Who Qualifies As a Workplace Asshole?

One of the weird things about writing a book on assholes is that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what the term means. I’ve decided that people who deserve to be branded as assholes “pass” two tests:

TEST ONE is: After talking to the alleged asshole, do their “targets” feel oppressed, humiliated, de-energized, or belittled by the person? In particular, do they feel worse about themselves?

TEST TWO: Does the alleged asshole aim his or her venom at people who are less powerful rather than at those people who are more powerful.

John R. Bolton, the controversial new United States Ambassador to the United Nations, meets both tests if the testimony to the U.S. Congress is correct. In his testimony to the Foreign Relations Committee, former Bolton subordinate Carl Ford Jr. (a fellow Republican) described him as a “kiss-up, kick down sort of guy.” If the media reports are true, they also indicate that Bolton qualifies as a certified (rather than a temporary) asshole because his abuse is part of a persistent pattern, not just something out-of-character, which happened once or twice because he was having a bad day.  I am not alone in this opinion. Check out this story from the Village Voice, Wanted: Complete Asshole for U.N. Ambassador.