Unfortunately not everyone we dislike is bad. I think this is a case of the fundamental attribution error: Most mean people aren't inherently mean, but are in circumstances that have made them so.

Yes, there are newgrad "rockstars" that can't play nice, and end up not being very productive. But there are also veteran engineers who have stayed at companies through 3 years of 100% attrition and are not super interested in listening to the opinion of the 4th junior backfill on some minor improvement to a system they architected and have been given 0 time to pay down technical debt on. Or maybe they are going through a messy divorce and the stress of it bleeds into their professional life.

I've gotten a lot of good out of finding such individuals, assuming they're reasonable people, and doing what I can to make their lives a little better.