Disclaimer: This review may contain offensive language for readers who are faint of heart. If so, do not, I repeat, do NOT continue reading this. I am not responsible for your mental anguish, suffering, or any potentially harmful physical reaction that may result from reading this.
The Good
The good points of “Who Moved my Cheese” are as follows:
It’s an easy read—for a first-grader.
The story is mildly entertaining—for unimaginative children.
It’s the story of two little people and how they cope with the fact that all their cheese has been moved from their station. It deals with one guy’s revelation that he should accept the fact that the cheese has been moved and go find more cheese. The other guy just sits around waiting for more cheese.
It’s supposed to be a metaphor for accepting change. That’s a good message in general.
So, to recap the good points.
It’s an easy read—for a first-grader.
The story is mildly entertaining—for unimaginative children.
The Bad
I find this book insulting on so many levels. Let me count the ways:
1. The size issue
The book is only about 71 pages but that 71 pages is in a huge font, the white space is huge, and then I am treated with an introduction full of inspiroof (proof by inspirational story) at the beginning of the book to fill up more pages.
Look, I have nothing against a short story. But when you are purposely trying to make your 6-8 page story into a book by over-formatting, it’s dishonest.
I think this was originally a newsletter article that the author or publisher over-formatted to make into a book.
It reminds me of those thousand-dollar 300-page “courses” you get from BS gurus that could be condensed into a 40-50-page book.
2. The intellectual level of this book
The book is shallow and frankly insulting to anyone possessing even a modicum of intelligence. I thought the book was written for a group of kindergarteners who were told that recess time has been revoked.
I am NOT kidding. As I noted in the good section, it is an easy read. And maybe that accounts for its popularity.
3. The message/metaphor of this book
Accepting change may be good. But change itself is not always good. In fact, change can be disastrous. On a small level, if some corporate executive is tired of the way things are going (even if they are going great), he or she may get it in their head to “change” things. Then when things don’t go well, just tell the employees it’s their fault for not embracing change.
To put it more bluntly, what do you do when someone moves your cheese, and there’s no more cheese to look for? In reality, it’s called losing a job, having your savings taken away, etc.
You have a right to not only ask Who Moved Your Cheese, but to say “GIVE ME BACK MY GODDAMNED CHEESE!” “Who Moved My Cheese?” seems to be saying, “Just accept whatever gets thrown at you.”
Well, that’s like telling a child to “just do what I tell you.”
Hmmm..maybe that is the message of the book.
Here’s the worst part of this book…the metaphor itself.
These little people live in a maze with rats. Now, what does the maze represent? Maybe, your job. And the cheese is, maybe, your position. So, if you get downsized, transferred, or told to mop the floor, you should embrace this change.
But there’s another option this book doesn’t even get close to approaching.
LEAVE THE MAZE!
You don’t need to stick around while someone is messing with you. ”Who Moved My Cheese” was right about one thing: it’s a book concerning “little people”.
Well, I’m not a little person. I am a big person who can make big big decisions. And I for one would choose to leave the maze. When a game is rigged, your best option, no, your ONLY option is to stop playing the game.
In the book, one guy sits there and waits, the other goes to other parts of the maze to look for cheese. They’re both idiots.
The Verdict
This has got to be one of the worst books I’ve ever read.
The fact that so many people find this book “life-changing” boggles my mind. “Who Moved My Cheese” is just plain stupid. I found it to be neither inspirational nor uplifting. It did not give me any revelations or even one good idea. It was a complete waste of time—albeit short since it is the size of a newsletter article.
The fact is I got this book as part of my divorce. I wondered why my ex-wife would give up the book so quickly. Now, I know why.
My hope is that if I can save just ONE person from reading this inane drivel then my life would be meaningful.
I recommend some other activities that are a better use of your time than reading this book.
They include:
Taking a nap
Playing Tetris
Drawing stick figures in a notebook
Coloring a picture
Playing with blocks
Going to the bathroom
Eating cheese (that is, good cheese, and don’t let anyone take that away from you.)
Trimming your nails
Those are just a few suggestions.
To end this review, I know that when I say don’t read this book, some of you will leave out the “don’t” and just see read this book. Curiosity will get the better of some of you. I understand that.
So, I let me summarize the book for you:
Embrace change.
There you go. That’s it. If you’d like to donate to my blog in lieu of buying the book, I won’t stop you.
But wait, there’s more….
