-brow”.
In spite of all this, the book has a few lighter & funny moments too.
I liked a scene where Aniket bumps into a colleague in the washroom and the discussion between them. There are a few funny dialogues too which will make you laugh.
When Aniket finds out that the elevator is not in operation & a colleague advises him to take the stairs, he says to himself, “Oh really, I was all game to go base-jumping to take revenge on all my bones.”
The titles of the chapters have funny names & the acknowledgement written by the author is very innovative. This is where the fun ends.
Even though the book is only around 100 pages, it gets very boring in the end and I was tempted to jump a few paras (though I didn’t).
Though I will not recommend this book to anyone, if you love reading very short books, you can give it a try. Who knows, you might just like it!!!