
Assholes: A Probing Examination - zdw
https://www.nomachetejuggling.com/2019/06/03/dont-hire-assholes/
======
colechristensen
Hello, my name is Cole and I can be an asshole.

The definition posted of an asshole casts a very wide net making discussion
difficult.

Diversity is important and it isn't just about sex and skin color. People act
differently, people have different priorities, confidence varies, life
situations outside of work alters behavior as do medical conditions and
treatments. Different cultures even in this country value vastly different
behaviors.

Not everyone is perfect just how they are but everyone doesn't have to act the
same way to be acceptable.

Labeling, setting up dichotomies, and othering people can be a much more toxic
behavior than being an "asshole".

People with Asperger's or otherwise on the autism spectrum can be huge
"assholes" by the definitions here. Does autism make you unemployable?

Behavior issues in the workplace and out are much more nuanced than this.

It is _good_ to be pushed out of your comfort zone in both needing to develop
thicker skin AND showing empathy to others' sensibilities but within bounds.

Sorting people into bins: assholes and victims, is problematic.

When it comes down to it, not everyone must work well together. Just like
there is a wide diversity of people's dispositions there can be a wide variety
of team dispositions. Not fitting into a particular group doesn't have to make
a 'wrong' person, it can just mean the best fit is somewhere else. Become a
big enough organization and it is something you will have to face.

~~~
harryf
Oh and the other thing I didn't see anyone address is teaching "victims" the
right Ju-Jitsu for dealing with (intentional) assholes / bullying - the
mindset of don't let anyone make you a victim.

I had the "good fortune" of having an internship years ago with a tyrant. This
person loved publicly shaming the interns, among a whole bunch of other toxic
behaviour, continual needling etc. etc. Their life was a mess, marriage
falling apart and alcoholic but beating up the interns was this person's way
of boosting their ego up again. They were also a master of ducking and
deflecting any possible blame.

Being on the receiving end of this for a year, I was so upset and frustrated
that I vowed never to let it happen to me again.

After trying various strategies I found the most effective solution is very
simple: get a group of people laugh at the asshole, ideally as a direct
response to bullying from them in a group setting. Typically you only need to
pull that off once and they will leave you alone from that point on - most
bullys are cowards in the face of real resistance. Actually you don't even
need to be funny - you just need to do something that can't missed by the
group or the bully and creates awkwardness, e.g. a loud, slow clap in response
to their comment then if they quiz you on it, you just say "Just giving you a
round of applause"

I could write a lot more on this, and much of it would be easy to misinterpret
in today's PC culture so I won't but, in essence: don't fall into a victim
mindset - stand up for yourself.

~~~
dsr_
In 2010, Dieter Zapf and Claudia Gross took 149 victims of self-described
bullying at work and taught them various conflict resolution techniques and
studied the results. The effect? Victims tried various strategies and even
altered their strategies several times before realizing nothing worked. Many
resorted to frequently skipping work, but even more resorted to fighting back
with the same kind of behaviors. Eventually, most victims left the company.

\-- from the second section of the article.

~~~
harryf
Not refuting this but I just remembered something that inspired me way back
when I was an intern - the book of five rings -
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Five_Rings](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Five_Rings)

I guess the essence of what I got from it, was if someone is attacking you,
you want to observe how they’re doing it and what you think is driving them to
do it. The idea I got from the Book of Five Rings is that for any type of
attack there is a response that can stop the attack in a single strike. That
response varies depending on the attack. But that’s how I came to group
laughter being the “strike” that will usually stop the intentional asshole /
office bully type.

And yes that may sound like childish, school playground stuff but often the
reason someone behaves badly in an office hs it’s roots in their childhood

------
glangdale
This article is overly fixated on _overt_ assholery. Much of the worst asshole
behavior I've encountered has been done by people who are outwardly polite and
high functioning and have often never had a cross word for anyone.

I would much rather get a tersely worded group email (ooo) than have to do
someone else's job for them.

Let's be frank. The #1 asshole thing not mentioned here is (shouting and
swearing alert) NOT DOING YOUR FUCKING JOB. This is an immense source of
frustration for other people, whether because they have to do the person's job
for them, or because the person's failure to do their job creates disasters.

In many of the situations I've seen (or, frankly, participated in) where
someone is behaving somewhat like an asshole, the root of the situation is
that (a) someone isn't doing their actual job in a remotely competent way, (b)
that someone isn't doing anything to fix that situation and (c) management
doesn't know or care.

~~~
Udik
> the root of the situation is that (a) someone isn't doing their actual job
> in a remotely competent way

Not really. I've worked with several assholes. They were all extremely
assertive, and usually also very competent (but I've found also the utterly
incompetent ones). The problem is that even if they're right 95% of the time,
the 5% of the times they're wrong they force everybody along the wrong path,
because their purpose as work is not to get stuff done right, but to assert
their status. So talking them out of a bad idea is impossible, and they tend
to favour solutions that serve more the purpose of demonstrating their skill
than to get good results.

(As an aside, since assholery is widespread in software engineering, it is
legitimate to wonder how much of the so called "best practices" floating
around are just exercises in one-upping each other in a status game- "hey, you
write your tests first, but you should really write them first in this obscure
DSL that is being promoted by the creator of ... ")

~~~
tomp
Sounds like their bias is that they're right (regardless of ego), and if
they're right 95% of the time, I'd say that bias is pretty accurate...

