Work Matters

Author: supermoxie

  • Stanley Bing’s Crazy Boss Quiz

    Fortune columnist Stanley Bing (that is a pseudonym, his real name is Gil Schwartz) has just come out with an updated version of his 1992 book Crazy Bosses, which is is about " The crazy boss in all his guises: the Bully, the Paranoid, the Narcissist, the Wimp, and the self-destructive Disaster Hunter." 

    I was amused and delighted by the online test that he has developed to assess "Is Your Boss a Crazy Boss?." Consider the first of the ten questions:

    1. Your boss calls you…
    a) At a reasonable hour in the morning, after you’ve had time for your muffin.
    b) The moment you get into the office, but basically just to schmooze.
    c) While you’re in the shower
    at 7 a.m., to scream at you for something that was resolved a week ago
    but you never had a chance to tell him about because he was too busy
    screaming at somebody else about something that was resolved the week
    before that.
    d) At 3:30 a.m. just about every night to babble in drunken incoherence into the phone.

    Bing casts his net beyond asshole bosses.  But he talks a lot about different forms of jerks and bullies. So if you combine Bing’s test with the ARSE (Asshole Rating Self-Exam), the checklist that we developed with Guy Kawasaki, and Linkedin to assesses if your future boss is an asshole, and ARSE Mail, there is a growing battery of asshole assessment and management tools out there.  Perhaps the next step is to apply a bit of evidence-based management to these tools, and to figure out when and if they are useful.

    P.S. As I reported earlier, The ARSE Test is now over 100,000 completions! Aaron at Electric Pulp tells me 102,123 this very minute! 

    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    Paris Hilton’s Great Grandfather and the Heath Brothers
    
			
    Made_to_stick_cover
    
In
    
my opinion, the best management book published in recent years is Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. It is written by my Stanford colleague Chip
    
Heath and his brother Dan Heath.  Made to Stick is a compelling read, it is
    
based on rigorous research, and is extremely useful for anyone in any line of
    
work who needs to craft message that people will remember, spread, and will
    
shape their behavior. The book not only
    
has been on numerous bestseller lists since being released in January, it is
    
fast becoming a standard text in management classes of all kinds, especially in
    
marketing. I predict that it will become much like Robert Cialdini’s classic Influence, which has become a standard text
    
in many psychology and marketing classes. Influence uses evidence-based
    
principles about the tools of persuasion and does so in an engaging and useful way.
    
I have been using Influence for years in my organizational behavior classes,
    
and when former students talk to me about these class, they often say something like “I don’t remember much about the class, but I still use that Cialdini
    
book.”   
    

    This
    
may sound like a weird connection, but all the news about Paris Hilton’s jail
    
sentence reminded me of one of may favorite examples of the kind of message
    
that “sticks.” 
    

    Paris’s great-grandfather was Conrad
    
Hilton    , founder of the worldwide hotel chain. There is a quote attributed to Hilton that is
    
one of the most “sticky” stories I know, and to this day, I think of every time
    
I stay in a hotel that has shower curtains in the bathtub. The version of this story that I have heard most often goes something like
    
this: 
    

    

    Conrad_hilton_2
    
‘When
    
Conrad Hilton appeared on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show years ago, Johnny asked
    
him if there was anything he wanted to say to the millions of people in the TV
    
audience. Hilton looked into the camera
    
and said:  "Yes, please remember to
    
put the shower curtain INSIDE the tub.”’     
    

    Frankly, I
    
am not entirely sure if this is a true story,and if it is true, he may have said it
    
elsewhere (Wikipedia claims that Hilton said it on his deathbed). But – as Chip and Dan show us by using urban
    
myths –  ideas that stick have six
    
characteristics that can all be seen in this little story (whether a story is true or not):
    

    

      

    1. Simple: “Put the shower curtain INSIDE the tub" is about as simple as a message it gets. 
      2. 

    2. Unexpected: Although Hilton was founder of a hotel chain, the TV audience was probably expecting something far more profound (and perhaps less self-serving). 
      3. 

    3. Concrete: Putting the curtain inside the tub is a very tangible message.
      4. 

    4. Credible: Hilton was credible because he built a huge hotel chain, partly by applying simple ideas like this one persistently, and at the time, Johnny Carson was host of one the highest-rated TV talk show hosts.
      5. 

    5. Emotional. This story is, at least to me, pretty funny, and in some version I’ve heard, people talk about Johnny Carson and  he audience just cracking-up.
      6. 

