9 ms·

No Time to Be Nice at Work

166 points by SimplyUseless 11y ago

yummyfajitas 11y ago
From the article: But insensitivity or disrespect often sabotages support in crucial situations. Employees may fail to share important information and withhold efforts or resources. Sooner or later, uncivil people sabotage their success — or at least their potential. Payback may come immediately or when they least expect it, and it may be intentional or unconscious. It's a bit weird how the article paints this as a failure of the uncivil person - this is pretty clearly a failure of the sabotager. Some people are willing to harm random third parties (shareholders) in acts of petty revenge against those they dislike (for possibly valid reasons). Quite a bit of victim blaming going on there. I agree that the person with power should - as a pragmatic move - attempt to behave in a manner that accounts for the bad acts of others. In much the same way, people should avoid putting themselves into situations where there is a high risk of crime. But the ultimate responsibility for an individual's actions lies on the individual, not the person who was "asking for it."
- j_baker 11y ago
  Are you seriously suggesting that the uncivil boss is the real victim?
  - s73v3r 11y ago
    It's the only way people like that can justify their own sociopathic behavior.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    No, I'm suggesting shareholders are the real victim. They are the ones paying agents to maximize their wealth while those agents pursue their own agendas instead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_proble...
    - Sideloader 11y ago
      >They are the ones paying agents to maximize their wealth while those agents pursue their own agendas instead. I am a secret agent not just any agent...and I pursue my own agenda instead. lol Dude, life is not an economics textbook. Have you actually worked in the real world with real people?
- rayiner 11y ago
  Unlike the innocent victim of crime, shareholders create the culture that leads to the sabateurs. They reap what they sow.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    The shareholders may (and likely are) completely unaware, particularly if the saboteurs are passive-aggressively harming the shareholders rather than honestly quitting.
- parennoob 11y ago
  Putting it as "sabotage" is a bit too dramatic in my opinion. Say Mary walks her boss Tom through filing the necessary documentation every time they put a product on the market (even though it is really his job), and Tom always takes the credit if the product hits the market. This pisses off Mary because she is never acknowledged. Now suppose when releasing Product Z, Mary says "Um, do it yourself. It's your job.", Tom fucks up the documentation, and the product tanks. I don't think Mary is a saboteur in this case at all -- she is just not being nice and going "above and beyond" like usual. I suspect this sort of thing is what the article is referring to, and what occurs in the majority of cases.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    I've been in the situation of Mary, sort of (no one was "taking credit", but I don't care much about such emotional concerns - pay me, let me do my job, I don't care). My action: I did the best I could for shareholders, including doing things that were blatantly not what I was hired for. When it became clear that it was going to be a long term task, I openly said I'd quit if I were expected to continue doing it.
- Redoubts 11y ago
  > Some people are willing to harm random third parties (shareholders) in acts of petty revenge against those they dislike (for possibly valid reasons). Make your employees shareholders; problem solved.
- Retra 11y ago
  >But the ultimate responsibility for an individual's actions lies on the individual [...] Or it doesn't. It could easily lie on the culture. Or the ones with the power to change things more easily. But whatever. I guess you read your tea leaves and divined the nature of human responsibility from reality itself, so there's no reason to think about it or anything.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    If I'm part of the sexist lower class Indian culture, or Islamist/certain African/FGM culture, is my choice to assault a woman not ultimately my responsibility? Or is "culture made me do it" only an excuse when you sympathize with the action?
- pyre 11y ago
  While the people taking illegal or immoral actions are responsible for their own reactions, it's possible for someone to call others to action through nothing but speech. If someone actively goes around pissing off as many people as possible, how is it not in someways "their own fault" when someone reacts poorly to this? Also, as another poster said, calling the pissed-off employer a "sabotager" is not actually what the article is saying. The manager may "sabotage" their own success by causing all of the employees under themselves to quit en masse. Is this a "bad" action that only the employees are responsible for, leaving the manager as the poor and helpless victim?
- s73v3r 11y ago
  "It's a bit weird how the article paints this as a failure of the uncivil person" Because it is. If you're an asshole to me, why on earth would you expect that I want to help you? Or do anything more than the bare minimum?
- s73v3r 11y ago
  "Some people are willing to harm random third parties (shareholders)" Shareholders do this to employees all the time. So I cannot blame employees for not caring about the shareholders, when the shareholders have shown so much contempt for employees.
littletimmy 11y ago
This is to be expected when the working environment gets as cut-throat as the American workplace has become. Blame it on inequality, blame it on the puritanical drive to overwork, blame it on the zeal to squeeze every last bit of profit. It's just one other symptom of how anyone who is not an oligarch in this society is meant as an expendable resource to be crushed by the ubermensch. My only hope is that the USA fails to export its brand of moral decrepitude to the rest of the world. Europe should stay civilized, for the sake of its people.
- tedks 11y ago
  The United States is the way it is because this is the only way to survive within the framework of competitive capitalism. European attempts at cultural protectionism will fail as market pressures force them to adopt American customs and habits. This is just basic economics. American companies ruthlessly optimize for profit. Any attempt to optimize for anything else will take away from the potential for profit. In a global economy this means that profitable companies will beat out nice companies, and eventually "nice" company shareholders will force restructuring according to American ideals. I would also say that based on existing trends the United States is quite rapidly succeeding at bringing its way of life to the rest of the world. There are no more competing ideologies left, and the next few years will lead to more trade agreements that will mop up the remains of protectionism. Soon, English will be mandated as a first language in most of the world, and we'll have a truly globalized culture.
