I almost never buy books at airports. Gum, yes. Skittles? Maybe. Coke Zero? Yes. Cinnabon? Certainly not.
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I almost never buy books at airports. Gum, yes. Skittles? Maybe. Coke Zero? Yes. Cinnabon? Certainly not. And most airport bookstores remind me of the Cinnabon line--they’re places where no one is happy.
(Disturbing true story: I was on the debate team as an undergrad, and so regularly had to fly to tournaments. I’m not crazy about heights, and as a callow undergrad, I was particularly anxious about flying. My mother called to offer the following suggestion: “When you get to the airport, go to the bookstore and buy some porn for takeoff. You’ll be so distracted that you’ll never notice the heights.” I can’t think of why airport bookstores put me off.)
Last week, however, I made an exception to my rule, as I happened to see the updated paperback edition of Robert L. Sutton‘s The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t (Hachette, 2007, 2010). This appealed to me for all manner of reasons that I won’t get into here--and it turns out to have been an impulse buy that’s worth every penny. (No need to take my word for it: The Tenured Radical, who is of course wiser than myself, reached the same conclusion when the book first came out.)
What’s different about The No Asshole Rule in part is how many of his examples are drawn from academe. It turns out that colleges and universities--like many places of employment--are cesspools of abusive, disrespectful behavior. Whether it’s deans and faculty; faculty and staff; chairs and faculty; students and faculty (or vice versa), there are countless opportunities for bad behavior on campus, and all too many people avail themselves of them. And this has a real cost: Sutton cites research showing that “Assholes have devastating consequences because nasty interactions have a far bigger impact on our moods than positive interactions--five times the punch, according to recent research” (30). This might help explain why that one contentious discussion in your department leaves you nursing whisky all night afterwards.
(It also speaks in part to Dean Dad’s observation that there seem to be fewer applications for administrative positions than one might expect.)
Sutton has developed an asshole detection quiz, which Guy Kawasaki has thoughtfully implemented online. The quiz helps explain the special relationship between academics and asshattery:
- You secretly enjoy watching other people suffer and squirm.
- You are often jealous of your colleagues and find it difficulty to be genuinely pleased for them when they do well.
- You enjoy lobbying “innocent” comments into meetings that serve no purpose other than to humiliate or cause discomfort to the person on the receiving end.
- You are quick to point out others’ mistakes.
- You don’t make mistakes. When something goes wrong, you always find some idiot to blame.
- You constantly interrupt people because, after all, what you have to say is more important.
- People keep responding to your e-mail with hostile reactions, which often escalate into “flame wars” with these jerks.
I wonder how many of these you’ve observed in any assemblage of faculty?
Even though ProfHacker readers are--it almost goes without saying--a remarkably civil and level-headed bunch, Sutton suggests that you’re still not safe, because “a swarm of assholes is like a ‘civility vacuum,’ sucking the warmth and kindness out of everyone who enters and replacing it with coldness and contempt.” His solution is utterly practical: “Listen to author Nick Hornby when he gives ‘one of the only pieces of advice that I have to offer younger generations: you’re allowed to walk out.’ Hornby was talking about boring concerts and movies, but also suggests it is good advice for any occasion--and to me, that includes when you feel surrounded by a bunch of assholes.” This is true more often than one thinks about meetings.
In addition to limiting your exposure to academic bullies, Sutton suggests that it’s important to try to stay positive and to focus on what you are able to control. The feelings of powerlessness and victimization that can result from facing big problems can, he suggests, be overcome by “looking for small battles that you can win.” It’s tempting to simply complain about the bad behavior of others, but complaining without acting turns out to make you feel even worse over the long haul. (On this point, see, as always, Matthew Arnold: “What then are the situations, from the representation of which, though accurate, no poetical enjoyment can be derived? They are those in which the suffering finds no vent in action; in which a continuous state of mental distress is prolonged, unrelieved by incident, hope, or resistance; in which there is everything to be endured, nothing to be done.”)
The No Asshole Rule is a quick read with numerous concrete suggestions for improving your state of mind. A secondary benefit, as he relates in the new epilogue to the book, is that it can serve as a talisman warding off jerks. Several people reported that the mere presence of The No Asshole Rule on their desks caused local jerks to behave more reasonably or calmly. Possibly worth a try!
Do you have preferred strategies for dealing with campus jerks? Or, how does your campus remain blissfully jerk-free? How do you you short-circuit your own tendencies towards acting out? Let us know in comments!
Photo by Flickr user Perry French / Creative Commons licensed
