Assholes

A survival guide

Assholes. Everyone has one.

Some people aren’t satisfied with just one. They like to have a backup on hand just in case, so they choose to live with an extra asshole in their home.

Others work with or for an asshole.

Some places of business are, basically, asshole support groups. They love assholes so much that they go the extra mile to attract and retain as many of them as possible.

Others go even further. I’m talking about the asshole evangelists. They enjoy hiring non-assholes and converting them to fully-accredited assholes.

Assholes are all around us. There’s no getting away from them.

But we don’t have to let them make us miserable.

The road to asshole recovery can be a long one for an organization. Assholes are adept at biding their time in silence until just the right moment to make themselves known and ruin your day. But though the road is long, it’s easy to get started. The first step is awareness. By developing your skill at sniffing out the assholes early, you can prevent them from taking over your organization and turning everything to shit.

This article is here to help. I’m going to focus on people who join an organization as regular delightful humans and are turned into assholes by shitty cultures. I’ll outline the steps that people go through in their metamorphosis from potential asshole to fully-actualized asshole because if you can spot them early, you can intervene and prevent the shit from hitting the fan.

Step 1: The Mimic

This is what happens when good people join an organization and realize quickly that the leaders of that organization are assholes. They recognize that their normal pleasant behavior will get them nowhere. They don’t want to fail or be excluded from the club so they copy a few asshole behaviors to avoid being unmasked as decent humans. This is simply survival behavior. It makes them uncomfortable but they go along to get along.

It’s nearly impossible to detect an asshole at this stage. But if you see someone soon into their tenure at the organization start to behave in ways that seem unlike them, be on the lookout. They might have just taken their first step toward asshole actualization.

Step 2: The Pucker

When people mimic asshole behaviors for long enough (my careful research suggests this can happen in as little as 7 weeks), it starts to change them. They develop muscle memory that produces asshole-like behaviors.

It can be difficult to spot someone who is experiencing The Pucker. It’s a subtle reaction. It’s not yet leading to obvious assholery. But if you pay close enough attention you can see — or even hear — the subtle Pucker. Don’t misunderstand me. Asshole detection at this stage is very difficult. It’s like those pigs who are able to sniff out truffles in the forest. It’s a highly-specialized expertise. If you have this gift, congratulations! You will, forever, be sought after.

Step 3: The Smell

Once the asshole muscle memory takes hold, it’s not long before malodorous behavior starts to emerge. Sometimes with a vengeance.

It’s at this point that all but the most obtuse can detect the asshole. If you haven’t intervened by now, this is your moment. Once The Smell emerges you have but a short time to do something before the whole place turns to shit.

Step 4: The Identity

When a person becomes accustomed to their own assholery — and especially when they find themselves rewarded by their organization, they become an asshole not only in their behavior but in their soul. What was once just a survival mechanism has now been internalized.

At this stage, only the most powerful deprogramming interventions can reverse the otherwise inevitable decay. I’m not saying it’s impossible. Even Darth Vader turned back from the Dark Side in his final moments. But don’t get complacent. You have to either root out these people before they cause irreparable damage, or invest in a significant remediation effort to turn them back from this awful path.

Step 5: The Asshole

Once an asshole identity fully forms, it’s practically impossible to help people cleanse themselves. As much as you might want to hold onto hope beyond hope, it’s best to send these people packing. If you let them stay in the organization it will quickly devolve into a steaming pile of shit.

I hope this helps. We don’t have to work in shitty environments full of unrepentant assholes. We. Can. Do. Something.

So don’t just not be an asshole. Be an anti-asshole.