HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING
Twenty-seven year old New York window washer J. Pierrepont Finch believes that he can be a success in the corporate world after he impulsively picks up the book “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying”. The book promises its reader that one can climb the corporate ladder simply and quickly. The World Wide Wicket Corporation, the business in the office building whose windows he washes, is, according to the book, the perfect type of business. There, Finch meets secretary Rosemary Pilkington, who sees in Ponty, as she calls him, an unassuming man whom she believes the corporate world will eat alive. But Ponty, memorizing what the book tells him, does quickly climb the corporate ladder, but not by doing any real work. Ponty, however, has a few obstacles along the way: Bud Frump, the nephew by marriage of the company president, J. B. Biggley; Hedy LaRue, a curvaceous but simple woman who has a secret (or not-so-secret) tie to someone important in the company; Smitty, a sassy secretarial friend of Rosemary’s; and Ponty, himself, possibly making a fatal occupational error by not reading far enough ahead in the book. Finch ultimately has to decide if climbing to the top of the ladder is worth stepping on all of those along the way and worth risking the loss of the love of Rosemary. In the end, telling the truth may set him free.