~~~
Udik
HAL9000 had a pretty strong and justified bias about his being right too. It
didn't end very well. :)

------
klenwell
> Asshole behavior begets additional asshole behavior from others. Non-
> assholes are hardened into assholes over time to survive, and a spiral of
> incivility reigns.

I've been infected by this before. Never again. (I prefer to slap up so I
ended up getting shown the door.)

Before we go through a hiring round with my team nowadays, I like us to review
what I've seen approvingly referred to over on Metafilter as The Baboon
Article:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/13/science/no-time-for-
bulli...](https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/13/science/no-time-for-bullies-
baboons-retool-their-culture.html)

~~~
sdrothrock
> I prefer to slap up so I ended up getting shown the door.

What does "slap up" mean?

~~~
klenwell
From the article:

> Slapping down people of lower status in the company hierarchy.

This would be the other direction.

------
stakhanov
To me, the definition of an asshole is slightly different. An asshole is
someone who acts out every social interaction on the principle of "dominate or
be dominated". It's the lack of a middle ground that makes an asshole, so that
people can't just go into an interaction being each other's peers, and also
finish the interaction with being each other's peers, having been nice and
respectful towards each other, preserved each other's individual freedoms, and
exchanged some information.

I agree that assholery has a tendency to spread, and the mechanism in my
observation is as follows: You can start out NOT being an asshole. When there
is an asshole for you to deal with, you'll realize "All of my interactions
with this person end up with this person dominating me." But you don't like
being dominated because that's natural (psychological reactance), and bad for
your career. So next time you interact with that person you know you have to
act on the principle of "dominate or be dominated", i.e. the asshole-
principle. Soon enough it becomes a habit, and you may inadvertently behave
towards non-assholes as an asshole as well, making you an asshole.

Another interesting corollary of this definition of asshole is this: If you
perceive a lot of assholes around you, maybe YOU are the asshole.

It also explains why you find more assholes as you go up the corporate ladder:
Being higher up means you get more opportunity for exhibiting domineering
behaviour without repercussions (namely towards your subordinates).

~~~
woodandsteel
>To me, the definition of an asshole is slightly different. An asshole is
someone who acts out every social interaction on the principle of "dominate or
be dominated".

Your definition is complementary to the author's. You are talking about
relational motivation, the author about the feelings that are evoked in the
person being dominated.

------
marksweston
> It may seem “unfair” to toy with the idea of losing the assholes,
> particularly the unintentional assholes. Since they “don’t know better” it
> seems almost cruel to let them go simply because they’re making everyone
> around them miserable, and it somehow feels like a smaller request to have
> 50 people tolerate one asshole’s behavior than to demand one asshole figure
> out how to not alienate everyone with whom they interact. Frankly, I think
> you’d be doing an asshole a favor by losing them, nothing is a better
> teacher than failure.

So…..

Once you have successfully labelled someone, you should actively fight any
tendency towards empathy with them. Don’t bother worrying about whether their
behaviour was intentional. Just kick them out. It’s for their own good.

At this point, I’m labelling the author an asshole.

~~~
Hasknewbie
Yes, this article felt like reading the rant of a scientologist about
'suppressive persons'...

~~~
DonHopkins
Your intolerance of religion has been noted, and will go on your permanent
record. ;)

------
jchw
I really love the euphemisms/double entendres/word play. It definitely makes
it more fun to read.

One thing I realize as I read this is that, I’ve definitely engaged in certain
‘asshole behaviors’ at times. It’s been a long challenge to become more
socially skilled and handle pressure/emotions better, but a lot of bad habits
linger, I think.

The worst habit of which is definitely complaining about coworkers to other
coworkers. Not in a hateful or personal way, but sometimes when I get
frustrated by something someone does, I vent to someone unrelated instead of
confronting the other person.

Another terrible habit that I had in the past was a tendency to respond while
still fuming, which never ends well; usually it ends in both sides of an
argument escalating while others grab the popcorn.

I hope I make enough effort to not be the kind of asshole that needs to be
flushed out of an org, but similarly hopefully it’s not just me that is
imperfect at the art of not being an asshole.

~~~
rodhilton
>Another terrible habit that I had in the past was a tendency to respond while
still fuming, which never ends well; usually it ends in both sides of an
argument escalating while others grab the popcorn.

Right there with you and I'm the asshole who wrote this post. I know I have a
tendency to want to strike back when I feel struck and I also have a tendency
to go way overboard, in that "don't throw the first punch but throw the last"
kind of way. Honestly I think everyone has asshole behaviors every now and
then, a true asshole doesn't know or doesn't care when they act like a prick.
The fact that this is something you're consciously aware of and working on I
think means you're fine.

One book I might recommend though is 'Nonviolent Communication' by Marshall
Rosenberg. It definitely feels a little hippy dippy at times and the skeptical
asshole in me occasionally rolls my eyes at it, but I think it's really helped
me understand some of my own communication tendencies and given me a lot of
tools to help curb my own shit.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Haven't come across Marshall Rosenberg, will have to look him up when I get a
chance.

