Asshole Alignment

Posted by fxckfeelings on June 20, 2013

In a just world, correcting injustice would have no unintended consequences, good people would always know how to do the right thing, and I’d be so hard up for patients that I’d have to become a podiatrist. Unfortunately, in this world, there are Assholes™, and the fight for justice isn’t just riddled with them, but may force you to align with one or be mistaken for one in the process. Don’t let them and your passion for justice distract you from checking out the moral pros and cons of what happens next. In seeking justice, you should ideally experience the joy of straightening out the world. More often, you will bear the pain of tolerating unjust crap for the sake of good values, the knowledge that you’re preventing things from getting worse, and that, in doing so, you’ve confirmed your non-Asshole™ status.
–Dr. Lastname

Our church administrator made some dumb decisions that wasted money and favored her friends, and the church would be better off if she were eased out of her job, but there’s one member of our church who is so obnoxious and unreasonable in the way he attacks her mistakes that I don’t want to have anything to do with him. He has brought a lawsuit against the church that could hurt all of us and sees any offer of compromise as an effort to deceive him. I think he’s paranoid, but meanwhile I’m paralyzed because, even if I agree with his basic point, I don’t know how to move ahead without encouraging him and joining with a person I despise. My goal is save our church from bad management without having to encourage, or be seen as encouraging, an obnoxious, crazy jerk.

The enemy of your enemy may be your friend, but the enemy of the entire world is still a toxic Asshole™ you naturally want to avoid at all costs, even if you share a common goal.

Since your goal seems unselfish and idealistic, it’s especially painful to have it hijacked by the one person who can drive everyone else away. The more personal his attacks, the more support he’ll create for the administrator who needs to be fired. Even if you’re on the right side of things, the Asshole™ being on that side makes it wrong.

Ignoring how annoyed you are with both the Asshole™ and the accused administrator, add up the benefits and risks of firing her. Unless her actions make it unavoidable, you don’t want to stir up a fight in the congregation. Some people might say that church should be a place of greater purity and moral rectitude and its employees held to a higher standard, but that notion starts religious wars (and contradicts the actions of the Vatican). Yes, there are some crimes that are intolerable, but in most cases you’re more interested in pursuing acceptance and mutual respect, even if that means accepting some impropriety and administrative inefficiency.

If you decide that action is necessary, remember that backroom politics were invented to help people get things done when a horribly obnoxious loudmouth makes it impossible to have a meaningful public discussion. We now understand that many such people can’t help themselves; they have strong opinions about how other people should behave and no awareness of their motivations or reactions, particularly to their own demeaning statements.

You may have to put lots of work into circulating your opinion outside a general meeting, gathering a majority, and agreeing on a course of action, but it beats the alternative. Consider it to be both a test of your resolve and an Asshole™ shield. Having avoided taking part in a public, personal attack, do what you can to cushion the blow of her firing and avoid humiliating her or her supporters by paying respect to her contributions and showing no personal dislike, regardless of your deeper feelings.

Unlike your would-be ally, you aren’t trying to root out evil and punish corruption, just to clean up an unfortunate mess while showing respect for those who disagree with you and preserving a community of relationships that are more important than any one political issue.

With some careful maneuvering, you can be on the same side of the Asshole™ without getting shit on in the process.

STATEMENT:
“I’m annoyed by the mistakes of my church administrator and infuriated by the tone of the attacks that have been made on her. I will do nothing about this problem, however, unless I think it’s necessary, and then do all I can, behind the scenes, to avoid public humiliation and build a consensus that does not insult those who disagree with it.”

I know I did the right thing when I filed a job discrimination suit against my boss, who’s notorious for making sexist put-downs and treating women as if we’re sluts and objects, but since I did it, everyone at work has become strangely silent. I know other women there who share my disgust for him, but management has been ordered by company lawyers to treat me very, very carefully and no one at work wants to be seen as siding with me or they’ll become pariahs too. Everyone is nice but distant and their polite distance is making me feel totally isolated. I can’t quit without jeopardizing my suit, but staying has got me really depressed. My goal is to stand up against something I know is wrong without driving myself crazy.

I hope your lawyer warned you that, though your anti-discrimination lawsuit might eventually bring you a dose of deserved justice, it would almost certainly first bring you an added dollop of unjust pain. That’s the way things work when you’re not on TV and don’t get instant access to justice, or even Judge Judy.

The better your case, the quicker the company lawyers will order your bosses to clean up their act and create tons of written evidence showing that they’re polite, professional, and caring while they watch for a legitimate reason to put you on probation and, after sincere attempts to improve your performance, regretfully terminate your ass. That’s standard operating procedures and it sucks for everyone, particularly you.

If your job was becoming unbearable, your suit may nevertheless be worth it. Feeling angry and humiliated may not, on its own, be worth suing for, but a suit may well be worthwhile if you can’t stand working there anymore, know you have a good case, and are ready to leave. Even then, once you sue you many need to persuade future employers that you don’t have a chip on your shoulder about administration. If your boss is a true pig, however, then it’s probably less of a chip and more of a cross that you’d bear with pride.

Now that the lawsuit is underway, the important thing to remind yourself is that nothing about work relationships is personal, even though it feels that way, and that you need as much support as possible outside of work because personal relationships at work will be a desert.

Also, you need an exit strategy; lawsuits destroy relationships and make it almost impossible to work together, so don’t force yourself to stay at work to prove to colleagues that you’re right and that they can’t get to you. Work is about making a living without going crazy, not making a point about pride.

So collect your strength, write off your old job, and focus on your next move. As long as you’re there, do a decent day’s work so that you’ll know you don’t deserve the criticism you will probably get, but don’t let making a decent effort get in the way of your job search.

Unjust criticism shouldn’t change your opinion about the value of your work, your lack of respect for your boss, or your determination to look for something better. It should instead strengthen your resolve until justice, or better, Judge Judy, finally arrives.

STATEMENT:
“The first victim of my lawsuit, in terms of feeling punished, is me, but I expected that to happen. I won’t let shunning or unjust criticism change my values, my willingness to work hard, or my effort to find a square deal at my next place of employment.”