    6. Story. One of the main points of the Heath’s book is that a message packaged in a good story is more memorable, more likely to be passed from one person to others, and more likely to affect action. Indeed, when I put the curtain inside the tub, I hear the entire story in my head, and although I never actually saw the show, I still see Conrad Hilton telling the story and Johnny
      
     Carson laughing his trademark laugh in my mind’s eye.
      7. 

    

    The
    
ideas in Made to Stick aren’t just
    
useful for analyzing past stories, Chip and Dan use these six SUCCES (one "S" shy of the word "success")  principles to teach executives and students how to best craft new messages and stories too.  In fact, Just a few weeks weeks ago I watched Chip do a masterful job of leading an exercise with Stanford d.school students, helping them craft messages about spreading the use of compact fluorescent light bulbs, which use far less energy than conventional bulbs.   
    

    Finally,
    
there is an interesting twist – and challenge – discussed in Made to Stick: The statistics show that
    
people remember stories, not statistics. This has some pretty weird implications if you want valid ideas to spread and stick, including research-based
    
management practices. Sure, the first step is to select practices
    
and ideas that are valid or at least that seem to be supported by the strongest logic or evidence. (I am not sure, for
    
example, that we need to run controlled studies to show that the more customers
    
who put the curtain in the tub during showers, the less costs will be generated for a big
    
hotel chain – it is pretty obvious.) 
    

    BUT the second step – which too many researchers
    
and policy-makers miss – is that you need to craft valid messages and stories
    
in ways that will stick and spread. Unfortunately,
    
having a better idea isn’t enough; good ideas don’t stick without a great
    
salespeople to spread craft and spread the news. For example, Steve Jobs and Thomas Edison
    
would not have become among the most famous innovators in American history on
    
the basis of technology ability alone:  It is no accident that they are two of the
    
most compelling storytellers and salespeople in business history.  
    

    The
    
power of “sticky stories” creates a major challenge for managers, consultants,
    
and researchers who want to spread evidence-based practices, and stop the
    
spread of nonsense and half-truths. Those ideas that spread and stick aren’t necessarily the best, but
    
instead, those sold by the best stories and story tellers – a troubling
    
implication of the Heath brothers’ brilliant book.
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    BusinessWeek: Paperbacks for Balmy Days
    
			
     0726covdv_2
    The
    
new issue of of BusinessWeek provides a diverse set of recommendations of Paperbacks
    
for Balmy Day    s, and they were kind enough to include a recommendation for Weird
    
Ideas That Work    :
    

    
"Now, his 2002 book, Weird Ideas That Work: How to Build a Creative Company,
    
is finally out in paperback (Free Press, $14). Among its offbeat notions:
    
Reward both success and failure, but punish inaction. Encourage people to
    
ignore and defy authority. And "find some happy people and get them to
    
fight"—meaning you should hire upbeat staff and foster sharp conflict over
    
their competing ideas. Each of Sutton’s 11 1/2 maxims is the subject of its own
    
chapter. The author’s wit and erudition make Weird
    
Ideas That Work     a pleasure to read."
    


    

    
    Toxic
    
There are two other great books
    
that they recommend. The first is Toxic
    
Emotions at Work     by the late Peter J. Frost, which does compelling job of
    
showing how negative emotions and people can do damage, and does an especially
    
good job of showing how "toxic enablers" often unwittingly allow
    
toxic people to do their dirty work — and often to their own detriment. The
    
second is Louis Uchitelle’s The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their
    
Consequences    , which makes a compelling evidence-based argument that
    
downsizing causes far more damage — to both people and profits — than most
    
decision-makers and management consultants realize (indeed, on that point, see
    
this interesting Bain study).
    

    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    How Sperm Banks Enforce “The Rule”
    
			
    A fellow academic alerted
    
me to an article in the American Sociological
    
Review     by Rene Almeling of the     University 
    
of     California at Los Angeles. It is called “Selling
    
Genes, Selling Gender: Egg Agencies, Sperm Banks, and the Medical Market in
    
Genetic Material.”
    
To quote the abstract, “    Drawing on interview and observational data from two egg
    
agencies and two sperm banks in the     United States, this article
    
compares how staff recruit, screen, market, and compensate women and men donors.”       
    

