What's with Who Moved My Cheese?

Who Moved My Cheese?


Johnson, Spencer






Who Moved My Cheese? was a "required" book to read for new employees at my current company. Although the story is very short, the message is very straightforward: Don't get stuck in a rut. That's it. It took about 40 minutes to read through it.

I must admit I wasn't a fan of this book. It seems to have been written for a career path where getting into a rut was easy and relatively safe, but the world of software development is certainly not like that. Now that it's 2012, fewer and fewer people are still programming in COBOL, FORTRAN, BASIC, or even C for that matter. We are frequently given opportunities to learn new technologies that are more powerful and make our lives easier.

Having graduated from university recently, the message was somewhat lost on me. As students take different college courses every semester, they are frequently thrown for a loop and forced to "find cheese" for each new class in its own way.


Don't get me wrong. I don't think Cheese? is completely useless. I think a great demographic for this book would be the recently laid-off employee who may need some motivation to get back out in the work force. However, I don't think this book is a must-read for everyone. In particular, there was a line included in my version of the book which said that anyone who disregards the story is a know-it-all. I take offense to that statement; it has yet to be proven whether or not I actually "know it all."

If your coworkers have all read this book, read it because it only takes about an hour to read and no one wants to feel left out. If you need some motivation to get out of a rut, you don't need to read a book to tell you to get off your rump and do something about it; just do it.