The work jerk

If you don't know who this person is ...

Photo by Andre Hunter on Unsplash

I saw an old friend recently. We used to work together long ago.

And while we had a lot of fun things to catch up on, we both laughed a bit to realize that literally two decades after we left our former workplace, we spent more time than we would have liked to admit talking about the jerk we worked with back then.

You know what I mean by the “work jerk,” right? I'm using the cleanest possible language here, both for convenient rhyme and to keep the newsletter family friendly.

But I saw a survey not long ago that said 80 percent of workers say they've had toxic coworkers — the kinds of work jerks they might wind up talking about two decades later, so to speak.

This statistic also leads to a tricky question: If you can't identify the jerk at work, could you be that person in other people's eyes?

I asked hundreds of employees, former employees, and colleagues to find about a dozen who admitted: Yes, in retrospect, they had become the work jerk.

(See, there's still a use for LinkedIn!)

Here's how they admitted they behaved, and how they knew something had to change in the future.

1. They checked out.

Let's call this the early warning signal. Quiet quitting might the more modern term.

"I quit without actually quitting," one of the group told me. (Most didn't want to be named for obvious reasons.).

Their bosses and coworkers probably wondered for a while: Was it their fault? Was there something they could do to change things? Was it just a miscommunication?

No. It was a now-it-can-be-admitted toxic worker who was on their way out.

2. They took advantage.

Some said that they felt like their deal with their employers had changed, and they didn't react well.

A big tipping point: people who understood they'd been promised the right to work from home, only to be dragged back into the office.

"I felt like my soul had been crushed and I was painfully frustrated," said one group member, whose problems began when the small company he enjoyed working for was acquired by a much bigger one. "I started arriving to work late. I took long lunches and skipped out early whenever I could pull it off."

That fed into a vicious circle; the more he took advantage, the more his boss reacted; the more his boss reacted, the more he took advantage.

3. They gossiped and complained.

Misery likes company. Some recovering work jerks said that when they talked about work, they always talked badly about it. More true confessions:

"​I complained about poor pay and annoying customers. Often I would corner my coworkers just to rant about the terrible management and the problems I saw. ... It got to the point where it seemed like my colleagues no longer wanted to get lunch or coffee with me."

4. They blamed other people.

There's a part of some people that looks to find ways to pin their problems on others.

"I was completely burned out," one of the group told me. "I would find myself closing my door more and more to avoid some of my coworkers. At first, I started blaming everyone and then dreaded getting up to go to work and having to 'deal' with everything. I quickly realized that this wasn't who I was or wanted to be."

5. They grew defensive.

This was the next step for some of them. They shifted from "passive-aggressive" to plain old "aggressive."

In some cases, these people were actually good at their individual jobs, but they became horrible to work with.

Competence wasn't the issue. It was culture, fit, and toxicity.

"We were crushing it, but I was an absolute [jerk] about everything," said once-upon-a-time work jerk. "They needed me, so the minute they questioned me, I felt comfortable in retaliating. I talked [badly (yes, I'm cleaning these up)] about other people in the office for thinking they knew more than me (even when I actually did know more)."

6. They were less honest and truthful.

The people who talked with me had mostly moved on to better situations. They seemed like they were being honest in the hope that it could help other people.

But truthfulness wasn't their strong point at the time. A few said that a layer of dishonestly creep into their dealings with coworkers and customers. One example:

"I felt like if I was being lied to, I didn't have any obligation to be honest myself. I'm not saying I'm proud of it, but it's what happened."

7. They changed circumstances abruptly.

Of all the stories I heard, there was only one in which the self-admitted "work jerk" improved their attitude and performance, stuck around, and became known as something else.

For everyone else, things ultimately came to a head. Nobody was flat-out fired, but a few said it became clear that their choices were to improve performance or take a hike, so they took the hike.

Mostly, they just decided abruptly that things had to change, and left.

One of my favorite comments came from a formerly toxic worker, who moved on not just to a new job, but a new career that suits her much better:

"I took a step back and figured out what I wanted in a work environment ... and applied to other jobs. For me, turning into someone I wouldn't want to work with was not an option. Once I figured out that I was heading in that direction, I knew that it was time to go."

OK folks: One point for telling us in the comments about the work jerks you’ve worked with in the comments; two points for acknowledging in the comments that maybe, with the benefit of hindsight, you might have been the “work jerk” at some point in your life. Just to get everyone going, I’ll admit when I fell into the later category in the comments myself.

I don’t know what anyone gets for having the most points, but maybe we’ll think of something. Thanks!

---

7 other things …

• Florida’s storm-battered Gulf Coast raced against a Category 5 hurricane Monday as workers sprinted to pick up heaps of appliances and other street debris left over from Helene two weeks ago and highways were clogged with people fleeing ahead of the storm. The storm is expected to cross the width of Florida but then head out to sea, sparing places like North Carolina. Separately, an aide to Gov. Ron DeSantis said he is refusing to take calls from Vice President Kamala Harris about storm recovery because the Democratic presidential nominee’s calls because they “seemed political,” according to an aide. (AP, NBC News)

• The facts emerging from Hurricane Helene’s destruction are heartrending: Businesses and homes destroyed, whole communities nearly wiped out, hundreds of lives lost, hundreds of people missing. Yet this devastation and despair is not enough for the extremist groups, disinformation agents, hucksters and politicians who are exploiting the disaster to spread false claims and conspiracy theories about it and the government’s response. (AP)

• Elon Musk is dangling part of his fortune as part of a potentially expensive arrangement to identify up to 1 million likely voters for Donald Trump in seven battleground states. Through his super PAC, he's offering $47 for every swing state voter recruited to sign a petition, which could then be targeted to turn out votes for former President Trump. (NY Times)

• The largest supplier of drinking water and wastewater services in the U.S. is the latest target to be hit by hackers. American Water Works, which provides drinking water and wastewater services to more than 14 million people in 14 states and on 18 military installations, said hackers breached its computer networks and systems last week. The utility does not believe its facility or operations were impacted by the cybersecurity incident. However, it is “currently unable to predict the full impact,” it stated in a regulatory filing. (Fast Company)

• Israel will “continue to fight,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Monday in a speech marking a year since the October 7 Hamas attacks. Israel’s ensuing war in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 people and triggered a humanitarian crisis, catalyzing a widening regional conflict. (CNN)

• A Russian court on Monday sentenced a 72-year-old American in a closed trial to nearly seven years in prison for allegedly fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine. Prosecutors said Stephen Hubbard signed a contract with the Ukrainian military after Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and he fought alongside them until being captured two months later. (PBS)

• America's safest cities? (1) South Burlington, Vermont; (2) Casper, Wyoming; (3) Warwick, Rhode Island; (4) Burlington, Vermont; and (5) Boise, ID. The most dangerous: Memphis, Tennessee; folllowed by Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans. (WalletHub)

---

Thanks for reading. Photo by Swansway Motor Group on Unsplash. I wrote about some of this before at Inc.com. See you in the comments!