    The article’s main focus is on the difference
    
between how male and female donors are seen and treated by agencies. Although
    
all donors are paid, egg agencies focus on how female donors can help families
    
and provide them a “gift,” while     sperm banks “portray
    
donation as a job” for men.  A press
    
release from the American Sociological Association went on to explain: ‘    The application process for donors also favors
    
what Almeling called “gendered stereotypes of selfless motherhood and distant
    
fatherhood.” Although egg donors stood to be handsomely compensated, women who
    
indicated there was a financial motive behind their participation were
    
routinely rejected in favor of applicants who expressed more altruistic
    
motives, such as the desire to “help” infertile couples.’     
    

    Here
    
is where The No Asshole Rule comes
    
in; note this long quote from a sperm bank manager, who rejected sperm from
    
otherwise healthy donors that he disliked. This is the earliest application screening-out of possible assholes I
    
have ever encountered:
    

    Aside from personality, the other thing that makes me fall in
    
love with a donor is someone that’s responsible. It is so rare to get someone
    
that’s truly responsible, that comes in when they’re supposed to come in, or at
    
least has the courtesy to call us and say, “I can’t make it this week, but I’ll
    
come in next week twice.” Then of course the second thing that makes him ideal
    
is that he has consistently very high [sperm] counts, so I rarely have to toss
    
anything on him [i.e., reject his sperm sample]. And then, I guess the third
    
thing would be someone that has a great personality, that’s just adorable,
    
caring, and sweet. There are donors,
    
that their personalities, I think ugh. They have great     [sperm] counts, they come in when they’re supposed to, but I just don’t
    
like them. That’s a personal     thing,
    
and I think, huh, I don’t want more of those babies out in the world     (emphasis
    
added). 
    

    I
    
guess it is never too early to start enforcing rule! Although I worry that this manager – and others
    
who screen out donors they dislike – are acting on arbitrary rather than
    
meaningful differences among donors. 
    

    P.S
    
The complete citation is Almeling, Rene,     “Selling
    
Genes, Selling Gender: Egg Agencies, Sperm Banks, and the Medical Market in
    
Genetic Material.”      American Sociological Review, 2007, VOL. 72 (June: 319–340), You can read the press release from the American
    
Sociological Association here . 
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    Stanford Study: Forgetting Helps You Remember The Important Stuff
    
			
    Memory_guys I forget many, many things. I have lost two cell phones and an iPod this year, for example, and I am just terrible at remembering names.  New research by two Stanford psychologists — Anthony Wagner and Brice Kuhl Pictured to the left)– makes me feel better (go here for the complete story). To quote the press release:
    

    For the first time, Stanford researchers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have discovered that the brain’s ability to suppress irrelevant memories makes it easier for humans to remember what’s really important. 
    

    "It’s somewhat of a counter-intuitive idea," said Brice Kuhl, a doctoral student working in the lab of Associate Professor Anthony Wagner of the Psychology Department. "Remembering something actually has a cost for memories that are related but irrelevant." But this cost is beneficial: The brain’s ability to weaken unimportant memories and experiences enables it to function more efficiently in the future, Kuhl said. 
    

    Does this mean that companies should start screening people out who have bad memories?  Sounds like too weird an idea even for me! 
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    ARSE Test Passes 100,000 Completions
    
			
    The Asshole Rating Self-Exam (Or ARSE test) started as a 24-item self-test in Chapter 4 of The No Asshole Rule.  This chapter is about ‘How to Stop Your Inner Jerk from Getting Out."  It emphasizes that any of us, in the wrong setting, can turn into assholes — in particular, following research on emotional contagion and the behavior changes that occur among people who work for nasty bosses, it emphasizes that if you join a group or company that is knee-deep in assholes, odds are that you will become just like the rest of th jerks around you. The chapter also proposes that — while settings are powerful — there are some people who are more prone to act like jerks regardless of their group or company.  And it makes the point that, if you are worried about being a certified asshole, the first step is realizing that you are an asshole. So, with help from my wife Marina, I developed the 24 item self-test in the book.
    

    Then Guy Kawasaki and the folks from Electric Pulp took the 24-item test and put online on February 5th, 2007 — just a couple weeks before The No Asshole Rule — was released.  Since then, people have been filling out like the ARSE Test like crazy. I have since received several hundred emails from people bragging that they weren’t assholes, bragging that they were assholes, and expressing concern that — when they took it for a boss or co-worker — that they realized that they were working a flaming asshole. In  a couple recent cases, I had managers write me to ask if i did executive coaching because, after taking the test, they realized that their inner jerk was rearing its head too often. And I have had at least two people write me to say that, after taking the test "for" a boss, they started searching for another job, and were happy to report that people were more civilized in their new workplace.
    

