Works Well With Others ─ Shaking Hands, Shutting Up, and Other Crucial Skills in Business That No One Ever Teaches You

A hilarious and indispensable guide to the weirdness of the workplace from Esquire editor and Entrepreneur etiquette columnist Ross McCammon

Ten years ago, Ross McCammon made an incredible and unexpected transition from working at an in-flight magazine in suburban Dallas to landing his dream job atEsquire in New York. What followed was a period of almost debilitating anxiety and awkwardness—interspersed with minor instances of professional glory—as McCammon learned how to navigate the workplace while feeling entirely ill-equipped for achieving success in his new career.

Works Well with Others is McCammon’s “relentlessly funny and soberingly insightful”* journey from impostor to authority, a story that reveals the workplace for what it is: an often absurd landscape of ego and fear guided by social rules that no one ever talks about. By mining his own experiences at the magazine, McCammon provides advice on everything from firm handshakes to small talk in elevators to dealing with jerks and underminers. Here is an inspirational new way of looking at your job, your career, and success itself; an accessible guide for those of us who are smart, talented, and ambitious but who aren’t well-“leveraged” and don’t quite feel prepared for success . . . or know what to do once we’ve made it.

*Entertainment Weekly

Ross McCammon has been a senior editor at Esquire magazine since 2005, where he’s responsible for the magazine’s coverage of pop culture, drinking, cars, and etiquette. He has editedEsquire’s “Dubious Achievement Awards” and the long-running annual feature “The Best Bars in America,” writes the monthly feature “The Rules,” and is a frequent contributor to the magazine’s back-page humor section “This Way Out.” For three years he has been the business-etiquette columnist at Entrepreneur magazine. His humor has been collected inCreated in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeney’s Humor Category, edited by Dave Eggers. He lives in Westchester County, New York, with his wife and children.