Friday Funny: Is There A Jerk At Your Work?

Are you being treated like dirt at your job and don’t know what to do about it? A Stanford professor has created a guide to working with bullies, creeps, jerks, tyrants, tormentors, despots, backstabbers, and egomaniacs.

Are you being treated like dirt at your job and don’t know what to do about it? A Stanford professor may have the solution to your struggles.

bullies at work
(Credit: Thinkstock)

Through thousands of emails and conversations, Robert Sutton, professor of Management Science and Engineering in the Stanford Engineering School, has gathered countless personal stories about the damage that bullies and backstabbers do in the workplace. He’s also closely tracked the growing pile of academic research on pertinent topics, including workplace bullying, abusive supervision, rudeness, and disrespectful and demeaning customers.

From it all, Sutton wrote the definitive guide to working with — and surviving — bullies, creeps, jerks, tyrants, tormentors, despots, backstabbers, egomaniacs, and all the others who do their best to destroy you at work, The A**hole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt.¹

In his new webinar, “How To Survive Workplace Jerks,” Sutton discusses key themes from the book, including how to escape, endure, outwit, battle, and bring down the jerks at work. He also weaves in some of his favorite strange, surprising, and funny stories to keep things lively.

You can watch the webinar for free on the Stanford Center for Professional Development website.

Sutton also wrote The No A**hole Rule¹, a national best seller. He is a co-founder of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and the new Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, a multi-disciplinary program at Stanford that teaches and spreads “design thinking.” He is an IDEO Fellow, member of the Institute for the Future’s Board Trustees, and a Professor of Organizational Behavior, by courtesy, at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Sutton studies the links between managerial knowledge and organizational action, innovation, and organizational performance. He was named one of 10 “B-School All-Stars” by BusinessWeek in 2007.

¹ Titles edited to make them SFW (Suitable For Work).