I refuse to tolerate assholes
jacobian.org
jacobian.org
Actual Point: The reason I am hesitant about following the advice of this article is that it encourages you to divide the world into jerks and nice people. It's very easy to be a jerk to a jerk. If you are a jerk to a jerk, suddenly everyone on the project has to deal with two jerks.
I do agree that there are behaviors that just shouldn't be accepted, and there are lots of examples of them online. But you (2) do need to be mindful of your response to those behaviors. Make sure your response isn't to engage in those behaviors yourself.
(1 & 2) and by you, I mostly mean me. I am totally writing to myself here.
Either that, or they're just clinically certifiable narcissists. True narcissists are world-class pains in the ass like nothing else on the many spectra of personality disorders.
The same can be said about all sociopaths, they are all a very charming bunch.
The same goes for various other personality traits. If someone refuses to trust anybody else they likely can't be trusted themselves; I've seen it myself several times.
I agree the world is not divided into jerks/nice people. There's a spectrum. Try to stay on the nice side. You can't always avoid jerks but one should not go out of their way to be around them.
Always a good idea to consider that the other person isn't having the same day/thoughts/experience as you.
Empathy is much better than judgment especially in a situation with imperfect information.
I always try to give the benefit of the doubt. I can think of plenty of times where I only realize after the fact that I was distracted/in a bad mood and unduly acted rude towards someone.
While what you say may be true, in this case, it does not sound like he's convinced he's surrounded by assholes. Rather that during the few times he's encountered them, he simply decided not to put up with their behavior.
http://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/blob/master/2009-05-0...
UPDATE: Thinking about the OP, I wonder if seeing behaviours as simple and people as complex actually helps you be intolerant of bad behaviour.
If you believe that some people are assholes, you have very little in the way of options for dealing with them: Purge them from your life, wall them off so their damage can be contained, or accept them and their behaviour wholesale.
But if you focus on the behaviour, you can try to negotiate: "You are a genius, your work on ___ is brilliant. However, this behaviour ____ is unacceptable, please stop doing it. Here is why..., Here is something more constructive you could consider..."
Incredibly well said - that's the point I was reaching towards and couldn't quite articulate perfectly, apparently. Ideally, we'd call out shitty behavior and change that behavior. I didn't mean to suggest a "my way or the highway" attitude; rather, my point is that we shouldn't keep quiet when someone's being a jerk.
What you're talking about is rejecting cynicism, assuming things can change, believing things are worth changing, and being willing to put in the effort to call out the jerks. As long as you do it constructively, you end up humanizing people who probably need it--and you might even make a difference! So, for all our sakes, please keep it up.
If the person thinks the greatness and contribution of their work is somehow dependent on the antisocial behavior, then it's hard to convinced them to separate behavior from action.
As a side-note I think this kind of asshole behavior is as prevalent in non-technical types as technical types.
I will call out antisocial behavior, enforce professionalism in the communities where I have the power to do, and leave the communities that cannot at least offer civility.
In other words, if someone's being a jerk, we should call them on it. I didn't mean to suggest dividing the world into "assholes" and "good people" — clearly there's a spectrum, and clearly even saints have bad days. And I certainly didn't mean we should ostracize people at the first sign of shitty behavior.
But if someone's abusive, and they refuse to moderate their behavior, then either they need to leave or I will. I just can't accept that allowing abusive behavior is the price we have to pay for good code.
Another point, which the author could have also argued, is that assholes push or scare others out of open-source communities. Much of the time, the people scared away are not profilic contributors, however many of them had the potential to become so if they were nurtured. I certainly wasn't the best coder when I started contributing to Drupal (and I'm still not), but I managed to do a lot of good for it both in code and evangelizing for it. Had it not been for the leaders in the community who were super-nice (e.g., Neil Drumm and Angie Byron), then I would have let the jerks keep me from using and contributing back to something I loved. However, I noticed that as I became a better and more knowledgeable contributor, it was easier for me to fall into the behavior of sounding like a jerk myself. We (or at least I) have to constantly check ourselves to ensure we are doing good for the community and sticking true to our nice roots.
You've asked for them to be fired? That wasn't your place, and the penalty is far too harsh for the crime. You were attempting to ruin their livelihood because you don't like them.
"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." - The Bible. Nobody would get to throw a stone. Nobody fits the criteria of being 'perfect'.
You bet your ass I asked for him to be fired. He wasn't, so I quit.
I'm very sorry that my post rubbed you the wrong way. My intention is simply to suggest that we shouldn't tolerate antisocial behavior in our communities, and that we should ask those behaving badly to stop. Do you disagree?
I propose that a large portion of the reaction against your statements is that until this comment, many or most of the people assumed you meant a more common form of asshole: e.g. the guy who defends his code too hard, or the guy who isn't good at criticizing others' work. The term asshole, at least as used by large numbers of people, applies to both cases. Getting someone fired because they are a bit caustic is not at all an appropriate reaction, whereas as a response to violence it is (probably) an appropriate reaction.
