
I refuse to tolerate assholes - taylorbuley
http://www.jacobian.org/writing/assholes/
======
rauljara
Preface: Something I've noticed about jerks/assholes: they're convinced that
they're surrounded by jerks and/or assholes. Almost none of them are jerks for
no reason. They're almost always jerks in response to some slight (either
imagined, or blown way out of proportion). A good sign that you might be a
jerk is that you see jerks all around you. Most people are basically all
right. If you (1) run into conflicts with a lot of people, please consider the
possibility that you are at least part of the cause.

Actual Point: The reason I am hesitant about following the advice of this
article is that it encourages you to divide the world into jerks and nice
people. It's very easy to be a jerk to a jerk. If you are a jerk to a jerk,
suddenly everyone on the project has to deal with two jerks.

I do agree that there are behaviors that just shouldn't be accepted, and there
are lots of examples of them online. But you (2) do need to be mindful of your
response to those behaviors. Make sure your response isn't to engage in those
behaviors yourself.

(1 & 2) and by you, I mostly mean me. I am totally writing to myself here.

~~~
jonnathanson
_They're almost always jerks in response to some slight (either imagined, or
blown way out of proportion)._

Either that, or they're just clinically certifiable narcissists. True
narcissists are world-class pains in the ass like nothing else on the many
spectra of personality disorders.

~~~
bh42222
The true narcissists I have had the misfortune of knowing have been
_extremely_ charming. If they hadn't been, their "handicap" would have
crippled their social lives. True narcissism and well above average ability to
charm people, go hand in hand.

The same can be said about all sociopaths, they are all a very charming bunch.

~~~
jonnathanson
Outwardly charming, on a surface level? Yes. Impossible to work with, or
worse, for? Absolutely. They have close to zero conception or awareness of
other human beings, making them poor communicators, irrational decisionmakers
with regards to anything other than their personal interests, and something
approximating pathological liars.

------
raganwald
It's a gross oversimplification, but I try to live according to the dictum
that it is easy to bifurcate behaviours into good and bad, but people are
complex and subject to change, thus it is very difficult for me to brand
someone as an "asshole."

[http://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/blob/master/2009-05-0...](http://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/blob/master/2009-05-01/optimism.md#readme)

UPDATE: Thinking about the OP, I wonder if seeing behaviours as simple and
people as complex actually _helps_ you be intolerant of bad behaviour.

If you believe that some people are assholes, you have very little in the way
of options for dealing with them: Purge them from your life, wall them off so
their damage can be contained, or accept them and their behaviour wholesale.

But if you focus on the behaviour, you can try to negotiate: "You are a
genius, your work on ___ is brilliant. However, this behaviour ____ is
unacceptable, please stop doing it. Here is why..., Here is something more
constructive you could consider..."

~~~
jacobian
> But if you focus on the behaviour, you can try to negotiate: "You are a
> genius, your work on ___ is brilliant. However, this behaviour ____ is
> unacceptable, please stop doing it. Here is why..., Here is something more
> constructive you could consider..."

