rivercrow

ComputerWorld recently interviewed Robert Sutton, author of the upcoming book The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t.

I don’t know if you’ve attempted to quantify this, but has there been a rise in the number or percentage of jerks in the workplace? Or has this remained a constant? I don’t know the answer to this. But there has been a dawning awareness in U.S. academia to study abusiveness in the workplace. I’m confident in saying that in Europe, the U.K. and Scandinavian countries, there is a societal and legal movement against it. And we’re starting to see this in the United States.

I’ve been reading about workplace bullies for several years; a quick search on “workplace bullies” will net you several links, most of which are UK websites. There are definitely more now than there were five years ago.

When I was in grade school, the prevailing attitude was that bullies were a fact of life. You lived through them and learned to either avoid them or beat them back. I remember not being too surprised when the Columbine massacre was connected to the school’s bully-tolerant atmosphere. Although I don’t agree with what happened, I can empathize with the frustration the students felt. The media clamor afterwords about the tolerance of bullying amazed me; surely anyone who had been a kid could remember being on the short end of the bully-stick and knowing that society favored the aggressor? After all, it’s a dog-eat-dog world and you don’t want to raise wusses, do you?

I often wondered what happened to bullies when they grew up. Why would anyone abandon such a successful coping strategy once the diplomas had been handed out? Oh, they become jerks at work. I see.

I’m pleased to see that bully-awareness is increasing in the States. This may be a benefit to the entrance of harmony-focused, post-Columbine Millennials into the workforce. I’m curious how the “dog-eat-dog” Boomers and older Gen-Xers will cope.

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