Have you come across Fred Kofman, he has this thing he calls _Verbal Aikido_ ,
check it out here
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6N9nvk8bvE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6N9nvk8bvE)
\- he also has some books that fall loosely in to the hippy dippy category
while still valuable in my opinion.

------
Razengan
At least 10 thousand years of civilization, and we are _still_ trying to
figure out each other and ourselves.

Why is "Don't be a dick" so hard to codify?

All these religions, ethics and philosophical systems, and all this
technology, convenience and comforts.. and we still have so much friction in
interacting with others of our own species.

The best solution we seem to have found is leaving each other alone.

I've come to believe that true maturity is the realization that everyone is
capable of feeling the same things you feel.

But most of us – me included – seem to have "Single Player Syndrome" where we
feel that we are the only person capable of feeling what we feel, and everyone
else is an NPC with diluted senses and processing capabilities.

~~~
julius_set
The major problem is we die, so if we didn’t die then yes those 10,000 years
of civilization would help because of the life experiences of the survivors,

So:

1.) Not everyone reads history books 2.) We die 3.) Social stats reset at
birth, pray you have parents who treat you and other people well

The only permanent solution is an evolution of our species where the asshole
gene is gone or a collective hive mind

~~~
Razengan
Some social improvements do propagate across generations.

For example, we no longer throw virgins into volcanoes.

On the other hand there are also regressions with pockets of civilization
reverting to outdated practices here and there, even now.

------
dreamcompiler
Excellent article. I hope managers read it. The toughest problem I've had
w.r.t. assholes was convincing managers that certain people were in fact
assholes and they were not essential to the company's survival. Assholes are
extremely good at kissing up and shitting down. And managers don't like to
hear they've been manipulated.

~~~
drtillberg
The a--hole royalty that I've encountered defeat every measure offered in this
article precisely because of the effectiveness of their kissing up and sh---
ing down strategy. Actively sabotaging literally every decent person they
encounter (because the other people don't share their 'culture'), turning
every item in their punchlist into a tool of political conquest where the
rules are: make your victims look bad by any means possible, and then the
kicker-- when they choose to turn on their social skills, expressing a highly
superior feeling of confidence and ability to persuasively blame _all the
other a--holes_ for their own tyrranical behavior.

No, when you get a royal a--hole into a large organization, I really don't
have much hope for average managers with typical business training to do
anything but watch.

------
DoreenMichele
_When you learn something from a non-asshole you walk away thankful for the
mentorship._

Sadly, it often doesn't work like that. Frequently, people just feel like
"Damn, I'm good!" and give zero credit to the person who was good to them.

------
paulfurley
Not sure exactly how but I’ve mostly avoided places where being an asshole is
acceptable. This could be to do with actively avoiding bro-fest type places,
looking for high-impact rather than high-pay kind of work, but I can’t really
take credit.

Separately, I’m quite shocked reading this HN thread seeing people defending
the behaviour the article describes. I suddenly feel like I don’t really know
the tech industry at all!

------
krumpet
What's ironic is...the only people I can think of that I've worked with over
the years who exhibit the signs called out in this piece were VP level or
higher.

~~~
Bakary
Being an asshole or having dark triad traits is often an adaptive and
successful behavior in the modern world.

------
fasteo
Offtopic.

Slang for "asshole" in Spanish is "capullo" or "gilipollas". Originally, these
words described a dumb,candid,innocent person, but nowadays they are used to
refer to "smart assholes".

"listillo" is another word for "smart asshole" that I like. Literally, it
means "little smart person". Diminutive of the word "listo" (smart)

"enterao" is yet another word for "smart asshole". It is a contraction of
"enterado", a person that knows about everything.

Sorry for the interlude.

(*) By the OP standard, I am an asshole.

~~~
nestorherre
That's in Spain's spanish, not in America's spanish.

------
keyle
This writer is brilliant, very tight article. I wish someone would write the
news this way, everyday. Life wouldn't be so dark...

Because after all, assholes are popping up in the news constantly.

~~~
rodhilton
Thanks!

------
Melchizedek
This post conflates two very different things:

1\. Benign lack of social skills (terse emails etc.). These people are not a
major problem in my experience, and are sometimes even under-appreciated
because they don't (successfully at least) sell themselves or play politics.
They don't really have bad intentions and can often improve their behavior.

2\. Narcissism (belittling others, must always be right, etc.) This is a
_huge_ problem that in severe cases can destroy an organization. Such people
are basically incurable because this is a deep seated psychological problem
(really a personality disorder) and nothing a manager can fix. You must get
rid of such people at all costs.

------
Iv
Unfortunately, we have plenty of examples of successful companies where toxic
behavior is rampant.

I agree that firing assholes improves a company's morale and environment, but
sadly there is little evidence that it actually help a company's business.

~~~
rodhilton
I linked to as much hard evidence as I could but I'll agree that it's a little
light. My hunch, just based on my own observation doing this for 20 years, is
that an asshole is like a black hole of productivity, draining it from
everyone else to such an extent that they're simply not worth having around,
and that no matter how Brilliant they are, the rest of the team can figure out
their areas of expertise with the morale boost they get after leaving (or
drastically changing their behavior, though sometimes the bridges are burned
too much for recovery).

Again this is mostly anecdotal, from what I've seen teams do when the Resident
Jerk was fired or left. I've never in my 20 years as a professional software
developer seen a single person leave a team and then see the team immediately
fall to pieces because that person really was the critical lynchpin that
people thought. I've seen lots of people stick around far, far too long
because folks (management usually) were WORRIED that's what was going to
happen, but it never actually seems to.