    I was delighted to get an email from Aaron Mentele of Electric Pulp this morning announcing that ARSE completions had passed 100,000 (100,446), with the final push coming from a post I put up on Huffington.  So the self examination continues! 
    

    Finally, on a serious note I am wary of instant cures of any kind, and the ARSE Test isn’t a scientifically validated test, So please be cautious about putting too much weight on it — use it as just one piece of information.  But I am glad that it has helped some people out there think more deeply about their own behavior and the settings where they work.  
    

    And I would also caution that, if you do decide that you are a certified asshole and want to stamp out such behavior in yourself and your organization, beware that "recovering assholes" are not always well-suited to this task.  As my teenage son likes to say, "Just because you suffer from an affliction does not make you an expert on it." 
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    The No Asshole Rule is a Finalist for a Quill Book Award
    
			
    Icon_awards
    
The Quill Book Awards are sponsored by Publisher’s Weekly and NBC Universal Television Stations. The nominees for books published between July 1, 2006 and June 30th, 2007 were announced last week at BookExpo America (the national trade show for the book industry). The winners in 18 different categories will be announced on September 10th and the awards will be presented on October 22nd at a "gala ceremony" in New York City.  Winners will be determined by "a Voting Board consisting of more than 6,000 booksellers and librarians." I am pleased that The No Asshole Rule is one of the five finalists in the business book category.  The other four are: 
    

    Small Is the New Big: and 183 Other Riffs, Rants, and Remarkable Business Ideas
    Seth Godin; Portfolio

    Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny
    Suze Orman; Random House/Spiegel & Grau
    

    Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home
    David Shipley and Will Schwalbe; Alfred A. Knopf
    

    Chocolates on the Pillow Aren’t Enough: Reinventing the Customer Experience
    Jonathan M. Tisch, Karl Weber; John Wiley & Son
    

    I am honored to be on this list of great books.  I would also add that, in my biased opinion, the best business book published during this period isn’t on the list: Chip and Dan Heath’s Made to Stick.  
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    Southern Men and Baseball: Professor Timmerman ‘s Study of Batters Hit By Pitches
    
			
     Hbp
    

    

    

     A few days ago I put up a post on Southerners, Civility, and Cultures of Honor, which pointed to research showing that, although men raised in the Southern United States are generally more polite than those raised in other parts of the country, they are more prone to respond with aggression when they believe that there has been some kind assault on their "honor."   I reviewed a lab experiment from The University of Michigan showing that men from South were far more likely to turn aggressive than men from the North when they were bumped and called an "asshole."  
    

    This post prompted a dozen comments of all kinds, including at least one Southern man who agreed that it described his behavior.  And it prompted one yesterday from Professor Thomas Timmerman of  Tennessee Technological University. Timmerman just published a study of nearly 30,000 "hit by pitch" events during Major League Baseball Games (drawn from a sample of nearly 5 million at bats) that occurred between 1960 and 1992 and between 2000 and 2004. This research produced some fascinating findings, which are consistent with prior work on the culture of honor .  As Professor Timmerman described it in his comments:
    

    "Pitchers from the South are not more likely, in general, to hit
    
batters; but they are more likely than non-southerners to hit the
    
batter who follows a home-run hitter. They are also more likely to hit
    
a homerun hitter the next time he comes up to bat. They are also more
    
likely to hit batters in retaliation for a hit teammate. Interestingly,
    
though, southerners are more likely to hit White batters in these
    
situations, not African Americans."        
    

    In other words,white pitchers born in the South (about 30% of those in this sample) appeared more likely to hit batters on purpose in order to uphold their team’s honor — after one of two  kinds of "affronts:" a home run or a teammate who was hit by a pitch thrown by the other team.  I would also point out that hitting someone on purpose with a baseball (moving perhaps 90 miles an hour) clearly qualifies as an "asshole move" in my book as it is hurts like hell, and clearly is meant to intimidate the target.  And it can be dangerous. Timmerman starts out the article with an incident in 1920 when a pitcher named Carl Mays killed a shortstop named  Ray Chapman  with a pitch.  The quote that opens the article, attributed to Mays, is pretty interesting, as it indicates that intimidation, not injury, was Chapman’s goal: "I threw it at him not to hurt him but just to make him think. It wasn’t a beanball.  It was a thought pitch."
    

