Making a meal of corporate culture

Issue 19 | May 2007

Report: Penny Rankin

Melbourne-born author and Monash graduate Max Barry (BBus/Mktg 1994) is relatively unknown in Australia, yet acclaimed in the United States.

Max Barry is making the leap onto the international stage with his satirical novels, including new book Company.

His satirical work has attracted film deals and interest from Hollywood figures such as John Cusack and George Clooney.

For his third and latest novel, published earlier this year, he turned to his former job at a large computer firm for inspiration.

Company, published by Scribe Publications, takes a satirical view of the corporate world. It is the story of Stephen Jones, a new employee of Seattle-based company Zephyr Holdings. Jones faces the challenges that come with joining a large faceless firm where no-one has ever seen the CEO, the beautiful but lazy receptionist is paid twice as much as anybody else and one of the sales reps uses relationship books as sales manuals.

Mr Barry dedicates the novel to a major computer firm where he "spent three years earning $33,000 a year while pretending to be a high-flying sales rep".

While working there he used his 40-minute lunch breaks to write his first novel Syrup and his work experiences are said to have influenced this latest book.

"I'd heard so many stories that I thought, 'This has to be a book'. There are so many incidents of everyday cruelty and incidental inhumanity in companies that just happen because of the structure," Mr Barry said.

The book's front cover features the image of a large donut, a reference to the bizarre work status of the sugary snack.

"Every day we'd have morning snacks. Once a week it was donuts and from the outside it would seem insane that anyone would care about something so insignificant as a doughnut - but in the corporate environment it was more about the presence of this scarce resource and the status that came along with it," he said.

"So on donut day all these sales reps - making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year - would appear and the doughnuts would go out and if one of these guys didn't get their doughnut it was a major social embarrassment."

Mr Barry has written two other novels with similar themes, including Syrup and Jennifer Government. He also wrote the online political game NationStates, which has been played by over half a million people.

Links:
www.maxbarry.com
www.scribepublications.com.au/book/company