Incredibly well said - that's the point I was reaching towards and couldn't
quite articulate perfectly, apparently. Ideally, we'd call out shitty behavior
and _change_ that behavior. I didn't mean to suggest a "my way or the highway"
attitude; rather, my point is that we shouldn't keep quiet when someone's
being a jerk.

~~~
Archaeum
Typically, I've managed to maintain a decent working relationship even with
people others found virtually intolerable. My natural inclination is to let
the more abrasive aspects of their personalities slide, but sometimes I doubt
this approach, because occasionally what it means is taking them less
seriously as human beings. Their idiosyncrasies can be predictable, so I'm
tempted to think of them as machines. In one sense, it's convenient: I rarely
get angry at machines, so why would I get angry at machine-like people? On the
other hand, it's dismissive and lazy.

What you're talking about is rejecting cynicism, assuming things can change,
believing things are worth changing, and being willing to put in the effort to
call out the jerks. As long as you do it constructively, you end up humanizing
people who probably need it--and you might even make a difference! So, for all
our sakes, please keep it up.

------
jacobian
I think perhaps I haven't been clear enough, because most here seem to be
missing what I intended to be my central argument; to quote:

 _I will call out antisocial behavior, enforce professionalism in the
communities where I have the power to do, and leave the communities that
cannot at least offer civility._

In other words, if someone's being a jerk, we should call them on it. I didn't
mean to suggest dividing the world into "assholes" and "good people" — clearly
there's a spectrum, and clearly even saints have bad days. And I certainly
didn't mean we should ostracize people at the first sign of shitty behavior.

But if someone's abusive, and they refuse to moderate their behavior, then
either they need to leave or I will. I just can't accept that allowing abusive
behavior is the price we have to pay for good code.

------
nowarninglabel
_It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice._

Another point, which the author could have also argued, is that assholes push
or scare others out of open-source communities. Much of the time, the people
scared away are not profilic contributors, however many of them had the
potential to become so if they were nurtured. I certainly wasn't the best
coder when I started contributing to Drupal (and I'm still not), but I managed
to do a lot of good for it both in code and evangelizing for it. Had it not
been for the leaders in the community who were super-nice (e.g., Neil Drumm
and Angie Byron), then I would have let the jerks keep me from using and
contributing back to something I loved. However, I noticed that as I became a
better and more knowledgeable contributor, it was easier for me to fall into
the behavior of sounding like a jerk myself. We (or at least I) have to
constantly check ourselves to ensure we are doing good for the community and
sticking true to our nice roots.

------
wccrawford
Have you looked in the mirror, man? That entire posts exudes the exact same
behavior you are condemning.

You've asked for them to be fired? That wasn't your place, and the penalty is
far too harsh for the crime. You were attempting to ruin their livelihood
because you don't like them.

"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." - The Bible. Nobody would
get to throw a stone. Nobody fits the criteria of being 'perfect'.

~~~
jacobian
In the case I'm talking about, the gentleman in question threw a chair out a
window halfway through a meeting. This after months of threatening violence
against co-workers after showing up to work drunk.

You bet your ass I asked for him to be fired. He wasn't, so I quit.

I'm very sorry that my post rubbed you the wrong way. My intention is simply
to suggest that we shouldn't tolerate antisocial behavior in our communities,
and that we should ask those behaving badly to stop. Do you disagree?

~~~
sophacles
I disagree with your lumping "drunken violent chair throwing" into a the exact
same catagory as "guy who sarcastically responds to a person not reading the
documentation". Really, extreme reactions like 0-tolerance are no better than
tolerance for the extreme misbehavior you describe.

I propose that a large portion of the reaction against your statements is that
until this comment, many or most of the people assumed you meant a more common
form of asshole: e.g. the guy who defends his code too hard, or the guy who
isn't good at criticizing others' work. The term asshole, at least as used by
large numbers of people, applies to both cases. Getting someone fired because
they are a bit caustic is not at all an appropriate reaction, whereas as a
response to violence it is (probably) an appropriate reaction.

------
ericHosick
Relevant book: The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and
Surviving One That Isn't - Robert I. Sutton. It provides an academic view of
the subject.

~~~
amyshelton
A most excellent book, indeed.

------
RustyRussell
The inflammatory title of my post did bleed through the content a bit, didn't
it? I just loved the quote. Mea culpa.

At some point, indeed, behaviour becomes so bad that you have a moral duty to
stand up to it, even if it means burning your bridges on that project. Your
examples in these comments fit the bill.

But discovering that someone on the project is not a nice person, and someone
you wouldn't want to hang out with? Even though they're a Coding Deity? I
don't know if I'd work on any large FOSS projects if I drew the line there.

Maybe your experience has been more pleasant, or your classification of
assholes more sophisticated than mine :)

------
pavel_lishin
> These people behave in a way that would not be tolerated in real life. I’ve
> worked with a few of these jerks in real life, and when they’ve been unable
> to restrain their behavior I’ve asked for them to be fired, and I’ve quit.

Just because you couldn't tolerate them doesn't mean they aren't tolerated.
When you asked for them to be fired (instead of asking the manager to talk to
them about their behavior), were they actually fired? That sort of thing
depends on the amount of power you hold in an organization. I certainly
couldn't just demand that one of my coworkers be fired and expect my boss to
acquiesce.

~~~
jacobian
I was thinking of two specific instances (luckily this sort of crap is rare
and it's only happened to me those two times).

In the first instance, the person in question was my direct boss and was
responsible for reviewing my code. He'd routinely call me an idiot, a retard,
etc., and during meetings he'd often say things like "no, we can't give that
to Jacob - he'll just fuck it up." Now, in his defense I _was_ a pretty shitty
developer at the time, but I do believe there are more constructive ways of
reviewing code than calling the author a retard. I dealt with it for a few
months, and finally asked his boss to transfer one of us. When I explained the
reasons, this person was fired.

In the second case, my coworker was showing up to work drunk, yelling and
cursing at coworkers, and routinely threatened violence -- "I'm gonna beat
your ass if you don't shut the fuck up" was, I believe, a common line. Once he
threw a chair through a window halfway through a (technical) meeting. Again I
was too much of a coward to call him on his behavior directly, but yes I spoke
to first my boss, then his, then the owner of the company. Nothing changed, so
ultimately I quit.

In retrospect I certainly didn't behave perfectly: I should have confronted
the behavior directly, and I should have made clear what my expectations were
with regard to a professional working environment. But I was young, and all in
all I'm proud of myself for not tolerating abuse (even if I didn't go about it
quite right).