  - MrBuddyCasino 11y ago
    That is a very simplistic world view. Have you ever been to Europe? Central and northern Europe are very successful economically. I know several people that once worked for an american firm, and won't ever do so again. I have never heard that about swiss, swedish or german firms. You might want to check out these GDP stats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_economy#Current_world_economic_league_table_of_largest_economies_in_the_world_by_GDP_and_share_of_global_economic_growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_economy#Current_world_ec... The US and Europe are pretty close. The PIGS states have issues, but eastern Europe still has huge growth rates.
j_baker 11y ago
I have to say: working in a civil work environment makes a huge difference in terms of job satisfaction and job performance. Civility works for the business, the worker, and the customer. Nobody really benefits from incivility except for the arrogant power-monger over the very short term.
- JohnyLy 11y ago
  I totally agree. Working in a nice/friendly environment makes you more motivated and therefore more efficient.
  - gambiting 11y ago
    This is a personal anecdote - my dad used to run a company that sorted second hand clothing. He had a huge warehouse, where people would stand in one place and literally pick clothes out of one basket and then sort them into several smaller ones, by colour or type. The atmosphere in the warehouse wasn't exactly perfect,but employees could talk to each other and they had a radio playing music. Based on some observations, he introduced a complete ban on casual talking and he took away the radio. Sure, for the employees it must have been much worse. But the productivity increased by 50% - an average amount sorted per day per employee was 400kg, after the change it went up to 600kg, which in the scale of things made a HUGE difference at the end of the month. The company could process a lot more with the same number of people. And yes, sure - people would get unhappy and leave, but it being rather easy manual labour - there were always 50 other people willing to take the position. I'm not defending my father, I think the way he ran the company was horrible for the employees, but it's just the personal anecdote showing that working in a nice/friendly environment doesn't necessarily make you more efficient. They could chat, so they spent time chatting,not doing what they were paid to do.
    - johnchristopher 11y ago
      Did they get a raise as a consequence of the higher output ? Since we are social animals then preventing talking between us make things harder for us at some points, ie the job gets harder, so that could be an argument for higher wage.
warmcat 11y ago
From my personal experience, I agree on the stress caused by uncivil workspace...especially if the boss is uncivil. I used to get thoughts of suicide when I was working for a boss in a job right out of college and my health declined a lot. It was not until I changed my job that I saw a huge difference in civil and uncivil workspace and its effect on life.
- ionforce 11y ago
  There was thing somewhere (Internet!) that the number one reason people switch jobs is because of their relationship with their manager. I agree with you. Happiness is hugely a function of said relationship.
netcan 11y ago
We are such apes.
- ak39 11y ago
  That is so true. Primates, not just apes. Here's Sapolsky explaining how stress in an hierarchical social arrangement impacts heart health and life expectancy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4UMyTnlaMY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4UMyTnlaMY
negamax 11y ago
Having seen my fair shares of people like these, I say it has everything to do with their own personal lives not sorted and them taking it out at workplace. If anything, companies should be extra vigilant in rooting out such workers.
comrade1 11y ago
Aggressive behavior is the norm when working as a consultant. You have to know that it's not personal and that part of it is negotiation on the part of the client, part of it is anger on the part of the client, some of it is just due to poor personality, some of it due to your misunderstanding of the situation and culture. Most people are not fit to work in a high-stress, aggressive environment, but some of us are. And that's why we get paid a lot for not doing a heck of a lot. I worked as a 'clean up' consultant in Europe for a couple of years - going to clients that had failing projects and were desperate to bring in a developer to get the project back on track. My job was 75% calming the client down and making them feel loved and 25% programming. And boy, do I have some stories...
- jliechti1 11y ago
  Are you able to share a few?
  - hoers 11y ago
    seconded
  - spotman 11y ago
    I share the opinion of the parent comment, pretty much exactly. Some of my comrades call this a layer-8 problem. (hint: there is only 7 technology levels, 8 is the human one). One story in particular my firm was hired to come into a startup that had failed to scale, both technology wise, and personnel wise. They had hired up to 25 engineers, hoping to fix their stability issues, and almost going bankrupt doing it. I am at no liberty to say which company this is publicly unfortunately. It was stressful, but you can't take things personal. You have to put aside feelings, to get useful data out of these people to make the platform work. You can't possibly care about someone's ethics, approach, and often even coding style on these missions. The goal is to try and not piss off as many people as you and, and go ahead not worry if you do have to piss someone off to get the job done, and not lose sleep at night if someone does not get along with you. The end result was that they had to shed, through various reasons the great majority of their internal team. We stabilized things and bought them lots of time, while they slowly brought in new senior tech management and rebuilt their internal team from the ground up. It was a multi year affair, and involved working on over 12 codebases and consolidating applications from 3 different hosting providers into AWS. They got very close to running the ship into the ground. If you think staying up late and pulling the occasional all-nighter is unhealthy, or having a job that has extremely high expectations and leave you no time for a personal life is bad, this is about one hundred times worse. Since my team is small and highly skilled we can get a lot done in a short amount of time, and occasionally we are terse even with each other. But the amount of sleep deprivation that comes with a task of gargantuan size, where your dealing with hundreds and thousands of requests (sometimes per second), the company is going for broke, and a single code change can improve monetary situations in instantaneous, tractable ways, it gets super intense. You have the