
No Time to Be Nice at Work - SimplyUseless
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/opinion/sunday/is-your-boss-mean.html
======
j_baker
I have to say: working in a civil work environment makes a huge difference in
terms of job satisfaction and job performance. Civility works for the
business, the worker, and the customer. Nobody really benefits from incivility
except for the arrogant power-monger over the very short term.

~~~
zxcvcxz
Most of these "safe space" environments are filled with arrogant people who,
while not being outright rude, can belittle you passive aggressively and it
can sometimes be worse than someone just calling you out on your bullshit.

A friend of mine worked for a startup that's mentioned on HN quite a lot, (I
won't say the name). The lead developers used git and IRC chat a lot. After
being hired my friend began to test a new product they were working on and
submitted some changes to github, they accepted the pull request and my friend
submitted a few more finding all sorts of bugs. At this point the lead
developers started to argue about how the changes were unnecessary and that my
friend needed to learn more about how their product worked, what was rude is
that they were publicly arguing while leaving him out of the conversation. No
words directed at him, just conversation _about_ him. A few weeks later they
realized their project really did have a lot of bugs and pushed through a
large change with many of my friends bug-fixes in it without giving him credit
or even so much as a thank you.

The lead devs would pal around and make inside jokes and ask my friend to do
all sorts of work while leaving him "out of the loop" as if he were some
"lackey" for them to boss around and not really part of the team.

Not too long after he started working there the team told him he needed to
attend a "conference on sensitivity in OSS" halfway across the country. My
friend couldn't make it and then he was basically interrogated by the lead
devs as to how he feels is the proper way to treat people. He said he was
treated as if he was in trouble and felt like he was being accused of a crime.
About a month later he left the company after being continually snubbed by his
superiors and not receiving any appreciation for his work.

Personally I get this feeling with a lot of "safe space" organizations I've
contributed too. The leaders are arrogant and passive aggressively rude, treat
you like crap and belittle your work, then act high-and-mighty because they've
never said a curse word.

~~~
marktangotango
I get the feeling there's a lot more to this story, would be interesting to
hear the other side. Were they really that doughy?

------
littletimmy
This is to be expected when the working environment gets as cut-throat as the
American workplace has become. Blame it on inequality, blame it on the
puritanical drive to overwork, blame it on the zeal to squeeze every last bit
of profit. It's just one other symptom of how anyone who is not an oligarch in
this society is meant as an expendable resource to be crushed by the
ubermensch.

My only hope is that the USA fails to export its brand of moral decrepitude to
the rest of the world. Europe should stay civilized, for the sake of its
people.

~~~
tedks
The United States is the way it is because this is the only way to survive
within the framework of competitive capitalism. European attempts at cultural
protectionism will fail as market pressures force them to adopt American
customs and habits.

This is just basic economics. American companies ruthlessly optimize for
profit. Any attempt to optimize for anything else will take away from the
potential for profit. In a global economy this means that profitable companies
will beat out nice companies, and eventually "nice" company shareholders will
force restructuring according to American ideals.

I would also say that based on existing trends the United States is quite
rapidly succeeding at bringing its way of life to the rest of the world. There
are no more competing ideologies left, and the next few years will lead to
more trade agreements that will mop up the remains of protectionism. Soon,
English will be mandated as a first language in most of the world, and we'll
have a truly globalized culture.

~~~
encoderer
Employee happiness is absolutely relevant to P&L. Happy employees are more
productive and have less turnover.

Companies already know this. It becomes a game of "how little must we do" but
it's far from the sweatshop imagery I saw while reading your comment.

I grew up middle class in middle America and it's not just the SF tech scene
I've made my career in; I grew up in a world of company picnics and "4 10s"
work weeks. Also, layoffs and plant closures. I'm not naive to the nature of
American business, I just have inclusive opinions about how companies can be
run profitably. And doubly so in tech.

~~~
rowdybully
Employee happiness is relevant to profit/loss, unless it isn't. Look at
Walmart: Profits are fine, and employees are noticeably unhappy.

Don't delude yourself with idealism. Capitalism is the way it is and it's not
right or wrong any more than a beaver building a dam.