~~~
deanmoriarty
I have seen that a couple times, mostly in startups: a highly functioning
brilliant jerk was doing a pretty good job leading teams, but they had no
patience towards poor performers and that caused morale issues.

Eventually the person got managed out (not fired, just isolated from the
teams) and upper management thought the team would just eventually thrive
after some short loss of productivity, but that never happened: the poor
performers were put in front of the customer who commissioned the project
(role that was usually handled by the jerk, who was highly competent at that
due to their technical brilliance and assertive personality even with the
customer), and after a few round trips the customer smelled the incompetency
and literally said “we’re going to quit this project, we feel like there’s no
technical direction lately”. Massive loss for the company, in the 7 figures.
It almost caused the company to fail due to that being the largest customer at
that phase.

In those cases, the jerk did an amazing job at keeping a very productive
technical communication with the customer, and keep the high performers on
track towards what really needed to be done in those projects.

~~~
drtillberg
Part of the problem is an a--hole is surrounded by a zone of disaster and
chaos of their own creation, which makes them all the more indispensable. A--
holes do not groom successors, they burn competitors (which everyone else is).

------
ganzuul
Around these parts the term 'attitude disability' gets floated once in a
while. It doesn't translate very well... but the translation doesn't need the
negative connotation it has over here.

Nullifying a circle of tit-for-tat takes a lot of energy, and stable blood
sugar. Too much short carbs in prefab food is causing all of us all kinds of
damage.

------
kazinator
You know, maybe "asshole" is just a manifestation of "empowerment".

You give people a safe environment in which they feel free to voice what they
really think without fearing repercussions, and there you go.

~~~
rodhilton
I honestly think this kind of hits the nail on the head. The industry (in my
opinion) is far too tolerant of asshole behavior for many reasons, and it's
basically just created a safe place to be a jerk without any repercussion. I
largely wrote up what I did because I'd like to see this change, we should
treat rude and annoying behavior the way that most other industries do by
making it something we culturally don't accept. The same folks who realized
they could be jerks and it wouldn't hurt their careers will simply figure out
that now it will and knock it off.

------
appwiz
Also see "Brilliant Jerks in Engineering[1]" by Brendan Gregg.

    
    
      [1] http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2017-11-13/brilliant-jerks.html

~~~
kspp
Clickable link:

[http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2017-11-13/brilliant-
jerks....](http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2017-11-13/brilliant-jerks.html)

Saves one second per person, that's like a whole man-day across all the
readers.

------
sokoloff
I’m giggling more than I probably should at the well-chosen sub-headers in the
article.

~~~
keyle
Also "Picture unrelated" are unrelentingly cunning.

------
olgeni
I always get the impression that it's "technical assholes" vs. "wise managers
who should be brave enough to fire the assholes."

In practice: I see lots of assholes in management up to the director level,
and the CEO doesn't do anything because they just hired their friends. Then,
people just leave. Nobody cares because the issue of "tech assholes" is trendy
these days.

~~~
DFHippie
I think the issue of assholes winding up in management was covered.

------
deanmoriarty
I’ve been struggling a little bit with this myself, and while I don’t think
it’s been a massive problem for me (yet), I am aware of it.

I have a very assertive personality, which has done wonders for my career
despite my average technical competency. Managers love to hear from me because
I have (and have been told so) good communication skills, specifically the
ability to quickly summarize pros and cons of solutions, while keeping extreme
fairness in my technical judgements. On top of this, my “fearless” (asshole?)
personality makes me treat everyone in the hierarchy (including VPs and upper
management) as peers, and I have no problem arguing with them if I feel I have
a reasonable technical issue I care about and diverging opinions from theirs.

Most of my brilliant coworkers, much more technically talented than me, tend
to be more introvert and never “pick an argument with management”, which also
means they never get the visibility I get, which results in public praises,
financial incentives, and interesting work. I wonder if they perceive me as
asshole.

~~~
abyssin
I can find myself in your description. One thing I conscientiously do in the
hope of not being an asshole is using my assertiveness to publicly praise
those brilliant introvert coworkers that I feel deserve more recognition than
they get.

------
orpheline
I've dealt with my share through the years... the most problematic asshole I
encountered was definitely in the 'unintentional' mold: friendly, outgoing,
always willing to help others... So what made this person an asshole?

They WOULD NOT LET GO their solution to a problem. If the team agreed on
another approach, every planning meeting or conversation for the next month
got derailed to rehash why this persons' idea was the best, and why we should
change our decision. If we held to the original decision, this person would
call team meetings with PO and PM 'to help resolve the issue'.

This person didn't badger juniors. On the contrary, this person would have
side conversations with the most junior devs to get them 'onside', then come
to the senior devs with "the rest of us have been talking and we think the way
forward is X".