~~~
mtoddh
Awesome. Please tell us the names of these companies where managers refer to
their employees as "retards", coworkers show up drunk, and it takes direct
confrontation to get any of it resolved. Because I doubt anyone here wants to
end up working at these places either.

Kudos to you for standing up for yourself.

~~~
pavel_lishin
It's my sincere hope that those companies have long since failed.

------
6ren
An option is to reject their behaviour instead of rejecting them. Call them on
it, objectively and matter-of-factly, instead of calling them names.

Hard to do.

------
qjz
_These people behave in a way that would not be tolerated in real life._

This statement is heavy with implications. Like many of us, the author
abstracts these interactions into a second class version of reality, even
though they are really happening. Why do people who are usually polite in
person sometimes unleash an uglier, more confrontational side of themselves
when there is a buffer of distance? Even before the introduction of email &
chat, I've seen this happen in phone exchanges. In the absence of the need for
a flight response, do we naturally tend to fall back to the fight response?

~~~
erikig
I think this effect is exercerbated by the fact that it is difficult for users
to discern tone in online modes of communication, unlike phone or face to face
discussion (geeks in general have a hard time with either) I've been trying to
ensure that I speak to people on the internets like I would if we were talking
face to face.

------
absconditus
I am sure that there are at least half a dozen different definitions of
"asshole" being used in these discussions making most commentary highly
ambiguous.

~~~
jbooth
HELMET: Who made that man a gunner?

MAJOR: I did, sir. He's my cousin.

HELMET: Who is he?

SANDURZ: He's an Asshole, sir.

HELMET: I know that. What's his name?

SANDURZ: That is his name, sir. Asshole, Major Asshole.

HELMET: And his cousin?

SANDURZ: He's an Asshole, too, sir. Gunner's-mate, 1st Class, Philip Asshole.

HELMET: How many Assholes we got on this ship, anyhow?

ALL: Yo!

HELMET: I knew it. I'm surrounded by Assholes. Keep firing, Assholes.

------
T_S_
I've worked with lots of these over the years. The really successful young
ones were called _enfant terribles_. Sounds much nicer, _non_? My tolerance
was in proportion to my paycheck, and I never saw management crack down unless
they were heading off a discrimination case.

Nowadays I work on a small startup. Hard computer problems are easier than
simple people problems!

------
petercooper
It's important to realize, however, that some people can be major assholes to
_you_ but charming to others. This disconnect can be pretty annoying but is
something you have to get over because if you attack the "asshole" back and
your friends like the asshole, you're going to look stupid.

------
Tharkun
It's an old sore. And every once in a while someone bitches and moans about
it. Big whoop. Pat yourself on the back for calling out anti-social behaviour.
You made the world a better place. Now shut up and hack.

Right?

The thing about these arseholes is that they, just like you, are doing this on
their own, because they enjoy doing it. They're giving up their time to create
something that other people can use, usually without asking anything in return
for it. What they can rightfully expect in return, though, is that people read
the fucking manual or do a google search before they start their incessant
questioning and bitching and nagging.

~~~
kaitnieks
Sure, but calling someone who hasn't read the manual a moron takes more effort
that shutting the fuck up. So either help the poor illiterate person or shut
the fuck up. It's not like this person knows that there were 58 persons before
with the very same question and then the next one will come and won't know
that you just called this one a moron and ask the same question again, so
you're not solving anything. Quick copy-paste of a link with the answer is a
much better and easier solution, don't you think?

I used to lead a community and those were my rules - help or keep silent;
tolerate others. That's not so difficult, is it?

