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A new study of rudeness in the workplace

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Re: A new study of rudeness in the workplace

#61

Post by [deleted] »

SlayAe wrote: post #60
rfrey wrote: post #13

In 25 years of working in the software industry, I have never witnessed somebody's assholity defended by their performance. I have also never encountered... NEVER encountered... an asshole who was also a top performer. In contrast, the top 7 performers I can think of off the top of my head were to a person kind, generous with their knowledge, patient with those less talented, and generally Good People, both to work w…

How do you know that you don't recognize the achievments of assholes because you dont like them? I mean, I find it very natural that one would overestimate the qualities of the people he likes, und understimate those of who he dislikes.

[deleted]

Re: A new study of rudeness in the workplace

#62

Post by trabant00 »

zingermc wrote: post #41
trabant00 wrote: post #27

I'm quite often rude to others at work and I freely admit it. Reason: ofc I feel I am justified to be so. Just like everybody else I feel I am right. I am not rude to everybody. Just people who don't want to carry their weight but want an equal share of the pie. I am rude to Project "Managers" who only assign story points in jira. To product owners who always side with the external client and dump the technical team…

There's really no excuse for being rude in the workplace. Please get help instead of trying to justify it. If multiple people have made HR complaints "behind your back", you are not competently performing your job. (This directly affects your claimed 3X performance because you drag down your coworkers.)

Then why do those complaints get buried and I get a talk with management approx: "we couldn't find anybody else for that job, try to tolerate them as best as you can for the time being"?

My coworkers are the engineers by my side who never complain about me, quite the contrary, they cheer when I put down middle management leeches.

Re: A new study of rudeness in the workplace

#63

Post by trabant00 »

mprev wrote: post #40
trabant00 wrote: post #27

I'm quite often rude to others at work and I freely admit it. Reason: ofc I feel I am justified to be so. Just like everybody else I feel I am right. I am not rude to everybody. Just people who don't want to carry their weight but want an equal share of the pie. I am rude to Project "Managers" who only assign story points in jira. To product owners who always side with the external client and dump the technical team…

You sound exhausting to be around. Your comment about burnout is either a humble brag or an admission that this isn’t even working for you. You get one life. Stop glorying in being a jerk. If you’re as brilliant as you say you are then humility and kindness will make you even more brilliant.

I am not brilliant. That's why I said I never worked at Google or anything like that. But I am hard working and care about the company and people's income besides my own gain. I and I hate when I see somebody who doesn't.

Re: A new study of rudeness in the workplace

#64

Post by trabant00 »

rongenre wrote: post #47
trabant00 wrote: post #27

I'm quite often rude to others at work and I freely admit it. Reason: ofc I feel I am justified to be so. Just like everybody else I feel I am right. I am not rude to everybody. Just people who don't want to carry their weight but want an equal share of the pie. I am rude to Project "Managers" who only assign story points in jira. To product owners who always side with the external client and dump the technical team…

Being rude to anyone is unkind, tech is a small world, and people remember. Self-centered reason to cut it out: Sure, you might hand-pick your references for that dream job, but what happens when the hiring manager at said dream job checks out LinkedIn, notices that a college buddy worked with you, asks about you, and that was someone you were rude to.

People I am rude to never get to pick who is hired, promoted, etc. They are just freeloaders who stay out of the light as much as possible.

Re: A new study of rudeness in the workplace

#65

Post by watwut »

mharroun wrote: post #2

How do you define being rude? From what I read and experienced in my career the real reason "rude" people get away with what they are doing is simple. They tend to be top or above average performers who don't like when co-workers who are sub par are treated and rewarded as their equals. I have met many sub-par workers who love to throw around the word "toxic" to define and attack such people. I have seen such "rude"…

> They tend to be top or above average performers who don't like when co-workers who are sub par are treated and rewarded as their equals.

What exactly does this mean? They don't like when juniors are treated well? You will always be working with team of varying skills and knowledge and if you insist that other people are treated with disrespect, then you are asshole.

> I have seen such "rude" or "toxic" people work fine along other exceptional and/or capable co-workers and reject those who cant perform.

That is being intentionally rude toward members of team you are supposed to lead, teach and give appropriate tasks to. That is toxic no matter how you slice it.

> what we should really discuss is how we can focus on honest constructive conversations that allow the successful to succeed and give critical feed back to those who arent.

