Assholes: A Probing Examination

Multiple hypothesis I can quickly think of, I wouldn't know which ones are correct or not :

- "Don't be a dick" doesn't offer any advantage for one's genome transmission, meaning any genetic base to being a dick will get transmitted no problem.

- Being a dick propagates, while not being one doesn't, meaning the society has a whole becomes "dick-ish by default" (much like entropy, with dick-iness) unless this is actively acted on.

- Religions, culture, nations, companies... actively encourage people to being dicks to everybody not in their group, to preserve and expand the group, meaning we're actively trained to being dicks by our social environment

- Our brains default to "everyone is an enemy unless proven otherwise" , meaning people will tend to be dicks by default.

- Not being a dick makes one socially vulnerable, so it's only achievable in very safe contexts and not by default

This is why i really dislike the diversity-crowd (straw-man here...). The only result were some laws obligating people to explicitly name the minorities of the month. The only proponent of this is the HR department. Nah, not really, but they have to.

The diversity crowds achievement was to give corporations more power. If I were belong to a minority, I wouldn't dislike the diversity crowd, I would hate them with unrequited passion.

There is a difference between equality and equity. There is also a conflict between equity and freedom. But these are discussion that will never again surface in the next 10 years, because of the diversity crowd.

The straw-man I describe are giant assholes in my opinion. And I wouldn't want to have anything to do with them. Because they are also toxic.

edit: Further more, I think people defining an allegedly large and epidemic group of people as untenable, are probably assholes. Unbelievable...

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...

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.

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.