------
ericHosick
I have similar feelings about this. There are billions of people on the earth
and hundreds of millions of them are cool. So, why waste time with people who
aren't nice when there are so many nice people to meet?

~~~
pavel_lishin
Because maybe those many nice people couldn't program their way out of a wet
paper sack.

If I'm looking for someone to go to a bar with, I'll pick the nice person. If
I need someone to help me complete a project at work, I'll probably try to
find someone who's good at what they do, regardless of whether they're an
asshole or not.

~~~
mestudent
You can do that but these people that act like jerks or asshole really do
alienate and demotivate others, so while you might be able to handle them if
you have a group of people an asshole can really destroy productivity.

~~~
pavel_lishin
That's very true, an asshole can wreck productivity. But we're human beings,
and we excuse deficiencies in one area for excellence in another. If the
asshole produces more than he destroys, it might be worth keeping him on
board.

ymmv, and all that, of course.

------
jarin
I do not tolerate working with assholes or having assholes working for me, but
I am more than happy to let them work for someone else or on someone else's
project and enjoy the fruits of their labor :)

------
rennderdotcom
I'm pretty sure working with an asshole just means that the person you are
working with simply doesn't like you. It doesn't mean that they are an asshole
to everyone, which in some cases they might be, but most of the time, I'm sure
they just don't like you, for whatever reason. So what does that make you? A
pushover? At the very least, it makes you someone who identifies other
people's behavior, which pretty much makes you judgmental and fearful, and
also, if you understand "the secret", it makes you someone who attracts
assholes. Instead of "refusing to tolerate assholes", be an asshole right back
and maybe they might respect you. Never push someone away just because you
don't know how to interact with them, and that's the thing, you don't know how
to interact with them, cause if you did, they would like you & respect you.

------
keithwinstein
This article really strikes a chord. In several nerd organizations at MIT,
there are longstanding "assholes" who are brilliant people and whose
contributions are very valuable and educational to other members, but who
typically write acerbic and harsh messages. (Almost always their criticism is
directed at other longtime members, not directly at new members, but even new
members see these messages or interactions in person.)

In the past, per longstanding MIT culture, these "assholes" were tolerated and
their acerbic comments usually ignored -- meaning the "asshole" would send
perhaps one acerbic contribution every 6-8 weeks to an otherwise busy mailing
list. (Usually the assholes did not get in dust-ups with other assholes.) More
recently, though, a new generation has decided not to tolerate the "assholes"
and engages them publicly with every acerbic message, leading to huge flame
wars that prove very distracting (because neither the asshole nor the altruist
who engages them ever likes to give up).

The organizations usually lack the will to actually expel the brilliant
asshole, and it's not clear whether such a move would be in their best
interests -- the asshole usually does make great contributions to the mission
of the group, and I personally have learned a huge deal by engaging these
people and picking their brains and sometimes recruiting them to join my
projects because I know they will (and do) keep a sharp eye and tell us what
we're doing wrong, and their commitment and level of effort toward a technical
goal when they are on your team can be extraordinary. On the other hand, the
asshole's acerbic contributions and criticism are doubtless offputting to some
new members, even if not directed at them.

I am not sure whether the new state of affairs is actually an improvement. I
usually think it may be better just to tolerate the assholes, and I myself
have a pretty thick skin about these things. I value the diversity of opinion
and perspective and technical skill that comes from having a big tent, and by
picking their brains and wealth of experience, I learned a great deal from the
assholes. And these flamewars, some responsibility for which falls on the
people who won't tolerate assholes, prove incredibly distracting.

The people who adopt hard-line stances against tolerating assholes usually
consider people like me -- (hopefully) non-assholes who nonetheless counsel
caution and tolerance for the assholes -- to be terribly misguided and
injurious to the long-term health of the organization. They make comments
like, "I want to be in this organization with my friends, not people
constantly criticizing me," which to my ears sounds possibly misguided -- you
do not have to expect to be friends with everybody in an organization in order
to work productively toward a shared goal. Often, the non-tolerators explain
that while they themselves have thick skins, they are engaging the asshole on
behalf of other, newer members who are not as willing to speak up but who are
offended and repelled by the asshole.

Are we just seeing the consequences of a new breed of the pampered "Generation
Y" who have been raised to value civility above diversity of experience and
raw merit? Or was the old way -- where harsh emails were merely ignored, while
the group proceeded with its business -- just us having our heads in the sand,
and unwelcoming enough to foreclose a whole crop of talented (but less thick-
skinned) people from entering and flourishing in the group? Is this period of
frequent flamewars likely to persist, or are we just seeing the temporary
pains of a slow revolution as friendly and civil "millennials" replace the old
guard? I really am not sure.

