I read the author Sidin’s columns in Mint (Cubiclenama) with great interest. The column makes super humorous observations at the silliness encountered in everyday corporate life. Sidin has the making of an Indian Scott Adams. I also follow his blog, albeit not so regularly.

Thus with great anticipation, I picked up his first book “Dork-The Incredible Adventures of Robin Einstein Varghese” The fact that the book had a management consultancy as a background further fuelled my curiosity, having been a part of one, not so long ago.

But the book disappointed me. Unlike other readers who have claimed to have laughed till their sides hurt while reading the book, I did not even get a grin on my face. And I’m the kind who smiles and laughs often, and easily. I like reading books at one go,especially if they are not voluminous. But I found it tedious to read even beyond a few pages. The book files the experiences of a recent IIM-A grad who joins a mid-level consultancy firm and his journey from a naive professional to an unwitting celeb. The book is written in first person by the protagonist and the narrative is in the form of diary entries. It is an easy read…ala Chetan Bhagat, but alas has very little substance. The main character draws none of the reader’s sympathies and has skewed ideals. At some instances, he’s shown as someone who’s an idealist and at another he becomes a scheming opportunist, and a bumbling druken fool in most others. The plot becomes repetitive after a point, and you can predict what ‘Einstein’ will be upto next.

To be fair to Sidin, he has captured the aspects of working in a management consultancy accurately. The maha-lunches and hotel stays at the expense of the client, the colorful voluminous ppt’s which have multitude of graphics, yet cover banal information, the complex jargons and cliches used to confuse the client, pointing out the presence of an industry expert on the team to impress the client- even if the expertise means a one-day industrial visit in college, creating complex excel sheets to produce not the correct data, but the favourable data that the client would like to see,  the code naming of very imp projects as “Project Copper Chimney”. (okay…this one had me up in laughs), providing advice to the client which the client could’ve come up with themselevs, and the most important work of managers- filing of time and expenses.

He clearly exposes the fake and overrated world of management consultants. Employees feel really self important as though they are on a mission to save the earth and tag themselves with terms such as ‘industry expert”, SME- Subject matter expert etc. But scratch the surface and the truth is not very pretty.

Apart from these inside jokes and the cheeky blurb on the backpage, I did not find anything exceptional in this book. And to think, it is the first part of a trilogy! Read it, if you have got nothing better to do,want to get an insider’s view into a management consultancy and have a couple of hours to spare. Nothing much to expect though.