21 Dog Years

Doing Time @ Amazon.com

By: Mike Daisey

Narrated by: Mike Daisey

Mike Daisey worked at Amazon.com for nearly two years during the dot-com frenzy of the late nineties. Now that his nondisclosure agreement has expired, he can tell the real story - one that blends tech culture, hero worship, cat litter, Albanian economics, and venture capitalism into a surreal cocktail of delusion.

In 1998, when Amazon.com went to temp agencies to recruit people, they gave them a simple directive: send us your freaks. Thus began Mike Daisey's love affair with this quintessential dot-com. His ascent from lowly temp to customer service representative to business development hustler is the stuff of dreams - and nightmares. Daisey takes us from Amazon's high point, when the stock traded at $361, to well into its rollercoaster plunge to today's humble two-digit price, all the while reflecting on the very nature of the new economy and the darkly humorous compromises made every day to survive in corporate America. At strategic intervals, the narrative is punctuated by hysterical (in every sense of the word) letters to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos - missives that seem ripped from the collective unconscious of dot-com disciples the world over. No wonder Newsweek has dubbed Daisey the "oracle of the bust."

With a hugely popular Web site and a hit one-man show that has received phenomenal coverage (with stories in Wired, Newsweek, Salon, and elsewhere), Daisey has become the bard of the dot-com boom-and-bust - a smart, imaginative, and acutely perceptive chronicler of our times.

The Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, is the original publisher of 21 Dog Years in hardcover.

©2002 Mike Daisey
(P)2002 Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"A modern Dickensian fable of pointless toil inside an industrial madhouse. Too funny not to be accurate, too heartbreaking not to be true. If you are wondering where all the time and money went, this book has the answers." (Walter Kirn, author of Up in the Air)

If You Were a Call Center Slave....

...you will love this book. It talks about the office politics and structure of today's businesses. The best thing about this is that it does not take it serious. It paralleled my business life to perfection.

I recommended this to book to my coworkers and they loved it. One said she had to pull over in the car she was laughing too much to drive with it on. It is a definite read.

Very Funny Book its a Joy to Read

Where does 21 Dog Years rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
I would say it ranks in the top 10 books I have read

Who was your favorite character and why?
Mike was the main character

Which character – as performed by Mike Daisey – was your favorite?
Himself

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
The training portion

Any additional comments?
Great book a must read!!!

More! More! I want more!

This book is incredibly funny and extremely well narrated by mdaisey. I wasn't ready for this one to end. You don't have to have participated in the dot com boom to appreciate 21 Dog Years.

Hilarious

One of the funniest audiobooks I've ever heard. Could not listen to it while eating for fear of choking.

At the same time it's uncannily insightful, both into the world of customer service and Amazon.com. If you are looking for a traditional business book about Amazon.com, this is not it. If you want to be thoroughly entertained as well as enlighted about what it was like to be in the maelstrom of dot-com frenzy, click here.

Best when he focuses on Amazon

When he focuses on Amazon, this is a very informative, gossipy book. His analysis of the failure of Pets.com and how the seat-of-the-pants shell game he plays with his employers parallels what Bezos is doing with Wall Street are too scarily accurate for words. The descriptions of how Amazon toyed with its employees (as it toyed with investors and analysts) sounds depressingly true.

I give this 3 stars because it does go on way too long and I find his humor more often forced than bubbling up naturally from his personality. (You can hear in his voice when a joke is coming.) A good editor would have advised him to tighten up his anecdotes and keep the story moving, for God's sake.

There's also the regrettable fact that, as an actor, Daisy doesn't provide the different characters in his book with enough vocal variety so you can tell who's talking when he recounts a conversation. They all sound like him, and that just isn't good enough when the writer is an actor.

Wonderful

It is really well done and ever better performed.

It’s Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great.

A Hilarious Look at the Early Days of Amazon.com

Mike offers an excellent look at the inside of America's sweetheart Internet company. His narrative is delivered with excellence and his material is completely hilarious.

This book was a very easy read and I found it hard to stop listening.

Very funny

I loved it! I work in the IT industry, and the tech. support horror stories are hysterically funny.

Very entertaining. I have actually seen support pits of this nature, complete with green mowhawk hairdo-types. <I>O tempora O mores</I>

Fun book

I worked at Alibris.com during the same period of time that MDAISY worked at Amazon. It was really interesting to see another perspective on the world of selling books over the internet during the e-boom times. What a ride.

21 Dogs Years

What an amazing listen! It is hard to believe this author is not a professional reader. You actually feel as if you are living through his experience. I recommend for anyone who can relate to the movie. Office Space? or to anyone who goes to work everyday wondering why they do. ENJOY!
I’m updating my review a decade later. I have seen M Daisey perform live- thought provoking. Just take a listen. Learn how the beast that is amazon started. When Bezos wife drove cross country with him. Before the ego. How this monster was started.