~~~
quanticle
Yes, let's look at Walmart. Walmart is increasing wages and staffing across
the board because it's getting its clock cleaned by Target, CostCo and other
retailers that are willing to pay more and grant better benefits, and
therefore get employees who are willing to do more than just the bare minimum.

~~~
rowdybully
You don't know your ass from your head. Before you go spouting off untruths
you know zero about, go read the respective companies 10-Ks, moron.

------
patrickdavey
I once went to a talk on the "8 powers of leadership", one of these "powers"
was the power to be yourself. The presenters idea was to get your "go to hell
kit" ready (x months of living expenses saved) and then act the way you
believe you should. For example, if a boss started shouting at me, I would
politely, but firmly, say shall we continue this in another room, once there,
I would try to work out what the issue was and come to some resolution. I
certainly wouldn't stand for that sort of behaviour, life is too short.

Respect yourself, get your go to hell kit ready, and stick up for yourself,
there are always other jobs if push comes to shove, especially for anyone
reading this.

~~~
unabst
This is so true, and victims of bullying especially have a problem with this.
It helps to realize that the problems is often also the cause, because bullies
choose their victims. In a work environment, a kit is probably a good idea,
but you'll see people who can't stand up for themselves regardless of
circumstance, even when the risk is non-existent. It also has a lot to do with
standards and how high or low your standards are for how you should be
treated. Too high or too low and there is a price to be paid.

------
warmcat
From my personal experience, I agree on the stress caused by uncivil
workspace...especially if the boss is uncivil. I used to get thoughts of
suicide when I was working for a boss in a job right out of college and my
health declined a lot. It was not until I changed my job that I saw a huge
difference in civil and uncivil workspace and its effect on life.

~~~
ionforce
There was thing somewhere (Internet!) that the number one reason people switch
jobs is because of their relationship with their manager.

I agree with you. Happiness is hugely a function of said relationship.

------
dmourati
I'm guilty of workplace incivility. I was oblivious how much I was negatively
impacting my colleagues. I read No One Understands you and What to do About it
and the No Asshole Rule. Both helped me to improve.

------
itbeho
My personal favorite quote from a previous boss: "I left you alone last week
when you were out for your wife's surgery. Now it's time for you to catch up."

~~~
fsloth
What a douchebag. I'm glad you can describe this work relationship in the past
sense.

------
jqm
On the other hand the fake niceness of some workplaces is just as repugnant.
And it makes it harder to find out where you stand and what needs to be done.
I fully agree there is no need for hostility in the workplace and it shouldn't
be tolerated. At the same time I believe many people have become oversensitive
and forgotten the massaging of their personal feelings are not the reason a
company exists.

------
unabst
Kindness is so so so underrated. If one needs an excuse to be kind, they are
already an asshole. And those who stick around horrible people need to realize
that those people suffer greatly for how they behave even if they deny it. In
startups especially. A leader that lacks integrity and lacks a heart does not
deserve any loyalty, and if you're giving it, you need to consider the
possibility that you are victim of a bully.

I also love the conclusion of original article:

 _Given the enormous cost of incivility, it should not be ignored. We all need
to reconsider our behavior. You are always in front of some jury. In every
interaction, you have a choice: Do you want to lift people up or hold them
down?_

------
negamax
Having seen my fair shares of people like these, I say it has everything to do
with their own personal lives not sorted and them taking it out at workplace.
If anything, companies should be extra vigilant in rooting out such workers.

------
wyclif
For those of you that like business books, and want to improve the culture of
your workplace in terms of creating space for respect, civility, compassion,
and yes—love, I thought this is relevant to these issues:

[http://www.amazon.com/Love-Is-Killer-App-
Influence/dp/140004...](http://www.amazon.com/Love-Is-Killer-App-
Influence/dp/1400046831)

It's not a new book, and it's written by a Yahoo guy, but don't let those
things put you off. There's tons of actionable stuff here.

------
jryanwilliams
Job role plays a big part in how civil someone thinks they are expected to be
to one another. With the transactional nature of sales, I see many leaders
approach their sales team with a sort of 'what have you done (closed) lately'
mentality, which is a slippery slope that can get very ugly very quickly.