For my blog readers, I am offering a free 1o-page cheesed* version of this review. Download it for free and send it to 200 of your closest friends (or you could just share this link).
Cheesed Review of “Who Moved My Cheese”
* cheesed (adj): when content is formatted in such a way to make it appear that there are more pages than there actually are, a la “Who Moved my Cheese?”
Who Moved my Cheese=who insulted my intelligence http://ow.ly/Yb1H
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Carlon Haas, Carlon Haas. Carlon Haas said: Who Moved my Cheese=who insulted my intelligence http://ow.ly/Yb1H [...]
Still can't figure out why anyone likes this book http://ow.ly/YnuI
RT @carlon: Review of Who Moved my Cheese http://ow.ly/Yb1H – funny review of this book.
@carlon Thank you for a fitting review of Who Moved My Cheese http://ow.ly/Yb1H. Like you, I still wonder why this book got recognition.
RT @Rippleon: RT @carlon: Review of Who Moved my Cheese http://ow.ly/Yb1H – funny review of this book….Thanks for the retweet
I love this article! When my husband divorced me, a cousin of mine recommended this book. I did NOT get it, but I kept thinking about it. Last fall, I read Barbara Ehrenreich's book, “Blind-Sided,” which pretty much echoes your views about how stupid “Who Moved My Cheese” is.
After reading these comments, I am really glad I did not invest in the book. I am sure I would have hated it. It sounds like it would be invalidating and trivializing to someone who has suffered a great loss.
NOw, I feel complete. I know it was worth wiritng if I could convince at least one person not to read that book. I feel great. You made the right decision.
I read Ehrenreich's book. I am planning to review it for the site in the future. I thought it was a good book in general. But what I liked was that it illustrates that people are allowed to have different reaction to situations.
I've lived in places where it's not normal to cry at funerals. But try telling that to some people. They think it's not “normal”.
I think telling people they have to be positive all the time is patronizing and insulting. When you go through a tough time, I don't think you need someone blowing sunshine up your a** and saying make lemonade out of lemons.
Anyway, good for you. By NOT reading this book, you gained valuable time in your life to do something more worthwhile.
Forgive me for taking so long to respond to your comment. I have been mulling over how to respond. Since I have NOT read “Who Moved My Cheese,” I am at a bit of a disadvantage, but I want to say something about the issue of options after your cheese has been taken away.
If your cheese is gone, and you have no way of obtaining new cheese, it is really hard to put a positive spin on this. There are some losses that you can NOT recover from. Your ability to recover from any cheese-disaster has to do with what you have to work with: your own abilities, friends, family, etc.
If you lose one job, but are highly skilled and can find an equivalent job, then that's not too bad. If you get severely injured, and can no longer work at all, it's hard to claim that your new life is not worse, it's just different.
Having your cheese moved and having your cheese completely taken away are two very different things.
I humbly suggest that you consider reviewing a book called “The Grief Recovery Handbook,” by John James and Russell Friedman. I liked it, but it doesn't address the issue of what to do when you don't have the resources to rebuild after a loss. Also, I was a little leery of the book since neither of the authors seems to have any training as a mental health professional.
Now, I am not not the sharpest knife in the drawer, so I would love to hear another opinion.
I'd like to hear storys from other people who worked a Liberty Mutual. I knew I had made a mistake when in my… http://fb.me/uoIhKJ4k
My mother in-law had this book lying around in her library among others that had been given to her in the corporate executive meetings. She works for a fortune 500 company, so I imagine there’s no shortage of brains in the room when there is a board meeting.
Until…someone handed this book out. At a risk of sounding naive, the only purpose of this book is to sell more books. I’d rather sit through an Amway presentation. My review of this book is, absolutely stupid.
I’ve seen a lot of smart people read dumb books…no harm in that. It’s passing that stupidity out to others that’s a real crime. As for an Amway presentation, you can have a lot of fun with those. I always ask, “So how much money have you made so far?”
They usually give a big number. Then I ask about expenses and they never know. And then I say, “Hey you said this was a business. What kind of businessperson doesn’t count expenses?”
And it just gets better from there….
Thank god there is someone else who thought this book was a joke. I’m surprised that so many people were fooled by the catchy name and bought this garbage.
The other thing that bothered me- the “little people” never actually did any labor. The cheese just showed up for free, with no effort on their part. This book is often given to people at layoffs, and those being fired have worked their asses off for their “cheese”.