Caused a lot of divisiveness on our team before getting fired.

~~~
ordinaryperson
Yes, this is a better point than the one the OP was making: while everyone can
agree assholes are bad it's not always easy to spot them.

Similar to your experience: I had a colleague who was extremely negative.
Everything was horrible, every manager was stupid. Nothing was done right,
ever. We never worked on the right project and if we did we never did it the
right way, according to him.

I think he just valued his role as a contrarian: if everyone else was wrong
all the time it meant he was always right, that he knew better and more than
the rest of us.

I used to tell him if he hated things that he should suggest better ways of
doing things to management or, if all else fails, find a new role or new
company that would make him happier.

But he never did, he just liked complaining and/or making others miserable.
But he didn't walk around with a sign that said "asshole" \-- he could be
polite and friendly and well-adjusted during the normal course of a work day.

Then what do you do? Do you engage the person and argue with them? Ignore them
and hope the problem goes away? We all know toxic coworkers exist, the
question is how to change their behavior or deal with them effectively.

------
enriquto
This article builds on the premise that a few employees are assholes and none
of the managers are. In my experience, the reality is the exact opposite,
where all managers (especially those at the higher level) are assholes. In
that case, none of the considerations of the article seem to be useful. Yet,
it is a fun read, especially the "unrelated" pictures and the colorful
language.

I am surprised by this sentence:

> Formalizing social skills as part of the job description can help with this.

This kind of thing leads to a subtle but most damaging form of management
assholery, whereby employees are "invited" to participate in social gatherings
at expensive places, and are frowned upon if they don't participate.

~~~
HelloNurse
If a job description "formalizes social skills" I expect very distressing
interviews in which HR idiots are going to judge my personality and my values
and an oppressive environment in which, for instance, managers are going to
draw a line between disagreeing and having a bad attitude.

------
pnutjam
You can train people technically, but it's hard to unasshole someone.

~~~
jimmaswell
I dunno, seems easy enough to give a set of rules to follow in the workplace
but as someone who's worked as a college tutor, it can be hard to impossible
to get some people up to speed technically.

~~~
pnutjam
True, you can't train anyone, but whether someone is trainable and eager to
learn is usually apparent very quickly. It's not always something that comes
across in an interview, but usually.

------
runamok
The article rang true for me in that I am the asshole to some people but I
don't start out an asshole. I just get impatient after explaining or
documenting something 10 times and people ignoring it.

I still want to minimize that bad karma but just letting people be bad at
their job with no consequences doesn't seem good either.

------
ChrisMarshallNY
I deal with rather...prickly folks on a daily basis. Nothing like dealing with
folks that have multiple violent felonies on their record (and, to be fair,
many of them are now extremely decent people) to help develop your "people
skills."

I try not to be an asshole, myself, and do try to avoid contact with them,
where possible; but we don't always have the luxury of being able to pick
those with whom we must interact.

In my experience, I have found that I have a great deal more control over the
nature of my interactions than you would expect. If I am dealing with an
asshole, I can rather quickly figure out what kinds of things are likely to
exacerbate their issues, and avoid those behaviors. Doesn't let them off the
hook, but helps me to exert a bit of control over our relationship.

------
d--b
I work for a company where the CEO has specifically implemented a "no-asshole
strategy" from the start.

He too talked about the "asshole effect" that causes companies to fall apart.
Hire one asshole, and everybody eventually turns into an asshole. Results: the
company is only nice guys, and it feels so good. Sure we occasionally hire the
asshole. But they're rooted out fairly quickly.

How to keep assholes at bay:

1\. Stay small: Bringing the right people in is more important that shipping
that project faster. Fast growing companies all get the asshole disease and
then have to cut their arms off.

2\. Have a lot of people interview: I had 18 interviews for my job. The
company had 25 people.

~~~
wozmirek
Interesting bit about the 18 interviews. While your company sounds like
something really cool, I'd probably not go through all those interviews unless
a) they're brief and we move through them quickly (like, in <2 months tops),
b) I know about the process in advance so I can prepare and c) I'm paid for my
time, starting from after the screening interview.

Regarding c) - 18 interviews, each taking at least 30 minutes (screening would
be 15 on average but other would make up for it), that's roughly 9 full hours
of my very own time, if not more.

~~~
d--b
I had one quick phone screening, then 2-3 hours on Skype, then they flew me
over for a full day of interviews. the whole thing was less than a month.

~~~
wozmirek
Ah, so by 18 interviews you also meant e.g. 8 interviews during a full day?
For some reason I thought it was spaced out, like you had 18 calls :D

~~~
d--b
yes, I met almost everyone in the company over a single day. Some guys I
talked to several times.

------
t176
Firstly, what's the opposite of asshole. Is there a name for that?

Secondly, this: _> Really, you can’t afford to keep assholes around - it’s
better to have a hole in your team than an asshole._

That may not always be true. It may actually be better to have an asshole than
a teamhole, particularly if project delivery is dependent on the asshole. It
may be unpleasant but unavoidable - at least temporarily. It may also be a
financial issue and financial issues affect shareholders, and shareholders can
be assholes. You win some, you lose some.

The closing section made it all worth while. Probably the best 3 paragraphs
I've read all year.