CEO, the COO, the CFO all breathing down your neck. One day they see light at the end of the tunnel from fixing the currently broken problem, and then the next day, you discover another codebase lost in git that powers commerce for android, is starting to experience issue, and you don't even know where to find credentials to log into its production systems since it was setup by some employee in the middle of the night a year ago that is no longer there. I can go on and on and on. But honestly, please don't read this as a recommendation. Being a digital mercenary is fun in your 20s, but it got old quick. Of course I still do it, but I have a much healthier way of saying NO, more often now. You can make a very lucrative living doing this sort of work, but its hard to earn the reputation to get these clients, and you may end up forgetting what your family looks like by the end of a 2 year job that is 365/24/7. The story did have a happy ending though. The company does well today. Extremely well. A new era of management has come in over the last year, and I think everyone learned a lot. They are a household brand and I hear about them in the news it seems like monthly. Cheers
michaelochurch 11y ago
First, I think that people aren't becoming less uncivil but that environments are getting worse. If anything (although this is probably an artifact of increasing age and status) people seem to be getting better, on the whole: fewer mean jokes and exclusionary behaviors. Work environments, with the open-plan trend, are getting a lot worse and more stressful. It used to be that an off-color joke was heard by 2 people in a private office; now it's heard by 40 in a bullpen. Open-plan offices tend to magnify the cumulative effects of microaggressions, which is one of the reasons why every population except for the most constitutionally insensitive one (those who've never had negative experiences, either due to general inexperience or a combination of privilege and luck) hates them. Second, when you're aggressive or even uncivil, it hurts you with that person. That said, it can be beneficial-- in very small doses. Punching down is bad, while punching up is risky (the best target is a person of high status, that is "punching up", and low character, but with no real power) and if you're perceived as being uncivil for personal benefit, you're just considered an asshole. Usually, uncivil behavior is to one's benefit when (and pretty much only when) one is perceived as being that way for the group: you're a protector. People tire of selfish rule-breakers and firebrands, but those who behave in such ways for group benefit tend to inspire loyalty. Don't get me wrong: it's generally best not to be uncivil or arrogant at all. It's just not intellectually honest to say that it's always socially detrimental to be that way. You have to be extremely selective in your targets to make it work, though.
- douche 11y ago
  Have you ever considered writing a book? Something like a "Peopleware 2.0"?
  - iamcurious 11y ago
    Yes. I would read it.
  - douche 11y ago
    I mean, your blog is must-read material every time new content shows up in theoldreader, and I keep coming back to certain points, like the Gervais principle series.
itbeho 11y ago
My personal favorite quote from a previous boss: "I left you alone last week when you were out for your wife's surgery. Now it's time for you to catch up."
- fsloth 11y ago
  What a douchebag. I'm glad you can describe this work relationship in the past sense.
nhashem 11y ago
There's a school of thought among "economic leftists" that the disconnect between US productivity and average US worker wages since the 1970s, is due to a decline in "outrage constraint."[0] Executives didn't pay themselves that much more than their workers because it would essentially be considered "uncouth" to do otherwise. They might be rich, but they would be condemned and considered pariahs among their peers. You could optimize your personal gain, but the reputational damage would be be so suboptimal for your firm that you'd wind up in a net worse position. Social norms and conventions have significantly shifted since then. It is now entirely acceptable for executives to pay themselves several hundred times the average worker compensation[1]. There is no longer any real cost, reputational or otherwise, for optimizing for your personal gain So you might as well get yours, and fuck everyone else. Sure, some people with "Sanders 2016" bumper stickers will whine on Reddit about you, and maybe they'll even get together and yell at some buildings until they collapse due to a combination of in-fighting and tear-gas. But for the most part, you'll just shrug, order another round of layoffs, and think about how much your RSUs will appreciate in the inevitable stock price bump. And if you're truly concerned about reputational risk, and can't reconcile that some people in society will still think you're a "bad person" for this, and the thought of being a bad person causes too much discomfort for your liking, then you can literally compare them to Hitler and find a sympathetic audience.[2] I have to imagine -- and yes, I literally have to imagine, because I don't have any quantitative evidence and don't pretend otherwise -- that this is essentially a sociopath mindset (perhaps best explained by the Gervais Principle[3]) that then trickles down at every level of most professional organizations. When you're optimizing for your personal gain, you don't have a lot of time to consider things like "empathy" or "fairness." This is unfortunate to those disposed to such personality traits like the OPs father, because they essentially get eaten alive in the modern American workplace. At many professional organizations, the approach is binary. If it's not "fuck you, got mine" then it's "fuck! you got mine." HN is known for having a significant population of those who that there is nothing wrong with this, and if the most productive members of society happen to be sociopaths, then they should be rewarded as such as their productivity is what drives the human race forward. But what's unfortunate to me is that this means some of our society's most brilliant and productive people will essentially get marginalized in their professional (and indirectly, their personal) lives, not because they lack some level of competence, self-reliance, productivity, etc, but because they're incapable of embracing a sociopathic mindset to professional advancement. I have no problem with those who want to make their fortunes in any way possible, so they can retire to Galt's Gultch with their fortunes. I suppose I only question why they're so hell-bent on having only assholes for neighbors. [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/23/opinion/the-outrage-constraint.html http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/23/opinion/the-outrage-constr... [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/25/the-pay-gap-between-ceos-and-workers-is-much-worse-than-you-realize/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/25/t... [2] http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/the-rich-strike-back-104753.html http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/the-rich-strike-back-1... [3] http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/
