• April 21, 2026
  • Fiction
  • USD $14.95
  • Format: Paperback
  • ISBN-13: 9798900520353
  • Trim: 6in × 9in

Average Civil Employee

A Novel of Bureaucratic Absurdities

Stephen J. Wallace

“The meeting had been a huge success, and there was no reason to focus on something insignificant like the fact that nothing was really accomplished.”

Government employee Ace is trying to do good work and basically survive at his agency, despite a slew of efficiency mandates that actually make his job less efficient and put more personnel at risk for layoffs. When, in a moment of honesty, he expresses his frustration with the new counterproductive initiatives, he’s pushed into an “intervention.” As part of his remediation, he must keep a journal to, in theory, help him be more appreciative. But instead, it gives him an outlet for his honest opinion on all the happenings—and people—in the office. And when he is unexpectedly thrust into a supervisory role, Ace learns that the only thing worse than working in a flawed bureaucracy may be trying to fix it.

Presented as a series of Ace’s journal entries, Average Civil Employee pulls no punches as it critiques ill-conceived approaches to make the government more efficient. This satirical novel will have you laughing out loud at the absurd situations—and the reality—of Aces everywhere.

Stephen J. Wallace says he is a writer trapped in an engineer’s body, or vice versa. His first novel, Hazardous Lies, received numerous recognitions and awards in the categories of mystery, thriller, or suspense, including the IBPA Benjamin Franklin Gold Award and the Readers’ Favorite Gold Medal. It was also a winner of the NYC Big Book Award, the Independent Author Network Book of the Year Award, and the Reader Views Reviewers Choice Award, as well as a finalist for the Storytrade Book Awards and the Chanticleer International Book Awards. Stephen’s short stories have appeared in the Schuylkill Valley Journal, the Vita Poetica Journal, and The Mark Literary Review. He has lived in the Washington, DC, area for several years with his wife, Madeleine, but occasionally visits his home state of Kentucky. You can read more about Stephen and his work at stephenjwallace.com.