My formative years in a Christian Mission school taught me that using the word “Asshole” in daily language is blasphemy! However, somehow the improvements in technology (and degradation of social values) plus the years in University, Profession and work-life made me realize the immense pleasure of using the word in daily life! You abuse a person by calling him an “Asshole” either in front or at his back, to appropriate his untrustworthiness, immorality, chutzpah, etc. and all negative traits in daily life! As if to help the new entrants gain an understanding of the bad world, Robert Sutton, a professor at Stanford in the engineering school, wrote a book - The No-Asshole Rule.
I read a review of this book, in Guy Kawasaki’s blog. He calls the book as a “definitive guide to understanding, counteracting, and not becoming an asshole”
To give a brief peep from the book, here are a few points worth noting from Guy Kawasaki’s review (for the full review, click here):
Recognize an asshole
- One method is the Starbucks Test. Usually, when a person does one of the most weird combinations while ordering an item in Starbucks, he’s trying to flex her muscle – hence he’s an asshole!
- Just search Google with a person’s name (or a profession) plus “asshole”. The number of search pages will decide the degree of “asshole”-ness!
- One of the following actions would qualify a person to be an asshole:
- Personal insults
- Invading one’s personal territory
- Uninvited personal contact
- Threats and intimidation, both verbal and non-verbal
- Sarcastic jokes and teasing used as insult delivery systems
- Withering email flames
- Status slaps intended to humiliate their victims
- Public shaming or status degradation rituals
- Rude interruptions
- Two-faced attacks
- Dirty looks
- Treating people as if they are invisible
How To Avoid Being an Asshole
- Face your past. Knowing that you’re an asshole is first step towards change. Begin with checking if your parents / siblings were assholes; or whether you were a bully in your school!
- Avoid making people feel oppressed, humiliated, de-energized or belittled
- Don’t mistreat weaker people (compared to you)
- Resist being sucked up in an assholeholic group – Just because your group promotes a negative doesn’t mean you too have to follow
- Walk away and stay away from assholes – don’t degrade yourself to their levels
- Acting like an asshole is a communicable disease – stay away from this.
- Focus on win-win - life doesn’t have to be a win-lose proposition--unless, that is, you’re an asshole.
- Focus on being a neutral/ humble person - not better or worse than others
- Focus on being transparent with different sort of people - not different – Idea is to find ways to make yourself “one of them”
- Be contented - Tell yourself that you have everything – be happy with what you have
How to Cope With Assholes
- Hope for the best, but expect the worst. Lower your expectations to reduce disappointment, but hope for the best!
- Develop indifference and emotional detachment - In other words, don’t let the jerks get to you.
- Concentrate on small wins against assholes – This can keep you going and lead you to win the war.
- Limit your exposure. Do your best to avoid meetings and interactions with assholes
- De-escalate and re-educate. If the asshole you’re dealing with isn’t a “chronic,” “certified,” and “flagrant” asshole. Be calm and try to re-educate the person about his behavior
- Stand up to them – Expose them up-front in their own language
- Expose them. Follow Marge’s Asshole Management Metric. This is a 4 point system from (0) to (3). Marge - the boss - points to people behaving like assholes, by holding up one, two, or three fingers to signify:
- (0) - You are a very nice person, and very passive. No one can say a word against you and would never think to call you an asshole.
- (1) - You are a normal person who can occasionally assert yourself on an issue you are passionate about, but you handle yourself in a non-confrontational way in nearly all occasions
- (3) - You can consistently assert yourself in a non-confrontational way and are occasionally an asshole, but you feel horrible about it afterwards, and you may or may not apologize (but you probably will have to confess your remorse to someone)
- (4) - You can consistently be an asshole and you either do not recognize this or you simply enjoy it
Every society / community / workplace has its own share of assholes, and you need to stop giving in to them. If anyone has info about such assholes, contact GK with details.
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