dmourati 11y ago
I'm guilty of workplace incivility. I was oblivious how much I was negatively impacting my colleagues. I read No One Understands you and What to do About it and the No Asshole Rule. Both helped me to improve.
hliyan 11y ago
How does this compare with the idea of "disagreeable givers"? http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/06/why-it-pays-to-be-a-jerk/392066/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/06/why-it-p...
patrickdavey 11y ago
I once went to a talk on the "8 powers of leadership", one of these "powers" was the power to be yourself. The presenters idea was to get your "go to hell kit" ready (x months of living expenses saved) and then act the way you believe you should. For example, if a boss started shouting at me, I would politely, but firmly, say shall we continue this in another room, once there, I would try to work out what the issue was and come to some resolution. I certainly wouldn't stand for that sort of behaviour, life is too short. Respect yourself, get your go to hell kit ready, and stick up for yourself, there are always other jobs if push comes to shove, especially for anyone reading this.
- unabst 11y ago
  This is so true, and victims of bullying especially have a problem with this. It helps to realize that the problems is often also the cause, because bullies choose their victims. In a work environment, a kit is probably a good idea, but you'll see people who can't stand up for themselves regardless of circumstance, even when the risk is non-existent. It also has a lot to do with standards and how high or low your standards are for how you should be treated. Too high or too low and there is a price to be paid.
jqm 11y ago
On the other hand the fake niceness of some workplaces is just as repugnant. And it makes it harder to find out where you stand and what needs to be done. I fully agree there is no need for hostility in the workplace and it shouldn't be tolerated. At the same time I believe many people have become oversensitive and forgotten the massaging of their personal feelings are not the reason a company exists.
sgt101 11y ago
A lot of these things are artifacts of intense competition and change. Ignoring invites often happens (where I work) when people have 20 appointments in a day already! Stress transmits from the top down; if your business is "as usual" you can get your hands round it and run it smoothly, if your platform is on fire and your customers are throwing bombs at you (and disappearing) then staying on an even keel is hard.
wyclif 11y ago
For those of you that like business books, and want to improve the culture of your workplace in terms of creating space for respect, civility, compassion, and yes—love, I thought this is relevant to these issues: http://www.amazon.com/Love-Is-Killer-App-Influence/dp/1400046831 http://www.amazon.com/Love-Is-Killer-App-Influence/dp/140004... It's not a new book, and it's written by a Yahoo guy, but don't let those things put you off. There's tons of actionable stuff here.
__Joker 11y ago
I have heard first hand about some CEO or bosses deliberately practising meanness/curtness. The worst thing of all is I could not fathom they kind of justifying and moving on. Most likely if things are working something most be right.
- fsloth 11y ago
  Large orgs can do well due to market conditions despite it's leaders. To quote Andy Grove terminology, being an asshole seldom creates leverage. It's kinda cargo cult to figure out some prominent social behaviour of a CEO is the reason for orgs success when in reality there are so many things going on that are hard to observe as outsiders.
  - __Joker 11y ago
    Completely agree. Drawing positive correlation between CEO behaviour and success is fraught with lots holes. My peeve against this is people(employees) accepting such behaviour and to some extent condoning the same. Also my last statements I meant the attitude of people that "Most likely if things are working something most be right."
jryanwilliams 11y ago
Job role plays a big part in how civil someone thinks they are expected to be to one another. With the transactional nature of sales, I see many leaders approach their sales team with a sort of 'what have you done (closed) lately' mentality, which is a slippery slope that can get very ugly very quickly.
glaberficken 11y ago
Civil face to face relations and at the same time "uncivil" communication via email. I've lately been experiencing this at my work place. Face to face, people are all really civil to each other, assertive, giving objective feedback and collaborating really well to get work done. However when things move to the written form (email mostly) things can quickly escalate into finger pointing and the blame game. Anyone got thoughts on what would pressure us to act this way?
- psykovsky 11y ago
  You are all a bunch of pussies who's afraid of talking face to face but go all Rambo when you got computers and network cables between you?
  - glaberficken 11y ago
    lol, nice comment. I think it might have something to do with this: When you are face to face, the interaction tends to be 1 on 1 or involve a small number of people you work with day to day, there's a mutual benefit in having a healthy non violent, relationship (you are happier day to day if you are not an asshole towards others because on average they tend to respond in kind, by not being assholes either). On the written channel, typically there are a lot more stakeholders in Cc (can include clients, managers higher in the hierarchy, people from other departments) and everyone feels more pressure to save face regarding mistakes or delays in work being done etc. Also because email is usually the record that counts once responsibilities for a work outcome is attributed.
    - psykovsky 11y ago
      eheheheheheh Bit of a tongue-in-cheek comment. Not calling you a pussie, but what you described is what we see everyday in the world wild web. I suppose it isn't any different on a work setting.
      - glaberficken 11y ago
        btw I didn't flag your comment, I thought it was funny =)
unabst 11y ago
Kindness is so so so underrated. If one needs an excuse to be kind, they are already an asshole. And those who stick around horrible people need to realize that those people suffer greatly for how they behave even if they deny it. In startups especially. A leader that lacks integrity and lacks a heart does not deserve any loyalty, and if you're giving it, you need to consider the possibility that you are victim of a bully. I also love the conclusion of original article: Given the enormous cost of incivility, it should not be ignored. We all need to reconsider our behavior. You are always in front of some jury. In every interaction, you have a choice: Do you want to lift people up or hold them down?

