How to Work Like a Cat
By Karen Wormald

We cats are natural CEOs. Think about it: we delegate all the day-to-day stuff like buying food and changing the litter box to flunkies. We spend our days dreaming up big ideas. We're good at both catching details and seeing the bigger picture. So finally a human got smart and decided to spill some of our secrets so that other humans might pick up some tips. Of course, being a human, author Karen Wormald gets it mostly right but seems a little fuzzy on a few things. For example, she sagely advises, "Leap to the top while everyone else looks for a ladder," but she also comes up with this: "If someone brings a tree into the office during the holidays, refrain from climbing it." Say what? Excuse me, but the whole purpose of those trees, as all cats know, is for climbing. Granted, it's probably not a good idea for humans to climb Christmas trees, but don't even pretend that a cat shouldn't consider it! For the most part, however, this slim volume is loaded with wisdom that author Karen Wormald no doubt gleaned from her "colleagues," Fred, Yul and Adele. (The bio in the back of the book has the word colleagues in quotation marks; I get the sneaking suspicion that Fred, Yul and Adele more likely consider Wormald their administrative assistant.) There are also some nice color pictures of kitty CEOs who, like me, have clearly taken over their offices (what's a printer for if it's not for sleeping on?) and dominated their employees (dogs included). I'm sure if humans take the advice in this book to heart, they will make their way to the top in record time. Cats, of course, already know most of this information. Now excuse me while I "Take time to stop and smell the catnip."

More of Sparkle's Book Reviews