The other thing was the “discussion” that the layed off workers had about the book in my edition. It was so badly written, with such stilted dialog that it makes the rest of the book seem clever by comparison.
The other thing that bothered me- the “little people” never actually did any labor. The cheese just showed up for free, with no effort on their part. This book is often given to people at layoffs, and those being fired have worked their asses off for their “cheese”.
The other thing was the “discussion” that the layed off workers had about the book in my edition. It was so badly written, with such stilted dialog that it makes the rest of the book seem clever by comparison.
I couldn’t agree with you more. I’m reading this book (were being forced to for work) and it’s incredibly insulting. Well, I’m getting laid off shortly ( like I didn’t see this coming)
Sorry to hear about getting laid off. Don’t know what’s worse…losing a job or reading that book! Doing both is a nightmare come true. My sympathy.
Your negativity is inspirational.
Alas, I was not so lucky…today I purchased and read this seminal and groundbreaking contribution to Western Civilization (sarcasm intended) on the recommendation of my doctor. After experiencing a lay-off, a nasty divorce, a series of health crises and the severing of a 25-year friendship with my former best friend — all within the past 18 months – he apparently thought this book might help and inspire. I’ll be generous: it was moderately inspirational, but not so much that I’d jump on this crazy Cheese Bandwagon of lemmings and fall to the ground weeping tears of joy that I was lucky enough to be exposed to this book. For me it was just enough of a kick in the ass to give me a little motivation during a down time, but that’s about it. I can definitely see why many have panned this thing as being insultingly simplistic. Life’s many complicated twists and turns deserve better treatment than some insipid parable about friggin’ mice in a maze looking for cheese. Are people that starved for life guidance and self-help advice that even this paltry little tale soared to #1 on bestseller lists? And what does this say about the intellectual and emotional maturity of our fellow citizens? I knew back in the 90s when I first saw this in bookstores that it was setting off my B.S. meter; now I know why. And obviously all the weenies in management in large corporations have co-opted this book and its message, so that now it’s just a caricature of what it was probably intended to be. In fact, I just looked back at all the fawning, syrupy testimonials and yup — most come from a bunch of corporate tool managers at places like Kodak, Xerox, Merrill Lynch and others. I’d like to propose that Congress pass a new law stating that if anyone at a major corporate entity is presented this book by their superiors, it would be legal to wing it right back into their skull and draw blood.
I think it is the basis of a capitalistic plot to exploit labor. Keep them hungry, scared, and mindless.
Oh thank god someone else feels this way. I have to read this book for school and I was honestly insulted that my teacher assigned it to us and am still baffled at the worshipful response from my fellow students. Everything about the book made me want to puke.
@edgicovi Look what I found instead
interesting review http://t.co/4jOZGXhc
And to think that I had to read this book for my junior English class. 11th grade!
I never read that book because the person that told me to was one of those Pollyanna religious zealots with lots of money and no real problems–you know, the “I got mine sucks to be you” sort of person. I made the mistake of letting it slip that I couldn’t afford ridiculously overpriced and unaffordable health insurance and suffer and constantly live in fear as a result. When that little bit of cheese is “moved”, you get to go home and die.
THANK YOU so much. I just suffered thru 75 minutes of the audio book this past weekend…and I was wondering if I had actually gotten the correct book from the library. I’ve heard news for 10 years about this book…over and over…seminars. best sellers etc. I felt like it was written for college freshman at best… maybe high school freshman ? All the concepts have been covered in other “adult business books” written since maybe 1965, so I guess this is the children’s version of those concepts? I felt insulted that I listened to it. How How How could it sell 26 million copies ?
The book is just a tool for corporate weasels to shove their crap down the employee’s throats. I am so sick of hearing the title of this book quoted to me by my “superiors” as justification for dumping more meaningless work on us than is possible to do. To me its just a brain washing technique to tell employess to up and not complain when we’re told we must now work more hours and get less pay.
Sad that you think intelligence entails all that negativity and drama..if you don’t like it that’s your opinion, say so and then be quiet if you have nothing else of importance to say.
I just got this book from my boss today, instead of talking to me about the change I need to make in the small office and why I do not deserve more vaction time after 7 years – I am given a book to read. Must be my attitude
We don’t necessarily need change we just need transformation of who we are into a better us.
I’m a change management specialist, but I was still given this book by one of my employers (everyone got one). Absolute crap and a waste of 10 seconds of my life, as I tossed it after page one.
I like this book. It’s fun way to learn how to deal with change.