166 points by SimplyUseless 11y ago

From the article: But insensitivity or disrespect often sabotages support in crucial situations. Employees may fail to share important information and withhold efforts or resources. Sooner or later, uncivil people sabotage their success — or at least their potential. Payback may come immediately or when they least expect it, and it may be intentional or unconscious. It's a bit weird how the article paints this as a failure of the uncivil person - this is pretty clearly a failure of the sabotager. Some people are willing to harm random third parties (shareholders) in acts of petty revenge against those they dislike (for possibly valid reasons). Quite a bit of victim blaming going on there. I agree that the person with power should - as a pragmatic move - attempt to behave in a manner that accounts for the bad acts of others. In much the same way, people should avoid putting themselves into situations where there is a high risk of crime. But the ultimate responsibility for an individual's actions lies on the individual, not the person who was "asking for it."

j_baker 11y ago
Are you seriously suggesting that the uncivil boss is the real victim?
- s73v3r 11y ago
  It's the only way people like that can justify their own sociopathic behavior.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  No, I'm suggesting shareholders are the real victim. They are the ones paying agents to maximize their wealth while those agents pursue their own agendas instead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_proble...
  - Sideloader 11y ago
    >They are the ones paying agents to maximize their wealth while those agents pursue their own agendas instead. I am a secret agent not just any agent...and I pursue my own agenda instead. lol Dude, life is not an economics textbook. Have you actually worked in the real world with real people?
rayiner 11y ago
Unlike the innocent victim of crime, shareholders create the culture that leads to the sabateurs. They reap what they sow.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  The shareholders may (and likely are) completely unaware, particularly if the saboteurs are passive-aggressively harming the shareholders rather than honestly quitting.
parennoob 11y ago
Putting it as "sabotage" is a bit too dramatic in my opinion. Say Mary walks her boss Tom through filing the necessary documentation every time they put a product on the market (even though it is really his job), and Tom always takes the credit if the product hits the market. This pisses off Mary because she is never acknowledged. Now suppose when releasing Product Z, Mary says "Um, do it yourself. It's your job.", Tom fucks up the documentation, and the product tanks. I don't think Mary is a saboteur in this case at all -- she is just not being nice and going "above and beyond" like usual. I suspect this sort of thing is what the article is referring to, and what occurs in the majority of cases.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  I've been in the situation of Mary, sort of (no one was "taking credit", but I don't care much about such emotional concerns - pay me, let me do my job, I don't care). My action: I did the best I could for shareholders, including doing things that were blatantly not what I was hired for. When it became clear that it was going to be a long term task, I openly said I'd quit if I were expected to continue doing it.
Redoubts 11y ago
> Some people are willing to harm random third parties (shareholders) in acts of petty revenge against those they dislike (for possibly valid reasons). Make your employees shareholders; problem solved.
Retra 11y ago
>But the ultimate responsibility for an individual's actions lies on the individual [...] Or it doesn't. It could easily lie on the culture. Or the ones with the power to change things more easily. But whatever. I guess you read your tea leaves and divined the nature of human responsibility from reality itself, so there's no reason to think about it or anything.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  If I'm part of the sexist lower class Indian culture, or Islamist/certain African/FGM culture, is my choice to assault a woman not ultimately my responsibility? Or is "culture made me do it" only an excuse when you sympathize with the action?
pyre 11y ago
While the people taking illegal or immoral actions are responsible for their own reactions, it's possible for someone to call others to action through nothing but speech. If someone actively goes around pissing off as many people as possible, how is it not in someways "their own fault" when someone reacts poorly to this? Also, as another poster said, calling the pissed-off employer a "sabotager" is not actually what the article is saying. The manager may "sabotage" their own success by causing all of the employees under themselves to quit en masse. Is this a "bad" action that only the employees are responsible for, leaving the manager as the poor and helpless victim?
s73v3r 11y ago
"It's a bit weird how the article paints this as a failure of the uncivil person" Because it is. If you're an asshole to me, why on earth would you expect that I want to help you? Or do anything more than the bare minimum?
s73v3r 11y ago
"Some people are willing to harm random third parties (shareholders)" Shareholders do this to employees all the time. So I cannot blame employees for not caring about the shareholders, when the shareholders have shown so much contempt for employees.

littletimmy 11y ago

This is to be expected when the working environment gets as cut-throat as the American workplace has become. Blame it on inequality, blame it on the puritanical drive to overwork, blame it on the zeal to squeeze every last bit of profit. It's just one other symptom of how anyone who is not an oligarch in this society is meant as an expendable resource to be crushed by the ubermensch. My only hope is that the USA fails to export its brand of moral decrepitude to the rest of the world. Europe should stay civilized, for the sake of its people.

tedks 11y ago
The United States is the way it is because this is the only way to survive within the framework of competitive capitalism. European attempts at cultural protectionism will fail as market pressures force them to adopt American customs and habits. This is just basic economics. American companies ruthlessly optimize for profit. Any attempt to optimize for anything else will take away from the potential for profit. In a global economy this means that profitable companies will beat out nice companies, and eventually "nice" company shareholders will force restructuring according to American ideals. I would also say that based on existing trends the United States is quite rapidly succeeding at bringing its way of life to the rest of the world. There are no more competing ideologies left, and the next few years will lead to more trade agreements that will mop up the remains of protectionism. Soon, English will be mandated as a first language in most of the world, and we'll have a truly globalized culture.
- MrBuddyCasino 11y ago
  That is a very simplistic world view. Have you ever been to Europe? Central and northern Europe are very successful economically. I know several people that once worked for an american firm, and won't ever do so again. I have never heard that about swiss, swedish or german firms. You might want to check out these GDP stats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_economy#Current_world_economic_league_table_of_largest_economies_in_the_world_by_GDP_and_share_of_global_economic_growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_economy#Current_world_ec... The US and Europe are pretty close. The PIGS states have issues, but eastern Europe still has huge growth rates.

