No Asshole Rule Part 1: Identifying The Animal

Take stock of your workplace, and answer the following. True or false: you work in some version of a Stepford office, where everyone gets along, harmony is prevalent, and the cohesion is so overwhelming that often your boss will lead you in a round of Kumbayah on the guitar he keeps in his office. If you answered true, I congratulate you, and admonish you to get out of the VW van. If you answered false, here is your second question. True or false: you work in some version of an Inferno office, where everyone you work with is a manipulative, condescending jerk and you suspect that your cubicle lies somewhere near the fifth or seventh circle of hell, the ones Dante attributes to anger and violence. If you answered true, I apologize and admonish you to get a new job. If you answered false to this one too, then I ask, do you even have a job?

I jest. Chances are your workplace resembles some combination of these two extremes, where most people get along and you have a few jerks to deal with, where some days (and some people) are more difficult than others. But what is there to do when you encounter an individual who is continually a jerk? For our purposes, we will refer to these individuals as “assholes.” If you are offended by the term, I would suggest you refrain from reading onward, as it will be continually used throughout the rest of this entry.

How do you identify an asshole? How can you tell the difference between the assholic qualities being an extension of “state” or “trait”? Robert I. Sutton, in his book “The No Asshole Rule,” says you must ask yourself two questions:

1. After talking to the alleged asshole, do you feel oppressed, humiliated, de-energized, or belittled by the person? In particular, do you feel worse about yourself?
2. Does the alleged asshole aim his or her venom at people who are less powerful rather than those that are more powerful?

If the answer to either of these questions are yes, then you may be working with a certified asshole. Should you need any further verification, Sutton presents a list of twelve common actions that assholes take on a daily basis that he’s affectionately termed “The Dirty Dozen”:

1. Personal insults
2. Invading one’s “personal territory”
3. Uninvited physical contact
4. Threats and intimidation, verbal and nonverbal
5. “Sarcastic jokes” and “teasing” used as insult delivery systems
6. Withering email flames
7. Status slaps intended to humiliate their victims
8. Public shaming or “status degradation” rituals
9. Rude interruptions
10. Two-faced attacks
11. Dirty looks
12. Treating people as if they are invisible

Admitting you have a problem is the first step to a successful asshole-removal plan, as any twelve step program will verify. But how do you begin to extract the asshole from your organization? And if you can’t, how do you learn to cope with the asshole?

We’ll be examining this elusive beast all week, in our No Asshole series. Continue to check back on MonarMusings for further information and tips!