You cant have constructive conversations nor critical feed back when you are rejecting and being rude. The constructive criticism is not possible in that setup.

Constructive criticism is possible with good faith interactions and when emotions are away. The people you described turned impersonal into emotional by being rude and "rejecting".

Re: A new study of rudeness in the workplace

#66

Post by AstralStorm »

rongenre wrote: post #48
mharroun wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear there are under performing assholes just they usual get the ax quickly if management is competent. How would those 7 top performers act if placed alone in a situation of failure? Where its obvious the company is failing and is clear is certain individuals? Is it not "rude" to point that out? Or are we defining being rude or assholity differently? I personally seen many times people who push back or raise…

Save it for performance reviews. Be a professional.

Sometimes it's about being professional, but more often than not it is about taking and ignoring mountains of problems. You get called for being a whiner if you constructively point out problems, and a problem case of you try any solutions that are smarter than whatever your middle manager(s) comes up with. Worse, if they perceive you as a threat. Or fail to play office politics - you will be that guy who does most of the work, or hardest work with no renumeration. Favorite of all hiring teams until inevitably getting psychologically damaged if you're normal in any way. (Especially crude way is to give someone a problem insoluble by one person or overload a small team.)

Re: A new study of rudeness in the workplace

#67

Post by Gibbon1 »

mharroun wrote: post #17
usefulcat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I will note that although I have never met an asshole who was a top performer, I have met many who were convinced that they were. Definitely this. I find that insecurity also correlates strongly with the above description.

So what do you label someone who does most of the work while other contribute little to nothing? How to they profess that and not be labeled an asshole?

The word for someone that truly does most of the work while others contribute nothing is called a patsy. If you're stuck in that situation it's usually hopeless. And you should leave.

That is different than a control freak that refuses to leave other peoples work alone.

Re: A new study of rudeness in the workplace

#68

Post by Gibbon1 »

_8j50 wrote: post #49

Question: I may not verbally greet people I don't directly work with or interact with. Is that considered rude? I am just not a good small talker,but I am not sure if my intention with small things like this will be misunderstood.

I'll answer your question, it's not rude. But developing communication between yourself and people outside your immediate work is helpful in getting a bigger picture about what's going on in your workplace.

Having a bigger picture can make you more effective and useful.

Re: A new study of rudeness in the workplace

#69

Post by EliRivers »

mharroun wrote: post #9
EliRivers wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is very different. The rudest people I've had to work with are generally incompetent to mediocre at best, often believe themselves to be far more competent than the evidence suggests, and end up significant drains on the company as people go to significant inefficiencies in order to avoid having to deal with aforementioned rude incompetents. The actual best performers tended to be quietly polite and uno…

From my experience rude + under-performing = termination, if those people who you work with are not performing why does your companies management keep the around? I didn't put it in my original post but incompetent managers who use "boasting" as a success metric instead of objective metrics can lead to such an issue as well.

"From my experience rude + under-performing = termination, if those people who you work with are not performing why does your companies management keep the around?"

So many reasons. Outside the US and inside parts of Europe, it's actually often a lot of work to fire someone for being so rude that they're damaging the company. It's possible and not actually difficult, but it requires the gathering of evidence and uncomfortable conversations and so on. Far less work and easier to either ignore it, or try to shuffle the person sideways. If they can't be shuffled sideways, there's always the option of promoting them.

Additionally, these people often look like hard-driving, no-bullshit "get it done" workers to management. Look at Dave there, he didn't mess around; he simply told everyone else that they're idiots who don't know what they're talking about, and then he left the meeting and started furiously rewriting something independently at his desk. What a guy.

Re: A new study of rudeness in the workplace

#70

Post by EliRivers »

singron wrote: post #7
EliRivers wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is very different. The rudest people I've had to work with are generally incompetent to mediocre at best, often believe themselves to be far more competent than the evidence suggests, and end up significant drains on the company as people go to significant inefficiencies in order to avoid having to deal with aforementioned rude incompetents. The actual best performers tended to be quietly polite and uno…

> people go to significant inefficiencies in order to avoid having to deal with aforementioned rude incompetents This can also make them seem more competent. E.g. if one rude person is an obstruction that everyone else has to work around, the rude individual is the only one working unimpeded. Unless the difference in competency is large enough to account for that, the manager might consider the rude person more compe…

I have certainly worked with what I think of as "negative employees"; people who have the same effect, when joining a team, as a competent person leaving that team.
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