Alerting your manager that the situation is intolerable is perfectly cool. Demanding that someone be fired just isn't. (This applies to customers demanding employees to be fired, too.) If the offense is really that serious, the manager already knows how to handle it. If he has a history of these things, again, the manager knows and can deal with it. There is a chain of command in place for a reason.
It's your right to quit whenever you want, for whatever reason you want. I don't argue with that. I would probably refuse to work with the chair-thrower, too, out of safety concerns. But I wouldn't demand he be fired.
For any given job, there are hundreds of other equally deserving candidates who aren't jerks. Getting fired gives assholes a chance to learn their behavior isn't acceptable, and is only fair to the more-deserving candidate who then fills the position.
Pathological extremes at both ends are still pathological, the correct response to an extreme is not its opposite, but a reasonable alternative.
It is entirely possible to hold a firm stance on what you think is the correct approach without being a jerk. It is equally possible to create a friendly atmosphere without acting like a used car salesman. I think you're reading more into the GP's statements than was intended.
If that isn't what you're implying, then it seems you are putting up a false choice between merit and people skills.
In fact, I am suggesting that your notion of 0-tolerance for assholism is an extreme, no better than complete endorsement and rewards for assholism. If you are not suggesting 0-tolerance for assholism, then I appologize, it just seems that way since you respond to call for moderation and some tolerance with a rejection of that principle.
Maybe your "nice guy" teammate doesn't actually keep the production db running correctly and who cares if the "asshole" has to cleanup. It really shouldn't matter that to not get blamed the "asshole" needs to do the work themselves. Maybe you send some e-mail not knowing what is going on and that sends the "asshole" up the wall. Heck, you did the "asshole" a favor since the "asshole" needs to learn a lesson(2).
1) author of article says all "assholes" are guys, which I find quite unbelievable.
2) add one of the "asshole"'s parents getting cancer and I've seen that one (with sleep deprivation)
At some point, indeed, behaviour becomes so bad that you have a moral duty to stand up to it, even if it means burning your bridges on that project. Your examples in these comments fit the bill.
But discovering that someone on the project is not a nice person, and someone you wouldn't want to hang out with? Even though they're a Coding Deity? I don't know if I'd work on any large FOSS projects if I drew the line there.
Maybe your experience has been more pleasant, or your classification of assholes more sophisticated than mine :)
Just because you couldn't tolerate them doesn't mean they aren't tolerated. When you asked for them to be fired (instead of asking the manager to talk to them about their behavior), were they actually fired? That sort of thing depends on the amount of power you hold in an organization. I certainly couldn't just demand that one of my coworkers be fired and expect my boss to acquiesce.
In the first instance, the person in question was my direct boss and was responsible for reviewing my code. He'd routinely call me an idiot, a retard, etc., and during meetings he'd often say things like "no, we can't give that to Jacob - he'll just fuck it up." Now, in his defense I was a pretty shitty developer at the time, but I do believe there are more constructive ways of reviewing code than calling the author a retard. I dealt with it for a few months, and finally asked his boss to transfer one of us. When I explained the reasons, this person was fired.
In the second case, my coworker was showing up to work drunk, yelling and cursing at coworkers, and routinely threatened violence -- "I'm gonna beat your ass if you don't shut the fuck up" was, I believe, a common line. Once he threw a chair through a window halfway through a (technical) meeting. Again I was too much of a coward to call him on his behavior directly, but yes I spoke to first my boss, then his, then the owner of the company. Nothing changed, so ultimately I quit.
In retrospect I certainly didn't behave perfectly: I should have confronted the behavior directly, and I should have made clear what my expectations were with regard to a professional working environment. But I was young, and all in all I'm proud of myself for not tolerating abuse (even if I didn't go about it quite right).
I now think you were perfectly justified in asking for those people to be fired and quitting - I'd have probably tacked on a discreet phone call to the police, and maybe scraped together enough cash to get a lawyer to threaten a lawsuit.
Kudos to you for standing up for yourself.
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/hostile-work-environment...
Edit: Or I would expect the boss to fire themselves for not being able to protect the team from the asshole.
Having the company depend on one vital asshole is a worst-case scenario.
Hard to do.
This statement is heavy with implications. Like many of us, the author abstracts these interactions into a second class version of reality, even though they are really happening. Why do people who are usually polite in person sometimes unleash an uglier, more confrontational side of themselves when there is a buffer of distance? Even before the introduction of email & chat, I've seen this happen in phone exchanges. In the absence of the need for a flight response, do we naturally tend to fall back to the fight response?
MAJOR: I did, sir. He's my cousin.
HELMET: Who is he?
SANDURZ: He's an Asshole, sir.
HELMET: I know that. What's his name?
SANDURZ: That is his name, sir. Asshole, Major Asshole.
HELMET: And his cousin?
SANDURZ: He's an Asshole, too, sir. Gunner's-mate, 1st Class, Philip Asshole.
