How to Be a Villain

What becomes of the helpful one, when he ceases to help automatically? Of the reliable one, when he refrains from rescuing everybody in the deadlines? Of the competent one, when she no longer gives away her time, experience, emotions, brain parts absolutely free? She seems to become a Villain. "How to Be a Villain" is an ironic manual of survival for good persons who have become fed up with being professionally and emotionally exploited. Shrinking budgets of promotion, "great exposure," corporate resilience, impossible deadlines, meetings without end, family expectations, sense of guilt, and, finally, the technique of refusing without writing an explanatory note are among those daily systems targeted by this book. Witty, disrespectful, rather vicious, and based on well-known situations, it is not concerned with becoming evil. It is concerned with making oneself invulnerable to exploitation. As sometimes the Villain is simply the one who refuses to perform the function that everyone else silently attributes to him. Cape optional. Coffee recommended.