Miss Edith Does Not Have an MBA or Driver's License But Reads "Tepper Isn't Going Out" Anyway

Miss Edith, as a woman of the world (or at least, of her own world), has experienced a number of workplace environments. Yes: Miss Edith has even worked at a fancy women’s shoe boutique, selling ludicrously overpriced little slices of leather to ladies who lunch. Miss Edith did this for two weeks, saw her paycheck, and immediately quit. But she can honestly say she’s worked as a shoe saleswoman.

And Miss Edith has basically been in rather specialized forms of sales ever since. Most of all, it is Miss Edith’s experience that she sells herself; it is the persona of Miss Edith that seems to generate sales of the items at hand. Sales is about personality in ways that people do not always understand or realize. It’s about how conveying a certain kind of personality at specific moments. Miss Edith does not have an MBA (can you fucking imagine if she did? That would be unreal) but she’s been known to reel in customers like they were little silly fishies in a cool New Hampshire lake. She often thinks about this and has gone so far as to opine that MBA courses could do well to offer courses on Miss Edith. Certainly, with all the time they’re not using to study ethics, they could do worse than to study Miss Edith…

But she digresses.

The life of Miss Edith, Literary Vendeuse, seldom overlaps with her actual literary life, in the sense that she tends to not read so many books about sales or marketing. It’s been known to happen, though. A few years back I read some work by Paco Underhill, and actually found it rather interesting. I’ve read Thomas Frank’s The Conquest of Cool. I have even read books by MBA types for MBA types, about sales, about business language, about increasing customer service. Frankly, it’s amazing to me that Miss Edith has actually spent time reading this shit – and, overwhelmingly, it is shit. But when one sells for a living, sometimes, one must read books one does not find actually entertaining. Not that I didn’t enjoy Paco Underhill – I don’t want to sound like I’m insulting him; I found his works light but interesting – Miss Edith doesn’t have any quibbles with Paco Underhill. But overwhelmingly, these books for business types are dreck to the nth degree.

A recent jaunt to the local library on a fine weekday afternoon led me to borrow six different books. There were two YA novels; two lit’ry fiction type of things, both on the light side; a recent book about women’s economic position in the U.S. today, and a work on the demise of the English language. The first title I began to read was Calvin Trillin’s popular novel of a few years back, Tepper Isn’t Going Out. I’ve long admired Trillin’s food writing, and may be the only person under the age of 50 who actually owns a copy of Floater. I read his recently-published-in-book-form tribute to his wife, Alice, when it was originally printed in The New Yorker, and was swept away by it like everyone else. (Miss Edith isn’t entirely hard-hearted, you know.) Basically, it doesn’t get much better than Calvin Trillin – so it was high time I read Tepper.

Tepper Isn’t Going Out is a novel about parking, a subject I don’t think about much because I don’t drive. But what I didn’t expect is that it’s also a book about sales – about lead generation. Are there other novels that discuss the nuts-and-boltsy aspect of the business world like this? I cannot name any. Has anyone any titles to offer?

If you do, please let Miss Edith know; she’s really most curious to read fiction that talks about the boring side of business; books about business that aren’t actually business books. And don’t give me Ayn Rand, friends. Give me something under the radar. Give me something that wasn’t written by some “it” boy interviewed in last month’s NYT Magazine. Surprise me.

I have enjoyed reading Tepper thus far and look forward to finishing it. Perhaps by the time I’m done I’ll have even greater insight into why the business world is as revolting as it currently is. But in the meantime, I’d like to recommend to MBA types (hello?) and those who work for MBA types but feel they deserve better (yes, you, sweetie) a short list of books that will remind you all that talking like an MBA is not, truly not, an admirable thing. “You’re an animal!” is not a compliment when said outside the bedroom. There is no good reason for speaking sentences that mean nothing at all unless you are Lewis Carroll. Remind yourself of what it’s like to be a person by exposing yourself to these books, which, yes, Miss Edith has actually read.

Why Business People Speak Like Idiots: A Bullfighter’s Guide by Brian Fugere, Chelsea Hardaway, and Jon Warshawsky


The Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit: An A to Z Lexicon of Empty, Enraging, and Just Plain Stupid Office Talk by Lois Beckwith

Your Call Is Important To Us: The Truth about Bullshit by Laura Penny

As the eminent Irish business man Bernard Black says, “Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes.”