Dealing with assholes
I'm working with a senior associate / junior VP who is a total dick. I have never had to work with anyone in my career that wasn't patient towards genuine questions and nice. They are literally doing things straight out of the "Apollo shitty culture" thread. I am not sure how to handle this situation (it is bad and I know myself - for better or worse I do not have thick skin - I need to do something here). Advice? Thank you.
Don't take things personally, everyone probably knows he's an asshole. Get used to it though - this industry is full of them!
OP - are you an analyst or 1st year MBA associate? Or something else
My recipe for dealing with a$$holes = ignore them. Obviously, when I was working together with one of those people, I focused on the work. Otherwise, I ignored them completely. No "how was your weekend", "what's up", and other small talk until they are nicer. Stay calm, composed and pleasant. But don't invest any of your emotional energy in them, let alone stressing about their horrible personalities! I agree with the above comment: everyone knows who they are and you should try to be known for working well with a variety of people, with different working styles.
If you feel that things go to far, you get bullied, belittled or your human rights are violated, make sure to save relevant emails or create a record of what happened. There is a nasty person I know who ultimately received a disciplinary warning because of their conduct at work after a number of complaints from the juniors. However, don't count on going down that route, but rather grow thick skin, focus on the work and invest in yourself.
Good luck!
I keep a list in my wallet - it's the people whose opinions of me matter. It's a short list (I have six). That framing has allowed me to brush off the actions and verbal assaults of people not on the list - I'm not cold toward them, but dispassionate.
This guy who's a total dick doesn't matter. I know that's hard to internalize when he may control/influence your time or workload or professional advancement. But his opinion of you and his treatment of you is just noise.
Keeping this mental framework is so, so much easier said than done. Look yourself in the mirror and remind yourself that nothing he can do can hurt you. He can inconvenience you, but he can't hurt you. Tell yourself every day if you need to. Don't be ashamed of talking yourself through tough things.
Agreed with your advice that assholes don't matter, but I'm curious about your framework... You really only have 6 people whose opinions matter to you? How do you evaluate those folks?
They're the people whose opinions of me matter to me. Doesn't mean I can't listen to and incorporate meaningful feedback from anybody, whether it's about me or work or a thousand subjects under the sun. But when the sun goes down, it matters to me if these people think I'm a good person. If they don't, I'm not just going to brush it off and agree to disagree, there's some work I need to do to understand why.
They're people I trust and are close to me (mostly family). My "number" isn't special - someone who's a true lone wolf might not put anyone in that category, and someone else might have dozens. I think the only important thing about the framework is the ability to categorize people one way or the other, and if someone at work is in a position of power over you but they're not on your "list," it's a powerful framing to keep them from getting too far under your skin.
Last note: I don't know what it would be like to be married and not have your spouse on the list.
Whatever people mention here above, having worked with serious assholes who threw me under the bus / verbally abused me, I'll say that you can make as mental concessions as you want to make yourself feel better. The reality, at least for me and my associate colleagues, was that it became an inescapable toxic work environment where no matter how much I would try and either distance myself or be an amicable guy, the asshole was not changing his/her character. And I say this with a massive grain of salt given my experience with such folk and I certainly believe fighting forward is important as a first step when faced with someone like this. I do, however, think it is important to recognize exactly when and where such a person is uniquely positioned within a firm or group such that nothing you or anyone does will change the situation. It pains me to write this since I always believe in fighting against such people but often times, after a certain time period which only you can determine, it may be time to let go and find an opportunity with senior support that is actually in it with you as opposed to dragging you down.
Layne Staley I've always respected your posts but the wrong person can absolutely affect your time, workload and most definitely your professional advancement. My take is definitely drawn from personal experience but that's why I think it's important to recognize for one own's sake, when it's time to get a move on when there's an immovable toxic presence
I've recently come to this realization at my current role.
That's not a fun position to be in. If it's at all helpful, my only regrets from those situations have to do with not pulling the plug sooner.
I appreciate the thoughts and I couldn't agree more. My whole line of thinking is to help myself draw the line when people affect my time, workload, professional advancement, income, employment, etc. and make sure it doesn't affect my sense of self-worth. It's a lesson learned the hard way, where I've been in roles with very, very destructive people and I wasn't able to remind myself that it was just a job.
I can't claim any authorship for the philosophy, it's entirely borrowed from Stoicism. Marcus Aurelius would probably argue that the list of people in your wallet should be zero.
Very good point and good reference on Aurelius as that is how I approached that situation as well. That's what pains me to say that despite even the most mental resilience one can muster, it's important to be self-aware and recognize after an appropriate number of attempts (that number is subjective) that you should probably head to less-choppy waters if not for anything else but the direction your mental health and career are on.
But I think you point holds more weight to the general audience given a lot of guys who dedicate everything in college etc often begin to tie their self-worth to their job (something I definitely did my first 1.5yrs in banking). This can become very mentally toxic and demoralizing so I think people should take careful heed of what you've said
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If it appears the writing is on the wall, is this type of concern a legitimate reason to bring up to headhunters when discussing looking for lateral opportunities?
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