------
giaour
The article's advice on making positivity an official part of a company's
culture is great! As is the mentorship/management strategy described for
fostering positive behavior in problem cases.

But firing an "unintentional asshole" over their lack of social skills seems
like an easy way to be on the receiving end of lawsuit, particularly if
terminated employee has a medical condition that explains the behavior in
whole or in part. Firing someone with autism over their lack of social skills
could land you in deep shit.

------
epynonymous
i strongly believe in a diverse workforce, especially in large companies,
diverse workforces often times mean better results especially since problems
today are even more complicated. having said that, i totally understand and
have seen some of the bad behaviors you mentioned like putting people down,
insulting others, this can be quite toxic. i'm not saying i condone any of
those types of behaviors because i certainly don't, but i think _asshole_
labeling can be quite arbitrary, e.g. someone that's terse and seemingly
abrasive may just be more direct/candid, is he/she an asshole? what i'm saying
is that bad behaviors should not be condoned, but these individuals definitely
have value to companies and can create beautiful work, and we shouldn't reject
them based on certain labeling because the labeling is quite frankly
discrimination and should equally not be tolerated. one person that
particularly stands out in my mind is linus torvalds. asshole? for sure, by
almost all counts of your definition of an asshole. given that he's improved
lately and has admitted his issues, but he's still an asshole by my books :)
would you want anyone else working on linux kernel which requires having a lot
of different contributors working in large teams, probably not.

------
tomatotomato37
My problem with this is that it assumes there's only a single isolated asshole
in the company and he exists in a social vacuum. It's much more common for
multiple assholes of varying degrees to exist somewhere, and being assholes
there's a very good chance they are not working together and instead are
engaged with each other in GoT-tier power struggles. If a firable asshole is
suppressing a worse unfirable asshole, do you still try to get rid of the
former?

------
sz4kerto
Asshole: people who you don't like. Every interaction with others should make
you feel good about yourself otherwise the other person is an asshole. You are
never an asshole by definition, of course. Maybe a victim, but asshole --
never. Diversity means having people around who think and behave the same way
as you do but have different hairdo or different thing between their legs.
Introverted or depressed people are assholes, needless to say. Again, the most
important thing for you to prioritize is your own good feelings about yourself
because everything that's non-assholey in the world is designed to make you
feel good.

<3

~~~
NoodleIncident
There is a straightforward list of specific behaviors early in the article.
None of it is defined by how anyone else feels; that's just the effect of
someone who engages in that asshole behavior on a regular basis. The next
comment down and probably half of the readers are trying to figure out if
they're the asshole themselves, so I don't know where you got the idea that
"you" are never the asshole.

(Sure is great how HN shows me this wonderful comment on top because it
happened to be posted 9 minutes before I loaded the comments)

~~~
Nasrudith
I can't help but regard some on the list with suspicion as being far more own
fragile ego driven than any actual assholishness. More "you made the sociopath
angry by not going along with his bullshit" ones which I see in the anti smart
"jerks" one.

Some of them are unconditionally valid of course but the list includes
questionable ones.

* Publicly calling out and blaming others

What if they actually are to blame or deserve to be called out? Putting it on
the never list is a bad idea but it should probably be a last or N to last
resort.

* Stirring shit and troublemaking

That is dangerously ambiguous as terms to include both in terms of what
qualifies as stirring shit. If it is actually trying to rile people up fine
but that exact phrase could be used for anyone who goes against the grain.
Trying to stop bad practices which /will/ lead to literal disaster because "we
have always done it that way" or reporting misconduct can also be called the
exact same thing.

Related cluster * Ignoring people trying to contribute * Dismissing the
opinions and ideas of others without discussion * Undermining someone’s
confidence for asking questions

There is one major problem with this sub-block. It never stops to ask if the
"victim" is themselves massively wrong and doesn't get the hint that they are
themselves negative in productivity and not even getting any learning out of
it. To be frank the case where they aren't ignorant or even inept but an
outright idiot who doesn't take a hint.

Like saying insisting the company should make their next car run on water and
doesn't listen to why that is thermodynamically impossible (it would actually
run on whatever substance it reacts with). While there are values to
considering alternative approaches and departure from conventional wisdom
willful ignorance isn't equal to actual expertise no matter how "polite" it
may be to treat as such.

This may be where the you are never the asshole perception really creeps in -
despite all of the talk about two way communications and feelings of others
that the other party may be in the wrong and not "the asshole". It can look
like every reference to the others is really just obfuscated grammar for
myself to make the writer sound less self centered and like they have more
support than theh really do.

~~~
C4stor
Yours is one of multiple comments defending "Publicly calling out and blaming
others" as a valid occasional behaviour.

In my experience, this has never produced any positive result for the
companies I worked for.

I don't mean people don't make mistakes, I mean that the punishment strategy
of blaming them don't seem to me to have any positive effect when used. Then
again, I'm not very experienced, so have you (or anyone else defending this)
had any positive experience with that ? (on either end of the interaction)

------
cheez
I .. thought I was an asshole. I am a saint... Good article!

~~~
aitchnyu
> Eyerolling, sighing, or otherwise negative body language... Tersely worded
> group e-mails that make people feel uncomfortable... Interrupting people who
> aren’t done talking...

