Stanley Bing | Gil Schwartz | Fortune columnist and bestselling author | Esquire

From ranting about cubicles to "the ridiculousness of working with other people," Fortune columnist and bestselling author Stanley Bing lampoons the "off" in office life.
GIL SCHWARTZ first knew his alter ego Stanley Bing possessed corporate cred when a colleague put a Xerox of his Esquire column in the middle of his desk with this note: "I think you'll enjoy this." At the time (the mid-'80s), Schwartz lived in fear of being uncovered as Bing, the pen name he created to vent his anger and frustration at executive existence from the underling's vantage point with the verbal judo of a stand-up comic. He thought the co-worker knew his Clark Kentsian secret. So he ambled over to the co-worker's office. "You sent this to me," he said. The guy responded, "Yeah, I thought you'd like it. It sounds like you." He replied: "Thanks. I don't really think it's all that funny, but I'm glad you thought of me."

He managed to keep the secret from 1984 until 1993, and admits a little of the fun is gone now that everyone knows about his day job as an executive VP at CBS. Since first conjuring the corporate court jester Bing, Schwartz has moved his work from Esquire to Fortune, where he writes a monthly column. He's also written a series of bestselling books, including What Would Machiavelli Do?, Throwing the Elephant: Zen and the Art of Managing Up, The Big Bing, and his latest, Sun Tzu Was A Sissy: Conquer Your Enemies, Promote Your Friends, and Wage the Real Art of War. Bing intends to continue to mine the well of history for contemporary corporate insights for his upcoming book (due out this fall, and as yet untitled) about civilization's first multinational corporation - the Roman Empire. Despite his impressive day job and his prolific writing career, Bing agreed to take a few moments to discuss critical corporate issues with us, such as how to employ anger on your rise to the top, the art of procrastination, and when to bring a whoopee cushion to the budget meeting.