
Ask HN: Business books for non-managers? - Tycho
A few months ago somebody on HN recommended a book for &quot;normal employees&quot; which had advice for career path, salary negotiation, navigating large organizations, and so on. Unfortunately I didn&#x27;t bookmark it, so hopefully someone else remembers.<p>I have often wanted to read a kind of &quot;counter-espionage&quot; business book that basically distils all the strategies that management, HR etc. may deploy (probably ones they learnt from standard business books which from what I can tell are mostly read by managers), and how you can recognise them avoid losing out.
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yasserkaddour
These blogs post from @patio11 talk about salary negotiation [1] [2]

The book he recommends for negotiation is "Getting to Yes" by Roger Fisher.
[3]

Like you, I would appreciate recommendation for the rest.

[1] [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-
negotiation/](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/)

[2] [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-
pro...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/)

[3] [https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Yes-Negotiating-Agreement-
Wit...](https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Yes-Negotiating-Agreement-
Without/dp/0140157352)

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itamarst
_The Ropes to Skip and The Ropes to Know_ is a book on organizational behavior
that is also quite practical for employees. Has some flaws (e.g. IIRC there's
a horrible sexist joke in the intro), but worth reading; I'm not sure there's
any other book like it.

Self-promotion - doesn't cover everything you're asking for, but I've written
a book called _The Programmer 's Guide to a Sane Workweek_, about the skills
you need and paths you can take to get a sane workweek (reasonable hours,
shorter hours, remote work - whatever it means to you).

For example, it talks about basics of negotiation, with some ideas for
practicing at work that will both get you more practice and hopefully reduce
some of the bullshit quotient at work. It's just an intro, so I suggest
further reading, since it's just one chapter out of the book and I'm not an
expert on negotiation.

But there are, of course, many more chapters with other practical info.

[https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/](https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/)