------
__Joker
I have heard first hand about some CEO or bosses deliberately practising
meanness/curtness. The worst thing of all is I could not fathom they kind of
justifying and moving on. Most likely if things are working something most be
right.

~~~
fsloth
Large orgs can do well due to market conditions despite it's leaders. To quote
Andy Grove terminology, being an asshole seldom creates leverage. It's kinda
cargo cult to figure out some prominent social behaviour of a CEO is the
reason for orgs success when in reality there are so many things going on that
are hard to observe as outsiders.

~~~
__Joker
Completely agree. Drawing positive correlation between CEO behaviour and
success is fraught with lots holes. My peeve against this is people(employees)
accepting such behaviour and to some extent condoning the same.

Also my last statements I meant the attitude of people that "Most likely if
things are working something most be right."

------
nhashem
There's a school of thought among "economic leftists" that the disconnect
between US productivity and average US worker wages since the 1970s, is due to
a decline in "outrage constraint."[0] Executives didn't pay themselves that
much more than their workers because it would essentially be considered
"uncouth" to do otherwise. They might be rich, but they would be condemned and
considered pariahs among their peers. You could optimize your personal gain,
but the reputational damage would be be so suboptimal for your firm that you'd
wind up in a net worse position.

Social norms and conventions have significantly shifted since then. It is now
entirely acceptable for executives to pay themselves several hundred times the
average worker compensation[1]. _There is no longer any real cost,
reputational or otherwise, for optimizing for your personal gain_ So you might
as well get yours, and fuck everyone else. Sure, some people with "Sanders
2016" bumper stickers will whine on Reddit about you, and maybe they'll even
get together and yell at some buildings until they collapse due to a
combination of in-fighting and tear-gas. But for the most part, you'll just
shrug, order another round of layoffs, and think about how much your RSUs will
appreciate in the inevitable stock price bump.

And if you're truly concerned about reputational risk, and can't reconcile
that some people in society will still think you're a "bad person" for this,
and the thought of being a bad person causes too much discomfort for your
liking, then you can literally _compare them to Hitler and find a sympathetic
audience._ [2]

I have to imagine -- and yes, I literally have to imagine, because I don't
have any quantitative evidence and don't pretend otherwise -- that this is
essentially a sociopath mindset (perhaps best explained by the Gervais
Principle[3]) that then trickles down at every level of most professional
organizations. When you're optimizing for your personal gain, you don't have a
lot of time to consider things like "empathy" or "fairness." This is
unfortunate to those disposed to such personality traits like the OPs father,
because they essentially get eaten alive in the modern American workplace. At
many professional organizations, the approach is binary. If it's not "fuck
you, got mine" then it's "fuck! you got mine."

HN is known for having a significant population of those who that there is
nothing wrong with this, and if the most productive members of society happen
to be sociopaths, then they should be rewarded as such as their productivity
is what drives the human race forward. But what's unfortunate to me is that
this means some of our society's most brilliant and productive people will
essentially get marginalized in their professional (and indirectly, their
personal) lives, not because they lack some level of competence, self-
reliance, productivity, etc, but because they're incapable of embracing a
sociopathic mindset to professional advancement.

I have no problem with those who want to make their fortunes in any way
possible, so they can retire to Galt's Gultch with their fortunes. I suppose I
only question why they're so hell-bent on having only assholes for neighbors.

[0] [http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/23/opinion/the-outrage-
constr...](http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/23/opinion/the-outrage-
constraint.html)

[1]
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/25/t...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/25/the-
pay-gap-between-ceos-and-workers-is-much-worse-than-you-realize/)

[2] [http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/the-rich-strike-
back-1...](http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/the-rich-strike-
back-104753.html)

[3] [http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-
principle/](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/)

~~~
slgeorge
@nhashem - great comment, well thought out and worded, thanks. I'm not going
all Wikipedia on you, but can you provide some links or thoughts on the idea
that "what's unfortunate to me is that this means some of our society's most
brilliant and productive people will essentially get marginalized"?

In my experience, people who believe in the totally individual focused system,
see anyone who doesn't as not being tough or focused enough to survive the
realities of highly competitive environments.

------
sgt101
A lot of these things are artifacts of intense competition and change.
Ignoring invites often happens (where I work) when people have 20 appointments
in a day already! Stress transmits from the top down; if your business is "as
usual" you can get your hands round it and run it smoothly, if your platform
is on fire and your customers are throwing bombs at you (and disappearing)
then staying on an even keel is hard.

------
glaberficken
Civil face to face relations and at the same time "uncivil" communication via
email.

I've lately been experiencing this at my work place.

Face to face, people are all really civil to each other, assertive, giving
objective feedback and collaborating really well to get work done.

However when things move to the written form (email mostly) things can quickly
escalate into finger pointing and the blame game.

Anyone got thoughts on what would pressure us to act this way?

