It took Reston resident and author Anthony A. Cantor, 39, four years to publish a book about the world of corporate work. But, according to Cantor, "The very first person who bought the book told me she didn't like it." Instead of being discouraged, by her criticism Cantor was pleased. "She disliked it for all the right reasons," he said. "She said most of it was painfully true."
Cantor's book, "Lights, Cubicle, Action!," is now in local bookstores and also available through Amazon.com. Subtitled "100+ Directives for Survival in Corporate America," it aims to debunk the myths about work and success.
Lately, Cantor’s mission has been to shine a light on the truth about job satisfaction, promotions, money, and dubious corporate rhetoric. "Americans live to work," said Cantor, "we should at least understand how work works."
His revelations — anti-quotes, as he calls them — include such insights as: "Attitude is nice but 99 percent of all problems need action and not attitude to be solved," "People who work really, really hard are often viewed as underachievers," and "’Good idea,’ means I should have thought of that."
Cantor says he and his vocational consulting firm DocVoc are dedicated to the ideology that "just a job is a terrible thing." As Cantor points out in his book, "There are no good jobs or bad jobs, only people who are happy in them and people who aren’t."
Cantor grew up in Potomac, Md., earned a finance degree at the University of Maryland and went on to receive an MBA in Organizational Behavior and Marketing at Penn State University. His experience includes observing and participating within almost 100 corporate cultures.
"I love Reston," said Cantor, who came here last year from Atlanta. "I had been trying to move to this area for about four years." Cantor is an avid biker, riding upwards of 25 miles at a time, and added, "I love the bike paths around here. People always seem to be out and about, walking, running, biking."
His goal is to develop a series of books with the "Lights" title — two more are planned, one dealing with life and the other with relationships, for publication this summer.
For more information about Cantor’s books and DocVoc’s services, visit www.docvoc.com.
<1b>— John Callaghan