I need a dash of these, but I will hate anybody using it all the time.

------
mbubb
There are assholes who are "constraints" (in the "Goal" or "Phoenix Project"
meaning of this word). The newer incarnation of the BOFH. How do you get
around this? This is a problem at the core of devops (as an idea not as the
pseudo position). Management should look at constraints to see where the
likely conditions for assholery are.

------
dboreham
"At least your number two priority"

------
saagarjha
If nothing else, I wonder how long it took the author to come up with those
section titles and “unrelated” pictures.

------
bawana
Is assholish-ness a sign of a good founder? Do incubators use this as a secret
criterion for admission? Ultimately can we write a word2vec implementation
that produces an ‘asshole score’ based on a personal essay or job description
as?

------
qrbLPHiKpiux
I have one RIGHT NOW that I'm working on trying to dismiss. SHE is such a
PITA. The way we're doing this to put it on paper is to do a "performance
improvement plan."

This, this, this needs to be done by this time.

If not, this will happen.

------
ochronus
MY. GOD. THE. WORDING.

'probing assholes'

'asshole examination'

'sniffing out assholes'

I hope it was intentional.

~~~
jotm
Of course it was, look at the pictures :D

It would've been a punnier article if the subject was different... Or if the
author wasn't wrong about half of the things (my subjective opinion).

------
mcs_
I'm an asshole. If you work form me, work come first, as is the most important
thing to me, after (and outside the office) your life, lifestyle and
everything that is important for you.

------
ChrisMarshallNY
Do you have a problem?

There is help. There is hope!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1QFlgnN-7Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1QFlgnN-7Q)

------
alexandercrohde
I do think there is another side to this though. I think equally bad for the
organization are people who are entirely supportive of huge mistakes:

\- Encouraging people to try any technology they want in an important, tight-
deadline project

\- Telling people there's "No wrong way" to do things

\- Spending tons of time mentoring people who show little/no-motivation and
low rate-of-learning

\- Refusing to perform a root-cause-analysis because it might seem to
indirectly indicate blame

\- Inviting unknowledgeable people who talk to much to meetings above their
station for "inclusion"

\- Not correcting the spread of misinformation

------
Veen
If everyone who exhibits some of the qualities on this list is an asshole, I
don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who isn’t as asshole.

~~~
woodandsteel
What the author meant by the term asshole is someone who is consistently this
way, not just occasionally.

------
alexozer
Favorite quote from the article: "It's better to have a hole in your team than
an asshole."

------
eyeball
Hard to solve when asshole number one is the top person in the department.

~~~
signa11
vote with your feet ?

~~~
DonHopkins
Kick them in the ass?

------
tomerbd
some times its much more delicate to track:

1\. arrogance 2\. cynicism

its not always the case that the above 2 make an a __*e in most cases not but
sometimes yes without having the extreme qualities described in article.

------
sixtypoundhound
Naive. The author has no concept of how psychologically damaging these ideas
can be in the hands of a passive aggressive HR team. Put the genie back in the
bottle.

Values are good; they can rally a team. Feedback is good. What's missing is
that feedback is never a two way street; there is always part of the company
which is effectively immune from critique, by virtue of their position and
rank. And this is where the psychopaths gather.

Bullshit happens. Senior executives frequently re-write the corporate
narrative to justify developments. Sometimes this is for the greater good,
other times it merely pads their own situation. Nobody is incorruptible - when
you have people, you have bad actors.

Now lets look at how this is communicated.

As a society, we're pretty good at dealing with getting screwed over by
assholes. The interactions are mercifully short - most assholes have learned
to give the bad news and get offstage as quickly as possible. Some beer is
consumed, some words are said, and life goes on.

Most importantly: the recipient of the "dick move" is able to process and
recognize it for what it is, a self centered pile of shit inflicted by their
superiors.

There is minimal lasting damage.

Now these fuckers.... would use values to rationalize all significant events.
From the bully pulpit of their role in HR and senior leadership. With licence
to lie, omit, and otherwise distort facts to support their narrative. While
the employee was bound by an "integrity policy" and a "code of conduct" that
required "professionalism". Not that these are bad things, but when one side
can lie - and the other cannot call them on it... you're going to have a bad
day.

So basically - all of these "discussions" devolve into a fucked up version of
a therapy session where the other person really doesn't have your best
interests at heart. Where you are directly questioned and attacked on your
values and the degree to which they align with whatever your inquisitor
currently wants. And all of this deranged feedback is carefully calibrated to
operate at a very personal level - there's nothing wrong with us, all of this
is a function of your personal deficiencies.

I survived. Got a great job offer from an ex-boss. And left.

My kids and wife commented a month later: "Wow, Dad finally started smiling
again". Yeah. That bad. Literally fucked with my own perceptions of my self-
worth.

A lesser person would have been driven into therapy.

This is not how a workplace should operate.

~~~
dhimes
_A lesser person would have been driven into therapy._

Careful there.

~~~
astine
You seem to have taken this to mean that only weak or 'lesser' people go into
therapy, but I think it's pretty clear what the OP meant: That this sort of
institutional treatment is a sort of gaslighting. They convince you that
because of a simple personality difference that there must be something deeply
wrong with you and that you need therapy. The thing that makes someone
'lesser' in this instance is that they fail to recognize the gaslighting and
stand up for their own rights.

