A Handmaid’s Tale in reverse: a 1970s man dropped into an aggressively matriarchal future . . . American astronaut John Donegal has cheated death when his damaged re-entry vehicle veered away from the earth into deep space. He has flooded the cabin with liquid nitrogen from the reserve air supply to freeze himself in the hopes of eventual rescue when his orbit next brings him within reach, decades or even centuries in the future. When he awakes, Donegal finds himself in what is surely a hospital, but seems more like a lavish manor house. He is in the care of two doctors and two nurses, all women. His first question — to learn how far into the future he has come — is What is the date? To his surprise, his kindly caretakers can come up with no very satisfying answer to this question. They tell him precisely what day in May it is, but as to the year number they profess to be perplexed. Why would anyone want to keep track that way? Well, to record history, Donegal says. They look disappointed and tell him gravely, “Those who remember history are doomed to repeat it.” All knowledge of the past has been suppressed, along with such “dangerous” notions as nations, states, flags, and affiliations of all kinds. “Nobody today cares about such things.” It is clear that some catastrophic event in the past has caused massive societal change, but no one can tell him what it was. From what evidence he can piece together he realizes that he must have come at least several hundred years into the future. The patriarchal society he once knew has been replaced by one that is rigidly matriarchal. After an initial exuberance at being alive at all, he is overcome with a mounting sense of loss. His childhood sweetheart, life partner and wife, Jill, has now been dead for centuries. Can he even grieve for someone who has been dead for so long? And yet, in his own frame of reference she was alive only weeks ago. They had known each other more than half their lives by the time the married, and now he believes he knows her well enough to be sure of one thing: She would not have let him go off into the unknown future without something from her. There must be a message somewhere waiting for him, a message from Jill. He sets out to find it. As he goes about his quest he learns that the new world which so values peacefulness is full of bottled-up violence and a danger that comes at him from an unexpected quarter. He is warned of a kind of male humiliation ritual that is accepted by all and that he is expected to accept as well. What this society wants to suppress is not only ideas about the past but also an old-fashioned attitude that is so intrinsic to Donegal that he comes to be viewed as a “virus.” His very existence is a threat. The traces of the past are so few and so diligently concealed that he begins to lose hope of finding anything about Jill and how the rest of her life played out. He has only a few dreams to sustain him, dreams in which she tries and fails to tell him something. On the brink of defeat, he hears a haunting melody in a fairground, a song one of the performers tells him is “as old as the hills.” The words make no sense to him at all, but as he encounters it again and again he comes to suspect that the song is the message, a cryptic love note that has reached out to him across the centuries.

The One-Way Time Traveler

DeMarco, Tom

Romance

Tom DeMarco

Workplace culture explained in an actionable form. 
The pandemic, work-from-home, hybrid work modes, and sold-off real estate have dealt organizational cultures a body blow. Here's a book about rebuilding your culture. Early Praise for Happy to Work Here: “An important book on the topic at exactly the right time.” – Rob Austin, author of Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations. 
A no-handwaving treatment of workplace culture. Yes, we all know culture is important, but just exactly what is it? In the first six chapters, the authors lay out the unique and powerful concept of culture drivers. You'll understand culture, both in your own workplace and in that of others, as you've never understood it before. 
"Those who loved classics like Peopleware, Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies, and Slack will love Happy to Work Here. The authors, all members of the Atlantic Systems Guild, use storytelling gathered from decades of guiding workplace cultures to give us meaningful insights into organizations." – Michael Mah, Managing Partner of QSM Associates 
"The whole section on Culture Killers was hilarious. It will make you laugh . . . and cry." What readers are saying: "What a revelation to find a book on corporate culture that is actually a joy to read! Happy to Work Here is so well-organized, graphically presented and written that even a non-corporate person like myself, who has been a writer and editor for smallish magazines and newspapers, can enjoy reading it and find so many resonant insights. Some of my favorites: leaders should 'be the behavior you seek;' design in products and the work environment is of utmost importance because 'if you don’t pay attention to beauty then you are consigned to expediency;' company structure should include a shared belief that 'no one is threatened by excellent performance;' and the best of all, for me, was the comment by one of the book’s six authors, Tom DeMarco, that the satisfaction of creating something 'as a partnership was better' than doing it alone, proof of how working together with the right group ethos can be so rewarding. — Jefferson, Maine "Yes, I recommend this book! It reeks of hard-learned lessons from which we all can benefit, in or outside of the corporate world." — Camden, Maine "I was interested to read Happy to Work Here” as the experienced authors carefully lay out the important drivers of a healthy culture in a company, as well as the culture killers. More importantly they provide a detailed blueprint on how one can assess the culture of their workplace and take steps to improve this most important aspect of a successful organization.As I read the book, I was reminded of observations made by Hyrum Smith, the cofounder with Stephen Covey of the FranklinCovey Co. In a recent book, Smith suggested there are three levels of emotion to motivate people to come to work each day. The lowest level is fear of losing one’s source of income and the feeling of having to come to work each day. The second level is duty were coming to work is considered the proper thing to do, and the highest level to motivate people to act is love where they actually look forward to coming to work. Employees at this level need very little supervision and workplace culture is the key to instilling this feeling of looking forward to working at the company. The research and resulting suggestions the authors provide are spot on to assist readers in first assessing, and then improving, the culture and productivity of their organizations.: – Dover, Massachussetts "This is a useful common sense guide to improving workplace culture. It is mostly focussed on teams building IT products. I particularly enjoyed the section on Culture Killers - such as the dangers of ‘Unspoken Rules’" — London, England

Happy to Work Here: Understanding and Improving the Culture at Work

Business & Money

Lister, Tim

Robertson, Suzanne

Hruschka, Peter

McMenamin, Steve

ROBERTSON, James

Business Culture

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Books by Tom DeMarco