The No Asshole Rule

[SCFinfan]

Yesterday I'm helping my friend's parents clean out a room in their house, and I noticed a book w/ the title of this thread sitting on the floor. I picked it up and read a few pages. I was transfixed. The book's author, Dr.Robert Sutton, helped me see things in a totally new light.

In short, I am someone who has always taken people at face value and who feels others' criticisms very personally. When someone expresses displeasure or dissatisfaction w/ me, especially while at work, I always figure it's because I've done wrong and need to do whatever I can to improve. At previous law jobs, for example, I scrambled around, working 12 hour shifts daily for weeks at a time trying to pump out work and hours and make it so that my bosses were happy - but they never were. Eventually, after a year of struggle and toil (where I settled a rather big PI case for close to 7x the amount of the original offer - which was the best the old associate could do, amongst other things, like saving a case at the last minute where the complaint - authored by one partner, and reviewed and approved by another - had failed to name a material party and we would've failed to give marketable title to our client had we gone ahead) I was let go. I was told I didn't fit.

For a while there last year, I was in a pretty dark place. I'd been riffed at my first job b/c of a sudden downturn. That was fine - no big deal, just the economy. But when the second one didn't pan out, I believed wholeheartedly that I was a stupid duncef*ck who couldn't hack it.

I've shouldered that belief even to this day, even after getting some praise from a very tough (but fair) boss, and even after being advanced and told numerous times "good work."

But then I read this book and thought - "oh... wow, I just worked for assholes." And that's it. I was just naive. I was amazed.

My old bosses were three older women. One partner did collections/foreclosures law. She was hell - a yeller, and berater, and a person who watched you like a stalker, waiting for something to jump on. She was universally despised by the entire staff. The next partner did family and probate, and while nicer than the first, was hated for the way she'd talk over you, become very impatient when you tried to understand her, and intentionally not answer your questions that you had about her unclear instructions. The third was older and didn't care anymore, and would likewise berate you over nothing - despite the fact that her whole practice was consistently saved from her own botchiness and carelessness by a valiant and loyal paralegal. None of these women had ever married or had any children. None of them had anything except their houses and their jobs and possibly their cats. That was all. Thus, I would get email messages from my one boss at midnight or later asking me questions about cases scheduled to go the next day. Psychopath. I would get yelled at routinely over the tiniest things (misspelling one word on a 3 page document which I'd worked on for 2 hours). I would get bothered all the time to "clean your gross office" even when it was merely disheveled (papers all about) and not disgusting - and comparatively - a lot better than two out of three of my bosses' offices. I would be routinely told I was ignorant or couldn't figure things out quick enough, generally when I asked questions about unclear directions.

Like I said, I took this all personally, and figured I must just be pretty damn ignorant. Now I get it.  I was just a young lawyer who didn't quite know everything, and needed room to make some mistakes and grow.

Here's a question: have any of y'all ever had this epiphany? Am I alone in realizing this? Have any of you ever had a total asshole boss that took advantage of your niceness? Have you ever gone from a terrible work-situation to a great one, and realized that it wasn't you - it was them?

[SCFinfan]

Whoops - could someone move this to the correct forum. My bad!

[Phishfan]

I've always been able to spot an asshole. It usually only takes a few moments to realize exactly who they are.

[Sunstroke]

Assholes and liars...they give off a particular aroma that is unmistakable to the trained nostril.

[Dave Gray]

To your specific case, no -- I've never really had to work for assholes (though everyone I've worked for has had their days, as have I, I'm sure).  In that regard, I've always liked my bosses.  But I've had other epiphanies.  I've learned not to sweat the small stuff.  It has helped me a lot in business.  I am able to make decisions without fear -- if I make a bad one, at least I made a decision and I can try to correct it.  Also, it allows me to be in very stressful situations, like getting yelled at, at calmy handle it as best I can.  ...knowing that no matter what, the stakes aren't really that high in the grand-scheme of life. 

Now, I don't always succeed and there are times when I feel like I'm going to have an ulcer, but for the most part, this realization that most things just aren't that big a deal and all you can do is your best has helped immensely.

[Buddhagirl]

LOL at Dave not working for an asshole.

[Pappy13]

I have my own theory on this. I find the smaller the office, the bigger the chances of their being an asshole running it. I've pretty much always worked for large corporations with thousands of employees and I've found very few asshole managers there. My wife on the other hand has worked for a number of businesses where the number of employees numbered between 3 and maybe 50 and she's had a lot of asshole managers. She was once the personal assistant to a guy who ran his own business and he was probably the biggest asshole of the bunch. Would ask my wife to do personal errands, screen his personal calls for him ("Oh, I'm sorry, so in so is not in right now can I get a message" if the wife/bill collector called for example) and just generally was abused at his whim. Basically I figured this was because he had no one to really report to. Who was she going to complain to, him? I imagine your law office was pretty similar.

Large corporations tend to have very good human resources departments and managers are careful not to get on their bad side. They can't afford to let an employee destroy the whole companies reputation.

[Buddhagirl]

I have my own theory on this. I find the smaller the office, the bigger the chances of their being an asshole running it. I've pretty much always worked for large corporations with thousands of employees and I've found very few asshole managers there. My wife on the other hand has worked for a number of businesses where the number of employees numbered between 3 and maybe 50 and she's had a lot of asshole managers. She was once the personal assistant to a guy who ran his own business and he was probably the biggest asshole of the bunch. Would ask my wife to do personal errands, screen his personal calls for him ("Oh, I'm sorry, so in so is not in right now can I get a message" if the wife/bill collector called for example) and just generally was abused at his whim. Basically I figured this was because he had no one to really report to. Who was she going to complain to, him? I imagine your law office was pretty similar.

Large corporations tend to have very good human resources departments and managers are careful not to get on their bad side. They can't afford to let an employee destroy the whole companies reputation.

All of this. I work in a 3 man office and my boss is a raging asshole. He has weird arbitrary rules and asks me to do ridiculous stuff. Then says, " well it's my business".  There are absolutely no boundaries with this guy.