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Assholes: A Probing Examination

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Re: Assholes: A Probing Examination

#81

Post by colechristensen »

wawhal wrote: post #79
colechristensen wrote: post #77

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…

> Not everyone is perfect just how they are but everyone doesn't have to act the same way to be acceptable. This undermines the very concept of "law and order". There "must" be restrictions on behaviour if it is intrusive, offensive, inflamatory, indecent etc. I think it is okay to have an enforced "code of conduct" to prevent assholery.

Law and order is not equivalent to government enforced conformity.

Re: Assholes: A Probing Examination

#82

Post by colechristensen »

johnchristopher wrote: post #78
colechristensen wrote: post #77

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…

> People with Asperger's or otherwise on the autism spectrum can be huge "assholes" by the definitions here. Does autism make you unemployable? It's my understanding that on average it's harder to get a job and some kind of jobs look out of reach. Also, is the population ratio of Asperger/autism such that the definition of asshole should be reworded ?

The autism spectrum is wide and diagnosis isn't an exact science. ~1-3% or 1:30 to 1:100 rates are at the right scale.

Autism is easy to point at to make one think the response to "assholes" should be thought through more carefully. There are many others, not always as easy.

Re: Assholes: A Probing Examination

#83

Post by cousin_it »

wawhal wrote: post #79
colechristensen wrote: post #77

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…

> Not everyone is perfect just how they are but everyone doesn't have to act the same way to be acceptable. This undermines the very concept of "law and order". There "must" be restrictions on behaviour if it is intrusive, offensive, inflamatory, indecent etc. I think it is okay to have an enforced "code of conduct" to prevent assholery.

I mostly like law and order, but:

1) Laws are supposed to be precise. If there was a law against "stirring shit and troublemaking" as the OP suggests, it would be applied mostly against those who are out of favor.

2) Laws presume that the accused person is innocent and give them a say in defense. Good luck with that if you're accused of a code of conduct violation.

Re: Assholes: A Probing Examination

#84

Post by hayavuk »

Iv wrote: post #13

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.

I have no proof, by my gut feeling is that success in business is generally a concept assholes are better adapted for.

The reason I say this is that most companies that we consider "successful" are in my experience mostly being assholes to their customers. Since a company doesn't have an independent personality of its own, I imagine that such behavior must come from the people at the top of the food chain at those places, or at least the people very high in that chain.

Re: Assholes: A Probing Examination

#85

Post by 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.

Re: Assholes: A Probing Examination

#86

Post by Grue3 »

NoodleIncident wrote: post #51
sz4kerto wrote: post #47

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…

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 ho…

>The next comment down and probably half of the readers are trying to figure out if they're the asshole themselves

Well, you see, most of the readers aren't the management. The management will read this article thinking they're saints and half of their subordinates are assholes. And most of them are, under the author's definition. So you can see how regular employees might be put off by an article like this.

Re: Assholes: A Probing Examination

#87

Post by 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.

Re: Assholes: A Probing Examination

#88

Post by Razengan »

julius_set wrote: post #76
Razengan wrote: post #66

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…

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

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.

Re: Assholes: A Probing Examination

#89

Post by wozmirek »

d--b wrote: post #87

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.…

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 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.

Re: Assholes: A Probing Examination

#90

Post by treerock »

cousin_it wrote: post #83
wawhal wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not everyone is perfect just how they are but everyone doesn't have to act the same way to be acceptable. This undermines the very concept of "law and order". There "must" be restrictions on behaviour if it is intrusive, offensive, inflamatory, indecent etc. I think it is okay to have an enforced "code of conduct" to prevent assholery.

I mostly like law and order, but: 1) Laws are supposed to be precise. If there was a law against "stirring shit and troublemaking" as the OP suggests, it would be applied mostly against those who are out of favor. 2) Laws presume that the accused person is innocent and give them a say in defense. Good luck with that if you're accused of a code of conduct violation.

Slight quibble. Laws can be broad and imprecise and some might argue, trivial.

e.g.

> To prove a breach of the peace, the most important things to prove are that someone was alarmed, annoyed or disturbed by the incident.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breach_of_the_peace

[edit]

These are probably bad laws, but are common enough.

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