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    Happy Hour Is for Amateurs: Work Sucks. Life Doesn't Have To.
    Unavailable
    Happy Hour Is for Amateurs: Work Sucks. Life Doesn't Have To.
    Unavailable
    Happy Hour Is for Amateurs: Work Sucks. Life Doesn't Have To.
    Ebook378 pages7 hours

    Happy Hour Is for Amateurs: Work Sucks. Life Doesn't Have To.

    By Philadelphia Lawyer

    3/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    For some people, happy hour is never enough

    This is a book about escape. It's also about laughing gas. And bourbon and dope and sex and mushrooms and every other vice millions of us indulge in to forget our jobs, the office, and the stifling, corporate caricatures we're forced to become for paychecks. This is a book about a decade lost in a senseless career no one likes and all the ridiculous things I did to run from it. In the end, it's probably your story as much as mine. We're everywhere. We just can't say it out loud.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 6, 2009
    ISBN9780061981685
    Unavailable
    Happy Hour Is for Amateurs: Work Sucks. Life Doesn't Have To.

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    Reviews for Happy Hour Is for Amateurs

    3/5

    45 ratings10 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Flip, glib, and often humorous look at being a young lawyer in the City of Brotherly Love. Compiled from the anonymous author's blog, most of the book is a loosely collected series of boozy, slice-of-life scenes. The author does a great job portraying the seduction of alcohol addiction, but most of the characters are plot devices that fall flat. The focus on story is great, but the lack of development leaves much to be desired.
    • 1/5
      I thought I might write something about this book shaking my confidence in the law as a profession, if guys like this were allowed to practice, but the fact is I am beginning to think the whole book is a load of crap. The Philadelphia Lawyer claims he "didn't even buy the books" for his last 2 years of law school? Right. But somehow he manages to pass the bar. "Unlikely", in the words of my friends in the profession. He claims to be billing 180+ hours a month while spending most of his time surfing porn on the internet and emailing dirty jokes to his buddies. Right.This book should be titled, "Another Chapter, Another Hangover." It's the worst sort of frat-boy behavior without any of the humor of "Animal House." Even the descriptions of his friends sound more like fiction: every single one of them is linebacker-huge with access to massive amounts of drugs and alcohol, vicious and destructive when drunk/high/etc and liable to smash your furniture, wreck your car or break your arm while in a narcotic haze. My full review is here.
    • 3/5
      This book was just ok. It had some very funny parts, but dragged a lot. It seemed like a lot of the stuff was just thrown in, as if the author was flailing around for some filler material and figured he'd throw in another party to eat up another 5-10 pages. I enjoyed it, but can't see myself going back and re-reading it in the future.
    • 4/5
      Why: An allegedly true story by a bitter, disillusioned lawyer. Since I am a bitter, disillusioned lawyer with allegedly true stories of my own, it seemed natural.There are two things about this book. One: it's crude and somewhat debauched, but the debauchery seems like he's trying too hard. Perhaps it is there to demonstrate the lengths to which a miserable lawyer will go for escapism. I wasn't really impressed with this part, but Two: he tells the truth (I could recognize it) about practicing law in this country, and that's the real reason why he didn't sign his name to this book. You might think, What's the big deal, it's not like the legal profession is the Mafia. To which I would answer, hmmm.... I think, that in many (but not all) cases, to be successful in a law firm, you have bifurcate your personality, compromise your integrity, raise your BS tolerance to max level and learn to trust no one (not to mention get real comfortable with boredom), all of which are extremely painful. No one wants you to know this. That's where the value of this book lies.
    • 3/5
      It's important to note that "The Philadelphia Lawyer" thinks that middle-class consists of a $250k salary a year and regards women as sexual objects who he continually insults. If you can put up with that personality, you'll be able to make it through the book. As it was, I almost stopped after the second chapter, but decided to read on because the writing style is easy to read and I figured it important to "understand the enemy", someone who is completely self-absorbed, has no idea what "real work" is like, and whose world revolves around himself. That being said, the rest of "Happy Hour Is For Amateurs" was, for the most part, interesting. The writing is good and entertaining. It was just hard to stomach the insulting personality writing the book. If he would get over his sexist views, he'd actually make for a good writer. The failure to get inside his other characters' heads and see other viewpoints leaves the book feeling incomplete, though, and hard to take seriously. It's hard to believe someone so incredibly superficial and sexist really feels like an outsider and a cog in the machine.
    • 2/5
      I had mixed feelings about this book. While reading it, I traveled through a spectrum of feelings, from disgust to amusement to ambivalence and many points in between. While this is a memoir, presumably real, I feel that the author was dealt (or made himself) an easy way out. One recurring thought as I read through was the expectation that surely a more interesting or worthwhile tale was right around the corner. However, I didn't hold my breath as the end of the tale arrived, and neither should you.Ultimately this tale is somewhat funny and entertaining- but really just literary empty calories.
    • 3/5
      Happy Hour was somewhat entertaining but it would become tedious at times. Perhaps there is a certain appreciation that would be more appealing to those in the legal community where said individuals can more identify with inside dilemmas and situations. Also, there is a level of narcissism that pervades many of the situations. Again, this would be relevant and more entertaining for those in the legal system. Just the same, it was fun in parts and I know there is a more enthusiastic audience out there that would thoroughly enjoy this book. The writing is terrific. I just couldn’t feel any sense of attraction with the situations and characters.All is not lost, I will pass this book along to those I know will greatly appreciate it.
    • 2/5
      At first I wasn’t really sure about this book. As I didn’t and still don't know anything about the author, and the cover I must say it is not very compelling. But as they say: "Don’t judge a book by its cover", so I said to myself: Just give it a try and if you don’t like it well, you will always have the choice. I thought it was some sort of exclusive treaty for lawyers, something other people wouldn’t understand. But this is nothing like that; this book speaks about the life and adventures of a guy whose life to the extreme meant “life itself”. It could be grotesque to some, too descriptive to others, also an understanding that life being young and beautiful could be ugly and stupid too.This is a fictional biography, a compilation of situations of a man whose life meant not caring about anything but to have everything. It is well written, smart, hilarious, although unoriginal.
    • 4/5
      Philadelphia Lawyer is someone I would probably never know in real life. Reading this book was like peeking into the mind of a person who if I did meet, I would think to myself.. "I just don't get how this guy thinks!" So, even though it's not meant to be, it's very educational.Also, very entertaining, lol. Most of the chapters made me grin or laugh at least once.If you're planning on reading this and walking around with the book, be prepared to explain what it's about. The cover and title got me a few raised eyebrows. (Which I also found entertaining.)
    • 3/5
      It would be most fair to say that if the first half of the book had been more like the second it would have proved an overall more enjoyable read. While the idea behind the book is attention grabbing and interesting, I found far too little of the book about the actual law profession and far too much of it to be about how totally trashed the author and his friends can get. I understand that the dichotomy created between work and play is crucial to appreciating the story, but by the fourth 5 page long bender description i was really over hearing about how hard he can party and was beginning to think the book was a bit repetative.That being said, I flew through the parts that were about the ridiculousness of being a lawyer (both in Philadelphia and in general). The author has a talent for finding a way to make you see exactly how inane and bizarre the law process and career can be even if, like me, you have no personal experience of it's inner workings. Overall, I found the book entertaining and enjoyable, if perhaps in need of a little trimming.