It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work

Read as part of the book club for work.

I didn't like the book. There were a few good nuggets of information, but overall, the book felt like one big advertisement for BootCamp. Some of their suggestions just wouldn't work in a typical corporate situation. You can't set emails aside to read at just one time of the day or even two. If you require a response from someone to get some work done, you can't wait for them to get to their allotted time of the day for email reading, either. It's utopic. And unrealistic.

My fav of the 37 Signals books.

5 stars for how concise and on point a lot of the chapters are.

I don't agree with everything, but love the strong opinions and perspectives, and the central theme of the book ❤️ Loads of great, practical wisdom.

Reads like an OB case study of Basecamp. Some interesting and radical views on work life but not something that left me inspired or motivated to make changes.

Easy quick casual read. Opinionated. I agree with the theme but didn't agree with a lot of the specific practices. I like their vibe though. A little bit over-combative perhaps but it causes you to be like, wait if I want it to not have to be crazy at work maybe I have to take stock and take charge of my situation, since that's not always the default.

I would recommend this book to CEOs of small companies without desires to sell their company, compete with the big firms, or work with the Fortune 500. If you're not in this group you'll find this book useful to achieve a wonderful company culture.

Nice to read, good ideas how to run a small to medium calm business, as the authors point out pure anecdotes.

This book was way better than I expected. Unlike previous works like Remote which I found rather repetitive at times, this book was packed with goodies and common sense tips for how a business should be run. Frankly I regret never having applied to 37signals after having read this book. I was an early adapter of Ruby to boot (I wrote my first pages in 2002, 3 years before the first version of rails).

Solid 4 stars. I really enjoyed all the concepts and completely agree, but it was a bit too pithy and Food Rules for me to give it 5. I'm also intensely curious how Basecamp employees feel. CEOs always think they're doing better than they are.

Une entreprise stable plutôt qu'une course à la croissance, se centrer sur quelque chose unique mais le faire bien, respecter ses collaborateurs pour construire quelque chose ensemble. Ce livre devrait être lu par toute personne désireuse de créer son entreprise ou en dirigeant une.

Another great one from Basecamp. I would even say one of the best out there - exact and without any bloat. A must read for every manager/owner of a business.

Book packed with goodies. As always with DHH and Jason's books.

Enjoyed it a lot, will certainly re-read it many times.

I've only read it once so far, but I found myself rereading chapters regularly because 1) the main point of the chapter wasn't neatly condensed into a one-liner (which is neither good nor bad) and 2) the chapters moved so quickly that I felt like I missed something. There's a lot of good ideas in here, but whether you can actually make them happen at your company is a whole other matter. I feel like the advice in this book has several audiences and your use of this book largely depends on whether you're an employee, a manager, or an entrepreneur.

An entrepreneur would get the most out of this book, though they have to be willing to hear its advice and try it—it certainly goes against typical practices.

An employee will long for some of the ideas, but will only have so much power to make them happen. Some of the employee-applicable content will feel like common sense, but some of it runs counter to prevailing ideas, in particular the idea of not being constantly available.

A manager is somewhere in between the entrepreneur and the employee depending on their ability to change current practices, but they can be the champions for sane deadlines, trimming down scope, and protecting their employees' time. They can also be a good example for their team(s).

Overall, I enjoyed the book, but I feel like I need to read it again, or at least read over my highlights, in order to get everything out of it. The short chapters lead to the idea moving quickly through my head and I want to better hold some of those ideas because they're worth holding onto.

I guess asking me to review this is similar to asking a Christian to review the bible, or a teenager to review the latest song from Justin Bieber. I am as biased here as I can be, so you should not listen to me. Read the book yourself!