The RubeTube

With help from a timely 20-percent-off-on-all-items sale at Powerbooks, I was able to get myself a copy (the last one!) of one of the hottest business/management books today: The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't by Robert Sutton. I found out about The No Asshole Rule from Guy Kawasaki's blog. There's also an "Asshole Rating Self-Exam (ARSE)" that you can take to find out how much of an asshole you are; I scored a 4, which makes me a non-asshole.

I haven't finished reading the whole book, but so far, it's been worth every penny. The book tackles the problem of assholes in the workplace, and discusses their damaging effects and ways to mitigate their impact. I love how the author is unafraid to use the word "asshole"; I agree with him that there simply is no better word to label those jerks who make the world a drearier place to live in.

One of the best sections I've read so far is the one listing the factors that contribute to your organization's "Total Cost of Assholes", or TCA. The argument is that tolerating the presence of assholes will end up costing your organization a lot, even if the asshole is always one of the top performers. Here are some of the ways that an asshole can kick your ass:

• Damage to victims and witnesses: distraction from tasks, loss of motivation, absenteeism
• Damage to the asshole him/herself: humiliation, job loss, long-term career damage
• Consequences for management: time spent "cooling out" victims, time spent replacing departed assholes

While I was reading the book, I couldn't help but feel tremendously fortunate to be working at such an asshole-free environment like the one at HP. Let me repeat that: no one at HP is an asshole! Surely, there have been some cases of "temporary assholes", but I haven't met any "certified assholes" so far. If there are any certified assholes at all among us, then they are most definitely first-class assholes to be able to hide their asshole-ness behind a sweet, non-asshole exterior. I'm proud to say that we are very efficient at weeding out assholes and making sure they don't infest our workplace.

But if there are no assholes at HP, then why did I buy the book? Aside from the in-your-face title and eye-catching cover, I just wanted to find out if I was an asshole myself. So am I one? You tell me. (Am I being one right now?)

(P.S. If you work for an asshole-infested organization, it's probably not a good idea to let your officemates know you're reading The No Asshole Rule... or this blog entry, for that matter. They may not easily realize it or admit it, but deep down inside, assholes just know they're assholes.)

Labels: assholes, books, HP, management, work