j_baker 11y ago

I have to say: working in a civil work environment makes a huge difference in terms of job satisfaction and job performance. Civility works for the business, the worker, and the customer. Nobody really benefits from incivility except for the arrogant power-monger over the very short term.

JohnyLy 11y ago
I totally agree. Working in a nice/friendly environment makes you more motivated and therefore more efficient.
- gambiting 11y ago
  This is a personal anecdote - my dad used to run a company that sorted second hand clothing. He had a huge warehouse, where people would stand in one place and literally pick clothes out of one basket and then sort them into several smaller ones, by colour or type. The atmosphere in the warehouse wasn't exactly perfect,but employees could talk to each other and they had a radio playing music. Based on some observations, he introduced a complete ban on casual talking and he took away the radio. Sure, for the employees it must have been much worse. But the productivity increased by 50% - an average amount sorted per day per employee was 400kg, after the change it went up to 600kg, which in the scale of things made a HUGE difference at the end of the month. The company could process a lot more with the same number of people. And yes, sure - people would get unhappy and leave, but it being rather easy manual labour - there were always 50 other people willing to take the position. I'm not defending my father, I think the way he ran the company was horrible for the employees, but it's just the personal anecdote showing that working in a nice/friendly environment doesn't necessarily make you more efficient. They could chat, so they spent time chatting,not doing what they were paid to do.
  - johnchristopher 11y ago
    Did they get a raise as a consequence of the higher output ? Since we are social animals then preventing talking between us make things harder for us at some points, ie the job gets harder, so that could be an argument for higher wage.

warmcat 11y ago

From my personal experience, I agree on the stress caused by uncivil workspace...especially if the boss is uncivil. I used to get thoughts of suicide when I was working for a boss in a job right out of college and my health declined a lot. It was not until I changed my job that I saw a huge difference in civil and uncivil workspace and its effect on life.

ionforce 11y ago
There was thing somewhere (Internet!) that the number one reason people switch jobs is because of their relationship with their manager. I agree with you. Happiness is hugely a function of said relationship.

netcan 11y ago

We are such apes.

ak39 11y ago
That is so true. Primates, not just apes. Here's Sapolsky explaining how stress in an hierarchical social arrangement impacts heart health and life expectancy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4UMyTnlaMY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4UMyTnlaMY

negamax 11y ago

Having seen my fair shares of people like these, I say it has everything to do with their own personal lives not sorted and them taking it out at workplace. If anything, companies should be extra vigilant in rooting out such workers.

comrade1 11y ago

Aggressive behavior is the norm when working as a consultant. You have to know that it's not personal and that part of it is negotiation on the part of the client, part of it is anger on the part of the client, some of it is just due to poor personality, some of it due to your misunderstanding of the situation and culture. Most people are not fit to work in a high-stress, aggressive environment, but some of us are. And that's why we get paid a lot for not doing a heck of a lot. I worked as a 'clean up' consultant in Europe for a couple of years - going to clients that had failing projects and were desperate to bring in a developer to get the project back on track. My job was 75% calming the client down and making them feel loved and 25% programming. And boy, do I have some stories...

jliechti1 11y ago
Are you able to share a few?
- hoers 11y ago
  seconded
- spotman 11y ago
  I share the opinion of the parent comment, pretty much exactly. Some of my comrades call this a layer-8 problem. (hint: there is only 7 technology levels, 8 is the human one). One story in particular my firm was hired to come into a startup that had failed to scale, both technology wise, and personnel wise. They had hired up to 25 engineers, hoping to fix their stability issues, and almost going bankrupt doing it. I am at no liberty to say which company this is publicly unfortunately. It was stressful, but you can't take things personal. You have to put aside feelings, to get useful data out of these people to make the platform work. You can't possibly care about someone's ethics, approach, and often even coding style on these missions. The goal is to try and not piss off as many people as you and, and go ahead not worry if you do have to piss someone off to get the job done, and not lose sleep at night if someone does not get along with you. The end result was that they had to shed, through various reasons the great majority of their internal team. We stabilized things and bought them lots of time, while they slowly brought in new senior tech management and rebuilt their internal team from the ground up. It was a multi year affair, and involved working on over 12 codebases and consolidating applications from 3 different hosting providers into AWS. They got very close to running the ship into the ground. If you think staying up late and pulling the occasional all-nighter is unhealthy, or having a job that has extremely high expectations and leave you no time for a personal life is bad, this is about one hundred times worse. Since my team is small and highly skilled we can get a lot done in a short amount of time, and occasionally we are terse even with each other. But the amount of sleep deprivation that comes with a task of gargantuan size, where your dealing with hundreds and thousands of requests (sometimes per second), the company is going for broke, and a single code change can improve monetary situations in instantaneous, tractable ways, it gets super intense. You have the CEO, the COO, the CFO all breathing down your neck. One day they see light at the end of the tunnel from fixing the currently broken problem, and then the next day, you discover another codebase lost in git that powers commerce for android, is starting to experience issue, and you don't even know where to find credentials to log into its production systems since it was setup by some employee in the middle of the night a year ago that is no longer there. I can go on and on and on. But honestly, please don't read this as a recommendation. Being a digital mercenary is fun in your 20s, but it got old quick. Of course I still do it, but I have a much healthier way of saying NO, more often now. You can make a very lucrative living doing this sort of work, but its hard to earn the reputation to get these clients, and you may end up forgetting what your family looks like by the end of a 2 year job that is 365/24/7. The story did have a happy ending though. The company does well today. Extremely well. A new era of management has come in over the last year, and I think everyone learned a lot. They are a household brand and I hear about them in the news it seems like monthly. Cheers