HELMET: How many Assholes we got on this ship, anyhow?
ALL: Yo!
HELMET: I knew it. I'm surrounded by Assholes. Keep firing, Assholes.
Nowadays I work on a small startup. Hard computer problems are easier than simple people problems!
Right?
The thing about these arseholes is that they, just like you, are doing this on their own, because they enjoy doing it. They're giving up their time to create something that other people can use, usually without asking anything in return for it. What they can rightfully expect in return, though, is that people read the fucking manual or do a google search before they start their incessant questioning and bitching and nagging.
I used to lead a community and those were my rules - help or keep silent; tolerate others. That's not so difficult, is it?
If I'm looking for someone to go to a bar with, I'll pick the nice person. If I need someone to help me complete a project at work, I'll probably try to find someone who's good at what they do, regardless of whether they're an asshole or not.
ymmv, and all that, of course.
In the past, per longstanding MIT culture, these "assholes" were tolerated and their acerbic comments usually ignored -- meaning the "asshole" would send perhaps one acerbic contribution every 6-8 weeks to an otherwise busy mailing list. (Usually the assholes did not get in dust-ups with other assholes.) More recently, though, a new generation has decided not to tolerate the "assholes" and engages them publicly with every acerbic message, leading to huge flame wars that prove very distracting (because neither the asshole nor the altruist who engages them ever likes to give up).
The organizations usually lack the will to actually expel the brilliant asshole, and it's not clear whether such a move would be in their best interests -- the asshole usually does make great contributions to the mission of the group, and I personally have learned a huge deal by engaging these people and picking their brains and sometimes recruiting them to join my projects because I know they will (and do) keep a sharp eye and tell us what we're doing wrong, and their commitment and level of effort toward a technical goal when they are on your team can be extraordinary. On the other hand, the asshole's acerbic contributions and criticism are doubtless offputting to some new members, even if not directed at them.
I am not sure whether the new state of affairs is actually an improvement. I usually think it may be better just to tolerate the assholes, and I myself have a pretty thick skin about these things. I value the diversity of opinion and perspective and technical skill that comes from having a big tent, and by picking their brains and wealth of experience, I learned a great deal from the assholes. And these flamewars, some responsibility for which falls on the people who won't tolerate assholes, prove incredibly distracting.
The people who adopt hard-line stances against tolerating assholes usually consider people like me -- (hopefully) non-assholes who nonetheless counsel caution and tolerance for the assholes -- to be terribly misguided and injurious to the long-term health of the organization. They make comments like, "I want to be in this organization with my friends, not people constantly criticizing me," which to my ears sounds possibly misguided -- you do not have to expect to be friends with everybody in an organization in order to work productively toward a shared goal. Often, the non-tolerators explain that while they themselves have thick skins, they are engaging the asshole on behalf of other, newer members who are not as willing to speak up but who are offended and repelled by the asshole.
Are we just seeing the consequences of a new breed of the pampered "Generation Y" who have been raised to value civility above diversity of experience and raw merit? Or was the old way -- where harsh emails were merely ignored, while the group proceeded with its business -- just us having our heads in the sand, and unwelcoming enough to foreclose a whole crop of talented (but less thick-skinned) people from entering and flourishing in the group? Is this period of frequent flamewars likely to persist, or are we just seeing the temporary pains of a slow revolution as friendly and civil "millennials" replace the old guard? I really am not sure.
You're forgetting all of the brilliant people who, for reasons of their own, prefer not to work alongside these assholes. That is diversity your organizations have historically missed out on.
Even if you're brilliant and correct, a tactful approach to persuasion/discussion is virtually guaranteed to yield better results than verbal blunt-trauma. Unless the goal of life is simply "To be correct", which honestly strikes me as a fairly depressing end game compared to the other options.
It's all degrees of asshole-ism, perhaps.
But in cases like this I follow the maxim: "Qui tacet consentire videtur."
If you are silent and let this person behave badly then all others will see that this behaviour is in the realms of acceptableness to you and the group. For me, it is no different than allowing a bully to threaten a small kid in a school. We might have to tolerate this to have the most efficient workplace, but I prefer to optimize for justice.
(I admit, in places where I steadfastly attempt to stick to this against the wills of the group, I am a jerk.)
I disagree. I've witnessed many people acquire empathy as they grow older and start treating others better. I know (hope) that I'm certainly not as impetuous or quick to judge as I was in my youth.
Sure, ideally all contributors to open-source projeccts are thick-skinned and confident enough that harsh condescendence will not affect them much, but in reality, they probably are not, and I would rather cater to them than to the "assholes" who might be scaring them away.
Usually the "grumpy" people you're talking about are just grumpy, but good-hearted in the end.
More pragmatically, the tolerance of assholes is a requisite for using a computer, if you know anything about who maintains your operating system. Linux, glibc, binutils, gcc, X; these are the underpinnings of your system, and they are all maintained by assholes of one kind or another. How do you propose to fix this?