Works Well with Others: An Outsider’s Guide to Shaking Hands, Shutting Up, Handling Jerks, and Other Crucial Skills in Business that No One Ever Teaches You

Before he got a job at Esquire and before he became the etiquette columnist at Entrepreneur magazine, Ross McCammon was staring out a second ­floor window at a parking lot in suburban Dallas wondering if it was five o’clock yet. One phone call from Esquire changed everything.

This is McCammon’s honest, funny, and entertaining journey from impostor to authority—a story that begins with periods of debilitating workplace anxiety but leads to rich insights and practical advice from a guy who still remembers what it’s like to feel entirely ill-equipped for professional success. McCammon points out the workplace for what it is: an often absurd landscape of ego and fear guided by social rules that no one ever talks about. He offers a mix of enlightening and often self­-deprecating personal stories about his experience and clear, practical advice on getting the small things right—skills that often go unacknowledged—from shaking a hand to conducting a business meeting in a bar to navigating a work party.

Works Well with Others is an inspirational new way of looking at your job, your career, and success itself. It is an accessible guide for those of us who are smart, talented, and ambitious but don’t quite feel prepared for success … or know what to do once we’ve made it.