michaelochurch 11y ago

First, I think that people aren't becoming less uncivil but that environments are getting worse. If anything (although this is probably an artifact of increasing age and status) people seem to be getting better, on the whole: fewer mean jokes and exclusionary behaviors. Work environments, with the open-plan trend, are getting a lot worse and more stressful. It used to be that an off-color joke was heard by 2 people in a private office; now it's heard by 40 in a bullpen. Open-plan offices tend to magnify the cumulative effects of microaggressions, which is one of the reasons why every population except for the most constitutionally insensitive one (those who've never had negative experiences, either due to general inexperience or a combination of privilege and luck) hates them. Second, when you're aggressive or even uncivil, it hurts you with that person. That said, it can be beneficial-- in very small doses. Punching down is bad, while punching up is risky (the best target is a person of high status, that is "punching up", and low character, but with no real power) and if you're perceived as being uncivil for personal benefit, you're just considered an asshole. Usually, uncivil behavior is to one's benefit when (and pretty much only when) one is perceived as being that way for the group: you're a protector. People tire of selfish rule-breakers and firebrands, but those who behave in such ways for group benefit tend to inspire loyalty. Don't get me wrong: it's generally best not to be uncivil or arrogant at all. It's just not intellectually honest to say that it's always socially detrimental to be that way. You have to be extremely selective in your targets to make it work, though.

douche 11y ago
Have you ever considered writing a book? Something like a "Peopleware 2.0"?
- iamcurious 11y ago
  Yes. I would read it.
- douche 11y ago
  I mean, your blog is must-read material every time new content shows up in theoldreader, and I keep coming back to certain points, like the Gervais principle series.

itbeho 11y ago

My personal favorite quote from a previous boss: "I left you alone last week when you were out for your wife's surgery. Now it's time for you to catch up."

fsloth 11y ago
What a douchebag. I'm glad you can describe this work relationship in the past sense.

nhashem 11y ago

There's a school of thought among "economic leftists" that the disconnect between US productivity and average US worker wages since the 1970s, is due to a decline in "outrage constraint."[0] Executives didn't pay themselves that much more than their workers because it would essentially be considered "uncouth" to do otherwise. They might be rich, but they would be condemned and considered pariahs among their peers. You could optimize your personal gain, but the reputational damage would be be so suboptimal for your firm that you'd wind up in a net worse position. Social norms and conventions have significantly shifted since then. It is now entirely acceptable for executives to pay themselves several hundred times the average worker compensation[1]. There is no longer any real cost, reputational or otherwise, for optimizing for your personal gain So you might as well get yours, and fuck everyone else. Sure, some people with "Sanders 2016" bumper stickers will whine on Reddit about you, and maybe they'll even get together and yell at some buildings until they collapse due to a combination of in-fighting and tear-gas. But for the most part, you'll just shrug, order another round of layoffs, and think about how much your RSUs will appreciate in the inevitable stock price bump. And if you're truly concerned about reputational risk, and can't reconcile that some people in society will still think you're a "bad person" for this, and the thought of being a bad person causes too much discomfort for your liking, then you can literally compare them to Hitler and find a sympathetic audience.[2] I have to imagine -- and yes, I literally have to imagine, because I don't have any quantitative evidence and don't pretend otherwise -- that this is essentially a sociopath mindset (perhaps best explained by the Gervais Principle[3]) that then trickles down at every level of most professional organizations. When you're optimizing for your personal gain, you don't have a lot of time to consider things like "empathy" or "fairness." This is unfortunate to those disposed to such personality traits like the OPs father, because they essentially get eaten alive in the modern American workplace. At many professional organizations, the approach is binary. If it's not "fuck you, got mine" then it's "fuck! you got mine." HN is known for having a significant population of those who that there is nothing wrong with this, and if the most productive members of society happen to be sociopaths, then they should be rewarded as such as their productivity is what drives the human race forward. But what's unfortunate to me is that this means some of our society's most brilliant and productive people will essentially get marginalized in their professional (and indirectly, their personal) lives, not because they lack some level of competence, self-reliance, productivity, etc, but because they're incapable of embracing a sociopathic mindset to professional advancement. I have no problem with those who want to make their fortunes in any way possible, so they can retire to Galt's Gultch with their fortunes. I suppose I only question why they're so hell-bent on having only assholes for neighbors. [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/23/opinion/the-outrage-constraint.html http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/23/opinion/the-outrage-constr... [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/25/the-pay-gap-between-ceos-and-workers-is-much-worse-than-you-realize/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/25/t... [2] http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/the-rich-strike-back-104753.html http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/the-rich-strike-back-1... [3] http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/

dmourati 11y ago

I'm guilty of workplace incivility. I was oblivious how much I was negatively impacting my colleagues. I read No One Understands you and What to do About it and the No Asshole Rule. Both helped me to improve.

