Bob Sutton must be enjoying this. I certainly am.
At the virtual swearing in of his political appointees, Biden essentially told his appointees that if he catches “anyone of them treating someone else poorly, he’ll drop-kick them off the roof of the White House.”
Here’s his statement. “I am not joking when I say this, if you are ever working with me and I hear you treat another colleague with disrespect, talk down to someone, I promise you I will fire you on the spot,” No ifs, ands, or buts. Everybody, everybody is entitled to be treated with decency and dignity. That’s been missing in a big way the last four years…. I’m confident you have the capacity to do it. We’re gonna be judged. We are gonna be judged whether or not we restore the integrity and competency in this government…. I need your help badly. We have to restore the soul of this country, and we’re counting on all of you to be part of that. It’s not hyperbole. The only thing I expect with absolute certitude is honesty and decency—the way you treat one another, the way you treat the people you deal with. And I mean that sincerely,” he said.
He clarified that even further with a letter to his staff, telling them, “I would like to take a moment to make something clear to everyone. I do not expect nor do I want any of you to miss or sacrifice important family obligations for work. Family obligations include but are not limited to family birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, any religious ceremonies such as first communions and bar mitzvahs, graduations, and times of need such as illness or a loss in the family.” Trump, on the other hand, expected aides to skip important family functions to sit in the residence with him while he binge-watched Fox News...
Just in case you’ve already forgotten about that asshole, here’s the reminder put up on the Vanity Fair site by Bess Levin: Obviously, that lack of respect over the last four years that Biden referred to started at the top, with the 45th president of the United States routinely firing employees over Twitter and describing people he’d hired as a “crazed, crying lowlife,” “clueless,” a “highly unstable nutjob,” “mentally retarded,” and “dumb as a rock.”
In contrast, it was the most unusual critique of President Joe Biden by Van Jones that was, thankfully, most apropos of our new president: “Boring is thrilling.”
So, when I turn on the news, there’s practically no noise. The world is not falling apart. There’s even a slight sense of healthy normalcy, in spite of the obvious fact that, as a nation, we’ve still got a lot to do.
FYI: Bob Sutton’s book, The No-Asshole Rule, which came out to much kudos in 2007, was followed by still another goodie, The Asshole Survival Guide, ten years later. Here’s my quick Amazon review of the survival guide.
“Sutton has done the impossible in this book. Not only how to manage jerks, but how to manage yourself when you have to work with jerks. But most of all, he tells you how to live and work in today's unpredictable, demanding and chaotic world. The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt.”
My fondest hope is that we never have to deal again with a White House Asshole like that 45th.