The Bottom Line: A little J.L.Seagull, The Emporer's New Clothes, and Deep Thoughts combined. Not worth buying but well worth reading. Go to the library (or any HR department.)
aashtech's Full Review: Spencer Johnson - Who Moved My Cheese
This review is part of the Sincerest Form of Flattery Write-off in which reviews are written in the style of a favorite author. You can find a listing of other participants at the bottom of this review.
That was the summer the cheese disappeared and Haw got so upset he wasn't really a Haw anymore but began to act more like his Aunt Hem who used to knit those winter caps that everyone wore, you know the ones that were so popular for a few years. Aunt Hem used to knit them by the bale, it didn't matter the season or how many caps you already had she just kept streaming them out one after the other so you couldn't begin to keep track of who's cap was who's and it didn't really matter anyway until Haw got lice and then we had to burn all of the caps just in case, or at least that was the reason given but nobody really told Aunt Hem that we were all just plumb sick of caps not that it would have mattered since she just shrugged and sighed a little and commenced right into knitting more. And this went on for years with all of us losing our caps or giving them to the poor kids across the tracks or using them as bases in baseball or doing just about everything you could imagine except wearing them, but Aunt Hem went right on pumping them out reaching a dazzling speed with those knitting needles so they were clicking and flying fast enough to make poor Sniff woozy one day after he had a little too much French cheese the night before and wanted to just sit a spell and get gradually into the day but couldn't much do that with Aunt Hem wielding those flashing knitting needles at a reckless pace so that Sniff had to stagger out into the maze and divest himself of a little mostly digested cheese leaving a disagreeable sight and odor for all the neighbors who never much cared much for Sniff's late night antics and this certainly served him right.
When the cheese disappeared Haw was so shocked he could hardly think his brain vapor-locked and he sank into a stupor—more so than usual—and reminded everyone of Aunt Hem when the yarn ran out.
She worked those needles for weeks without a bit of fiber wriggling between them but never losing her pace or dexterity and started to add conversation to the activity, commenting that she "would be making a fine cap for Scurry, a mostly blue model with a nice dash of white around the band since that was the color his Daddy had always favored owing I suppose to the years he spent at sea in the navy always surrounded by the blue of the sky and the blue of the ocean and the blue of being away from his girl," she joked, never slowing her pace. "Once I get more yarn", she would continue, "we'll have caps to last the winter no matter how cold." The needles would be clacking in time to her slightly oversized upper denture that Doc Johnson had originally fitted for another patient who died before they got it installed and, being a thrifty and sensible man, Doc decided he could make it fit just by shaving down some edges here and there to fit another mouth and Aunt Hem who had bad teeth all her life which was a very common family trait you can see it from any old photograph you chance to look at happened to be the next person needing an upper plate. Whatever he did to the dentures, they always rattled a little, especially on the N sound, so that they would click into place for emphasis, which made Aunt Hem's mention of "Yarn (click)" more dramatic so that she managed to work that word into every other sentence not that she wouldn't have anyway but it seemed even more prophetic as she would go on about the caps and yarn (click) whether you stayed in the room or not so that you would hear the clattering, clicking, chattering, and rattling as you walked up the hall, through the living room, into the kitchen and back. Aunt Hem knew caps. But that was all.
When the cheese disappeared Haw was about as surprised as Aunt Hem at the end of yarn (click) and just about as unable to think about anything else even when time dragged on without any cheese showing back up not that anyone knew where it came from and certainly not that anyone knew where it went or even considered looking after it except for those two mice who were always foot loose which was a part of their makeup and you can't change that trait if you wanted to which you wouldn't anyway so why waste time even trying. Hem felt entitled to the cheese and refused to budge until more came back and set things right again.
Haw knew exactly how Hem felt and held fast to his haven in the Cheese Station waiting and watching with Hem sure that the cheese would return, by gum, like it always had before since neither of them were really prepared to go back out into the maze and look for more as you never knew what was out there maybe no cheese and just a lot of trouble and the day you leave the cheese gets set right back in behind you and you never know it and all of it just goes to waste which would be a shame since they had always just come here for cheese and were planning to keep on doing that forever. Finally Haw began to make little morbid jokes about rocks and hard places and struck out into the maze where he wrote all kinds of notes along the way to show how smart he was and make the book a little fatter by taking up a whole page for them which also makes it easier for people who are just browsing in the bookstore with no intention of buying. They can look at these smart pictures and sayings and nod to their wives that this, and not the Hokey Pokey, is what it's all about, and they could share that back at the water cooler the next day and talk the Human Resources manager into buying a bundle of them since they are small and not that expensive and we can all look smart, too, just by passing these out instead of bonuses which aren't possible in this down economy so read the book and keep moving with the cheese.
Just the facts
This is a write-off in the Sincerest Form of Flattery where the following Epinionators tried to emulate the style of their favorite writers. I chose T.R. Pearson, who's brilliantly funny A Short History of a Small Place takes hundreds of pages to describe three days in the life of a small Southern town. I applied his style to Spencer Johnson MD's acclaimed Who Moved My Cheese? weighing in at a hefty 94 pages owing in part to the small page size and large print.
Other writers joining in this exercise include: mind-full, pogomom, Elsa70, Vormancian, and (our hostess and birth-mother of the idea) naphtalia. Please be sure to read and review their work and take a moment to rate this epinion, as well.
The real skinny on Who Moved My Cheese?
Spencer Johnson, MD co-authored the One Minute Manager and is a master at presenting simple workable solutions for complex issues. Who Moved My Cheese? is a simple parable about dealing with change, told through the study of four characters, each representing different ways we react to change. Cheese is a corollary for anything we desire (fame, wealth, family.) The cheese can be found somewhere in the maze of our lives if we take the time to look for it. The overriding message of the story is to expect change, as that is a part of every life.
I recommend that you read both books. A Short History of a Small Place is good summer reading, while Who Moved My Cheese? is suitable for any afternoon. Especially if you read it a few times.
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