During the last week or so, I’ve had discussions with several colleagues who have argued that assholes come in two basic flavors:

1. "Intentional" assholes who want to leave others feeling demeaned and de-energized.

2. "Clueless" assholes who damage people without realizing how much harm they are doing.

I am not sure which one is worse, but clueless assholes can be pretty bad, as these two stories sent to me by a marketing consultant show (I am not naming him, for obvious reasons):

Here are
two stories from the same company.

1. After we
acquired a new company, the head of HR went out to one of the regional offices
to do the inevitable layoffs. He did them in a glass walled conference room in
the middle of the office, so that for hours every time someone went to the
bathroom or got a cup of coffee, they walked by a big glass box containing
someone getting canned, often crying, etc.

2. A VP at
the same company fired someone by calling him on his cell phone while the guy
was sitting at a neonatal ICU with his wife and newborn premature child. After
firing him on the phone in the midst of that, he was overhead by a number of
people saying, "That one was fun!" A bit later he confided to several
of us that he was trying to bring people in the company together and boost
morale, because "I’m a healer."

Also, the only upside of such blatant idiocy is that these examples imply such clear guidance about how to avoid being a flaming asshole.