Bob Sutton of No Asshole Rule fame has written some tips for surviving workplace assholes. These are great and very practical. I think the best tip is to escape if you possibly can, because there is no shame in walking away from an asshole in the workplace. He also gives tips for polite confrontation with an asshole, which can be very effective.

One of the reasons I find Sutton’s No Asshole Rule so compelling (and I’ve written about it a lot) is that he acknowledges a huge workplace problem: some people are assholes. I can adopt a more pastoral orientation to try and understand, sympathize, empathize with the asshole and lots of career advice tiptoes around the asshole problem. Certainly if you’ve been in an organization with an asshole who has taken over, you’ll agree that empathy is not necessarily the best (or only) strategy. Sutton knows this.