~~~
awinder
One of the more insidious ways that reading books / training up on management
or being civil is when people understand the high level message and can relate
to some of the individual strategies without personally embracing the
ideology. So when you're face to face with other people, you can recall
strategies of being civil, you play the part, but deep down the message hasn't
been really been fully embraced. All it takes is a situation where strong
social cues have been removed (electronic communication) and you're unable to
notice that the situation requires care and involves other human beings, and
you see a lot of reverting to old, poor habits.

One very skin-deep method to help out there is to create a strong culture
around not having endless email discussions and knowing when to take things
"off-line". Close, personal communication with care and compromise is how
disputes get amicably resolved, and the impersonality of email leads to sides
just wanting to be told "You are right, I am wrong". Which is a situation that
will never, ever, ever happen.

------
hliyan
How does this compare with the idea of "disagreeable givers"?
[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/06/why-
it-p...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/06/why-it-pays-to-
be-a-jerk/392066/)

------
netcan
We are such apes.

~~~
ak39
That is so true. Primates, not just apes. Here's Sapolsky explaining how
stress in an hierarchical social arrangement impacts heart health and life
expectancy.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4UMyTnlaMY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4UMyTnlaMY)

------
comrade1
Aggressive behavior is the norm when working as a consultant. You have to know
that it's not personal and that part of it is negotiation on the part of the
client, part of it is anger on the part of the client, some of it is just due
to poor personality, some of it due to your misunderstanding of the situation
and culture.

Most people are not fit to work in a high-stress, aggressive environment, but
some of us are. And that's why we get paid a lot for not doing a heck of a
lot.

I worked as a 'clean up' consultant in Europe for a couple of years - going to
clients that had failing projects and were desperate to bring in a developer
to get the project back on track. My job was 75% calming the client down and
making them feel loved and 25% programming.

And boy, do I have some stories...

~~~
jliechti1
Are you able to share a few?

~~~
spotman
I share the opinion of the parent comment, pretty much exactly.

Some of my comrades call this a layer-8 problem. (hint: there is only 7
technology levels, 8 is the human one).

One story in particular my firm was hired to come into a startup that had
failed to scale, both technology wise, and personnel wise. They had hired up
to 25 engineers, hoping to fix their stability issues, and almost going
bankrupt doing it. I am at no liberty to say which company this is publicly
unfortunately.

It was stressful, but you can't take things personal. You have to put aside
feelings, to get useful data out of these people to make the platform work.
You can't possibly care about someone's ethics, approach, and often even
coding style on these missions. The goal is to try and not piss off as many
people as you and, and go ahead not worry if you do have to piss someone off
to get the job done, and not lose sleep at night if someone does not get along
with you.

The end result was that they had to shed, through various reasons the great
majority of their internal team. We stabilized things and bought them lots of
time, while they slowly brought in new senior tech management and rebuilt
their internal team from the ground up.

It was a multi year affair, and involved working on over 12 codebases and
consolidating applications from 3 different hosting providers into AWS.

They got very close to running the ship into the ground. If you think staying
up late and pulling the occasional all-nighter is unhealthy, or having a job
that has extremely high expectations and leave you no time for a personal life
is bad, this is about one hundred times worse. Since my team is small and
highly skilled we can get a lot done in a short amount of time, and
occasionally we are terse even with each other. But the amount of sleep
deprivation that comes with a task of gargantuan size, where your dealing with
hundreds and thousands of requests (sometimes per second), the company is
going for broke, and a single code change can improve monetary situations in
instantaneous, tractable ways, it gets super intense.

You have the CEO, the COO, the CFO all breathing down your neck. One day they
see light at the end of the tunnel from fixing the currently broken problem,
and then the next day, you discover another codebase lost in git that powers
commerce for android, is starting to experience issue, and you don't even know
where to find credentials to log into its production systems since it was
setup by some employee in the middle of the night a year ago that is no longer
there.

I can go on and on and on. But honestly, please don't read this as a
recommendation. Being a digital mercenary is fun in your 20s, but it got old
quick. Of course I still do it, but I have a much healthier way of saying NO,
more often now. You can make a very lucrative living doing this sort of work,
but its hard to earn the reputation to get these clients, and you may end up
forgetting what your family looks like by the end of a 2 year job that is
365/24/7.

The story did have a happy ending though. The company does well today.
Extremely well. A new era of management has come in over the last year, and I
think everyone learned a lot. They are a household brand and I hear about them
in the news it seems like monthly.

Cheers