hliyan 11y ago

How does this compare with the idea of "disagreeable givers"? http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/06/why-it-pays-to-be-a-jerk/392066/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/06/why-it-p...

patrickdavey 11y ago

I once went to a talk on the "8 powers of leadership", one of these "powers" was the power to be yourself. The presenters idea was to get your "go to hell kit" ready (x months of living expenses saved) and then act the way you believe you should. For example, if a boss started shouting at me, I would politely, but firmly, say shall we continue this in another room, once there, I would try to work out what the issue was and come to some resolution. I certainly wouldn't stand for that sort of behaviour, life is too short. Respect yourself, get your go to hell kit ready, and stick up for yourself, there are always other jobs if push comes to shove, especially for anyone reading this.

unabst 11y ago
This is so true, and victims of bullying especially have a problem with this. It helps to realize that the problems is often also the cause, because bullies choose their victims. In a work environment, a kit is probably a good idea, but you'll see people who can't stand up for themselves regardless of circumstance, even when the risk is non-existent. It also has a lot to do with standards and how high or low your standards are for how you should be treated. Too high or too low and there is a price to be paid.

jqm 11y ago

On the other hand the fake niceness of some workplaces is just as repugnant. And it makes it harder to find out where you stand and what needs to be done. I fully agree there is no need for hostility in the workplace and it shouldn't be tolerated. At the same time I believe many people have become oversensitive and forgotten the massaging of their personal feelings are not the reason a company exists.

sgt101 11y ago

A lot of these things are artifacts of intense competition and change. Ignoring invites often happens (where I work) when people have 20 appointments in a day already! Stress transmits from the top down; if your business is "as usual" you can get your hands round it and run it smoothly, if your platform is on fire and your customers are throwing bombs at you (and disappearing) then staying on an even keel is hard.

wyclif 11y ago

For those of you that like business books, and want to improve the culture of your workplace in terms of creating space for respect, civility, compassion, and yes—love, I thought this is relevant to these issues: http://www.amazon.com/Love-Is-Killer-App-Influence/dp/1400046831 http://www.amazon.com/Love-Is-Killer-App-Influence/dp/140004... It's not a new book, and it's written by a Yahoo guy, but don't let those things put you off. There's tons of actionable stuff here.

__Joker 11y ago

I have heard first hand about some CEO or bosses deliberately practising meanness/curtness. The worst thing of all is I could not fathom they kind of justifying and moving on. Most likely if things are working something most be right.

fsloth 11y ago
Large orgs can do well due to market conditions despite it's leaders. To quote Andy Grove terminology, being an asshole seldom creates leverage. It's kinda cargo cult to figure out some prominent social behaviour of a CEO is the reason for orgs success when in reality there are so many things going on that are hard to observe as outsiders.
- __Joker 11y ago
  Completely agree. Drawing positive correlation between CEO behaviour and success is fraught with lots holes. My peeve against this is people(employees) accepting such behaviour and to some extent condoning the same. Also my last statements I meant the attitude of people that "Most likely if things are working something most be right."

jryanwilliams 11y ago

Job role plays a big part in how civil someone thinks they are expected to be to one another. With the transactional nature of sales, I see many leaders approach their sales team with a sort of 'what have you done (closed) lately' mentality, which is a slippery slope that can get very ugly very quickly.

glaberficken 11y ago

Civil face to face relations and at the same time "uncivil" communication via email. I've lately been experiencing this at my work place. Face to face, people are all really civil to each other, assertive, giving objective feedback and collaborating really well to get work done. However when things move to the written form (email mostly) things can quickly escalate into finger pointing and the blame game. Anyone got thoughts on what would pressure us to act this way?

psykovsky 11y ago
You are all a bunch of pussies who's afraid of talking face to face but go all Rambo when you got computers and network cables between you?
- glaberficken 11y ago
  lol, nice comment. I think it might have something to do with this: When you are face to face, the interaction tends to be 1 on 1 or involve a small number of people you work with day to day, there's a mutual benefit in having a healthy non violent, relationship (you are happier day to day if you are not an asshole towards others because on average they tend to respond in kind, by not being assholes either). On the written channel, typically there are a lot more stakeholders in Cc (can include clients, managers higher in the hierarchy, people from other departments) and everyone feels more pressure to save face regarding mistakes or delays in work being done etc. Also because email is usually the record that counts once responsibilities for a work outcome is attributed.
  - psykovsky 11y ago
    eheheheheheh Bit of a tongue-in-cheek comment. Not calling you a pussie, but what you described is what we see everyday in the world wild web. I suppose it isn't any different on a work setting.
    - glaberficken 11y ago
      btw I didn't flag your comment, I thought it was funny =)

unabst 11y ago

Kindness is so so so underrated. If one needs an excuse to be kind, they are already an asshole. And those who stick around horrible people need to realize that those people suffer greatly for how they behave even if they deny it. In startups especially. A leader that lacks integrity and lacks a heart does not deserve any loyalty, and if you're giving it, you need to consider the possibility that you are victim of a bully. I also love the conclusion of original article: Given the enormous cost of incivility, it should not be ignored. We all need to reconsider our behavior. You are always in front of some jury. In every interaction, you have a choice: Do you want to lift people up or hold them down?