~~~
Jd
Many people who are perceived as "acerbic" are simply direct and don't engage
in the poo-pooing that characterizes many human social interactions. To get
rid of them is to revert to a less intelligent form of life.

~~~
Zev
No one's time is worth so much that they can't take an extra five seconds and
think about how to say something to avoid looking like a jackass.

------
StefanKarpinski
Yes, definitely, let's not tolerate assholes like RMS (almost unarguably an
asshole) or Linus (arguably an asshole, although, I for one find his
directness and lack of tact refreshing and amusing) in open source. So let's
get rid of Linux and GNU and start over.

------
lhnz
Nice to see a wave of contrary reactions to the original post, but I have to
agree with him. And it's not because I think I can change an asshole. I
probably can't. And perhaps sometimes I just add more to the flame.

But in cases like this I follow the maxim: "Qui tacet consentire videtur."

If you are silent and let this person behave badly then all others will see
that this behaviour is in the realms of acceptableness to you and the group.
For me, it is no different than allowing a bully to threaten a small kid in a
school. We might have to tolerate this to have the most efficient workplace,
but I prefer to optimize for justice.

(I admit, in places where I steadfastly attempt to stick to this against the
wills of the group, I am a jerk.)

------
ryandvm
Half-serious question: Why isn't being an asshole a clinically recognized
disability? I have yet to meet a reformed asshole, so I've come to the
conclusion that it's an inherent part of one's personality. No different than
OCD, ADHD, sexual addiction, etc.

~~~
rikthevik
> I have yet to meet a reformed asshole, so I've come to the conclusion that
> it's an inherent part of one's personality.

I disagree. I've witnessed many people acquire empathy as they grow older and
start treating others better. I know (hope) that I'm certainly not as
impetuous or quick to judge as I was in my youth.

------
epenn
I'm typically very good at getting along with people, but I suppose my
reaction to an asshole depends on the type of assholery being committed. Take
for example someone who is egotistical and condescending. I may not
necessarily like that person, but I can tolerate that person so long as the
work being done is of good quality. On the other hand, take for example
someone who takes credit for the work of others or in some other way actively
seeks to step on his/her peers for personal gain. I have no tolerance for
that.

~~~
ben0x539
I think it might be worthwhile to consider the influence that the egoistical
and condescending example person might have on someone who is not a perfectly
rational actor, and possibly easily cowed into giving up on a technical
discussion or retreating from the project as a whole.

Sure, ideally all contributors to open-source projeccts are thick-skinned and
confident enough that harsh condescendence will not affect them much, but in
reality, they probably are not, and I would rather cater to them than to the
"assholes" who might be scaring them away.

------
antoinevg
Experienced programmers everywhere recommend: "/ignore"

~~~
astrodust
/ban works better in my opinion. We're not so starved for talent we need to
allow every asshole who can commit into a project.

------
lelele
Someone who contributes good code is by no means an asshole. Real assholes are
selfish. Maybe some people are rude, that's it, but smart people see beyond
rudeness.

------
AndyNemmity
Assholes, are those people that write a compelling topic, but their webserver
cannot handle the traffic?

------
p4bl0
Thanks for saying it.

------
andreadallera
I think you're confusing "asshole" with "socially awkward". The real assholes
are the ones who smile and ooze kindness and would backstab you for 10 bucks.

Usually the "grumpy" people you're talking about are just grumpy, but good-
hearted in the end.

------
generators
Every successful enterprise requires three men – a dreamer, a businessman, and
a son-of-a-bitch. ( Every opensource project required three people. Linus.
Jacob. Asshole. ( kidding... ( before you stop tolerating me ) ) yes. lisp. )

------
MostAwesomeDude
I can't comment directly on his blog. What kind of asshole doesn't let people
comment on his blog? :3 (Sarcasm, by the way; I don't have comments on my blog
either.)

More pragmatically, the tolerance of assholes is a requisite for using a
computer, if you know anything about who maintains your operating system.
Linux, glibc, binutils, gcc, X; these are the underpinnings of your system,
and they are all maintained by assholes of one kind or another. How do you
propose to fix this?

~~~
rbonvall
I don't have to deal with any asshole when I use gcc or whatever.