------
appwiz
The last paragraph is pure gold!

~~~
DonHopkins
He forgot to mention the important roll of a long paper trail for cleanly
wiping out assholes.

------
tomp
I'm pretty sure one or both of Elon Musk or Donald Trump (both exceptionally
successful individuals admired by many) would be judged as _massive assholes_
by almost any person. So I'm not sure "being an asshole" is really a good
reason to disqualify someone...

------
Lapsa
AFAIK people tend to exhibit such behavior to comfort themselves and feel safe

------
adnjoo
what if the a-hole is the boss?

------
jonathanstrange
I checked how this test fares in Academia my country (I won't mention its
name) and there seems to be a surprising number of assholes here. I'm even
suspecting that I might be one.

> Insulting or degrading individuals or groups

Every boss in my country does this from time to time. -1

> Joking and teasing to belittle others

My British colleagues do that, but otherwise it's rare. +1

> Tersely worded group e-mails that make people feel uncomfortable

I do that. -1

> Slapping down people of lower status in the company hierarchy

Everybody in my country seems to do that, I rarely found any exceptions. (I'm
a foreigner and where I come from this is frowned upon.) -1

> Eyerolling, sighing, or otherwise negative body language while others are
> speaking

Every boss in my country does that, even the nice ones! -1

> Ignoring people trying to contribute

Every boss does that if they don't want contributions at a time. -1

> Interrupting people who aren’t done talking

Extremely common. -1

> Touching or invading personal space

Normal for all people in my country. It's in Southern Europe. -1

> Threatening or intimidating confrontations

Many bosses do that where I live. I only dream of beating up annoying
colleagues. -1

> Publicly calling out and blaming others

Habitually done in my country of residence, unless by "others" you mean a
boss, then it's not done at all. -1

> Undermining someone’s confidence for asking questions

That one is rare. Especially the psychopathic narcissist are always happy to
answer questions. +1

> Gossiping about coworkers to other coworkers

Everybody I've ever met in Academia has done that. -1

> Cliquey behavior and exclusion

Everybody does that in every country and on every conference I've ever been.
-1

> Taking credit for the ideas or work of others

Our bosses love to do that. Some of them want their name to appear on books
they never even read, let alone written. -1

> Stirring shit and troublemaking

Sounds what I do when somebody really annoys me or is totally incompetent or
just a plain asshole. -1

> Singling people out for uncommon traits they have

Yep, everybody does that. We had a guy using unreadable powerpoint colors all
the time, wearing bizarre ties in an environment where nobody wears ties, and
generally suffering from Asperger so much that he sat down on the farthest
table from everyone else to have lunch at international conferences. I liked
him, but he was singled out for his behaviour. -1

> Dismissing the opinions and ideas of others without discussion

Everybody does that in our institute. X is dismissive of Y's work, Y is
dismissive of Z's work, and so on, until the full circle is reached. -1

Thinking about it, we could be a whole institute of assholes according to
these criteria.

That being said, I personally prefer to work together with a competent asshole
rather than with an incompetent nice guy. I'm fine with an arrogant colleague
if he has a reason for being arrogant, if there is something behind it.
(Admittedly, these people tend to be the least arrogant, but there are
exceptions.)

Nice incompetent fools in higher positions, on the other hand, infuriate me
more than anything else.

~~~
Dr_Dee
Once I had to call a Spanish academic about a payment to a software he wrote;
we needed that software badly so instead of exchanging email, we called the
'professor' and had a conversation. Never in my life did I ever experienced a
person who was so full of smugness and self-rightouness. So, I guess that
southern european country is Spain because I have heard stories from people
who worked there that Spanish can be quite a bunch of a@@holes. Is that right?

~~~
jonathanstrange
Portugal, so you're very close. IMHO, the cultures differ vastly between those
countries, but in that respect they might be the same. Social hierarchies are
a big thing here, one of the biggest downsides of an otherwise beautiful
country. (As a tourist, you'd never notice any of this.)

------
Data_Junkie
Author seems a little butt hurt.

------
true_tuna
It’s actually not hard to sniff out assholes. You just ask them about how they
resolved a recent conflict and picture yourself on the other side of the
story. We had a great net eng candidate who zero of the interview team said
they’d want to work with. Otherwise smart and capable, we gave him s hard
pass.

~~~
rodhilton
I mention a question really similar to that in the article itself and yeah, I
think that question and similar ones are probably the first tools we reach
for... but while I think those might suss out some obvious assholes, or
unintentional assholes, I think it's too easy for self-aware or intentional
assholes to answer "what they want to hear" and pass the question. I'm
definitely glad you sidestepped this for-sure asshole in your interview
process but I think the fact that _everyone_ on your team wanted to avoid him
or her kind of supports my "only the world's biggest assholes get weeded out
this way" theory.

That's why what I advocate for instead is to genuinely build a culture where
asshole behavior isn't tolerated, and then warn candidates that you've
successfully done this and take it seriously. Self-aware assholes will just
bullshit through these kinds of questions, but if you can truly impart how
seriously you take this sort of thing to them, they'll weed themselves out of
your process.