~~~
codeonfire
>you don't even know where to find credentials to log into its production
systems since it was setup by some employee in the middle of the night a year
ago that is no longer there.

Recently I was searching for some report generating code that my team had been
voluntold to maintain. I spent a day trying to find the code that generated
and uploaded the report. Once I finally was able to get in contact with the
last person who had worked on it I found that a developer in India was
manually running and uploading the report every week. Why? Because job
security.

~~~
clebio
> voluntold

That's excellent.

~~~
michaelcampbell
We use that term at my company pretty frequently, although I'd just heard it
less than a year ago. Seems to be making the rounds.

------
michaelochurch
First, I think that people aren't becoming less uncivil but that environments
are getting worse. If anything (although this is probably an artifact of
increasing age and status) people seem to be getting better, on the whole:
fewer mean jokes and exclusionary behaviors. Work environments, with the open-
plan trend, are getting a lot worse and more stressful. It used to be that an
off-color joke was heard by 2 people in a private office; now it's heard by 40
in a bullpen. Open-plan offices tend to magnify the cumulative effects of
microaggressions, which is one of the reasons why every population except for
the most constitutionally insensitive one (those who've never had negative
experiences, either due to general inexperience or a combination of privilege
and luck) hates them.

Second, when you're aggressive or even uncivil, it hurts you with that person.
That said, it can be beneficial-- in very small doses. Punching down is bad,
while punching up is risky (the best target is a person of high status, that
is "punching up", and low character, but with no real power) and if you're
perceived as being uncivil for personal benefit, you're just considered an
asshole. Usually, uncivil behavior is to one's benefit when (and pretty much
only when) one is perceived as being that way _for the group_ : you're a
protector. People tire of selfish rule-breakers and firebrands, but those who
behave in such ways for group benefit tend to inspire loyalty.

Don't get me wrong: it's generally best not to be uncivil or arrogant at all.
It's just not intellectually honest to say that it's always socially
detrimental to be that way. You have to be extremely selective in your targets
to make it work, though.

~~~
douche
Have you ever considered writing a book? Something like a "Peopleware 2.0"?

~~~
douche
I mean, your blog is must-read material every time new content shows up in
theoldreader, and I keep coming back to certain points, like the Gervais
principle series.

------
yummyfajitas
From the article: _But insensitivity or disrespect often sabotages support in
crucial situations. Employees may fail to share important information and
withhold efforts or resources. Sooner or later, uncivil people sabotage their
success — or at least their potential. Payback may come immediately or when
they least expect it, and it may be intentional or unconscious._

It's a bit weird how the article paints this as a failure of the uncivil
person - this is pretty clearly a failure of the sabotager. Some people are
willing to harm random third parties (shareholders) in acts of petty revenge
against those they dislike (for possibly valid reasons). Quite a bit of victim
blaming going on there.

I agree that the person with power should - as a pragmatic move - attempt to
behave in a manner that accounts for the bad acts of others. In much the same
way, people should avoid putting themselves into situations where there is a
high risk of crime. But the ultimate responsibility for an individual's
actions lies on the individual, not the person who was "asking for it."

~~~
j_baker
Are you seriously suggesting that the uncivil boss is the real victim?

~~~
yummyfajitas
No, I'm suggesting shareholders are the real victim. They are the ones paying
agents to maximize their wealth while those agents pursue their own agendas
instead.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_proble...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_problem)

~~~
Sideloader
>They are the ones paying agents to maximize their wealth while those agents
pursue their own agendas instead.

I am a secret agent not just any agent...and I pursue my own agenda instead.
lol

Dude, life is not an economics textbook. Have you actually worked in the real
world with real people?