    Timmerman
    
I wrote Professor Timmerman to ask WHY he thinks that these findings occurred, and his answers are pretty interesting in light of the culture of honor, and I would add, in light of some of the arguments I’ve made about situations where acting like an asshole can help people win through intimidation. Professor Timmerman (pictured to the left) said:
    

    Here’s the way I interpret the three different situations I studied
    

    1) A pitcher gives up a homerun – this threatens his social identity as a competent pitcher, so he hits the homerun hitter the next time he comes up. Southerners are more likely to do this than non-southerners, but mainly if the batter is white. To me this seems consistent with the culture of honor ideas that Southerners try to protect their honor and their social identities more so than non-southerners.
    

    2) A pitcher gives up a homerun – the next batter is also at greater risk because of the identity threat and also because of the frustration. Again, Southerners are more likely to hit a batter in this situation.
    

    3) A pitcher’s teammate his hit by the opposing pitcher – failing to retaliate might insinuate that the pitcher is weak and unable to protect his teammates. Again, Southerners are more likely to do this, but mainly if the batter is white. 
    

    He also added some interesting ideas about the racial differences:
    

    If I had to guess why Southerners are less likely to hit African Americans in these situations, I would offer these two guesses:
    

    1) Growing up in the South might make Southerners hyper-sensitive about "appearing" racist. Hitting a batter in these situations is more likely to seem intentional, so maybe Southerners don’t want to appear as if they are hitting African Americans on purpose.
    

    2) Some early research on aggression shows that whites (in general) suppress aggression against African Americans out of fear (i.e., when they believe that African Americans can identify them and retaliate). Maybe Southerners are more afraid than non-southerners that African American batters will charge the mound if they get hit. This could happen if Southerners are more likely to learn stereotypes about African Americans.

    Fascinating stuff, huh?  I guess the upshot, as my colleague (and native Southerner) Steve Barley has told me before, "We are the nicest people on earth until you piss us off."  Apparently that is an evidence-based statement    .  
    

    There is also an interesting footnote to all this; Professor Timmerman reports that he became interested in studying aggression in baseball after reading a study called "Temper and Temperature on the Diamond," which showed that Major League Pitchers pitchers appear more likely to hit  batters intentionally when it is hot outside.  This study is part of the vast literature on the "heat and aggression hypothesis," which shows that — when it comes to everything from horn honking to murder rates — human beings are more prone to turn nasty when it is hot.  So it isn’t just a myth, a hot day does turn people into assholes. Or, as my colleague Jane Dutton once commented  (I paraphrase, it was a long time ago) "I guess this means that if you are in a bad mood, you should stick your head in the freezer." I will dig up some of the research on heat and aggression, it is fascinating stuff.
    

    To return to baseball, if you are interested in the implications of baseball for management and organizational life in general, check out Jeff Angus’s blog and his great book Management by Baseball. 
    

    P.S. Professor Timmerman was kind enough to provide me with  complete references for his study and and "Temper and Temperature on the Diamond." 
    

    Timmerman, T.A. (2007). "It was a thought pitch": Personal, situational, and target influences on hit-by-pitch events across time. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 876-884
    

    Reifman, A.S., Larrick, R.P., & Fein, S. (1991). Temper and Temperature on the Diamond: The Heat-Aggression Relationship in Major League Baseball. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17, 580-585 (1991).
    

     
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    World of Warcraft Guild Implements the No Asshole Rule
    
			
    I wrote a post several months ago about entrepreneur and venture capitalist Joi Ito. I talked about how Joi was using his World of Warcraft guild as a place to prototype different ways of managing and structuring an organization.  World of Warcraft is one of the most popular of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game, and success in the game depends heavily on cooperation and coordination among team members.  I was fascinated how Joi was "learning on the fly" by experimenting with different rules and role assignments, and more generally, how online games seem to be a great place for develop and test different prototypes for structuring and managing "real" organizations — which are doing more and more of their work "virtually" all the time (so the distinction is blurring).  
    

    In this spirit, I just found out about a World of Warcraft guild called Return from the Edge that implemented the no asshole rule .  They did so, according to one of the leaders who writes on their blog RTFE Updates, because "I just finished reading Prof. Robert Sutton’s The No Asshole Rule:
    
Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t. Here at
    
RftE we’ve always talked about being positive and friendly but I think
    
allowing assholes to thrive in the guild has gone too far and is
    
indefensible. There are real costs to allowing people with these
    
attitudes run rampant throughout our organization."
    

    Although the writer makes clear that the rule needs to be modified for the online world in general and World of Warcraft in particular, he goes on to explain:
    

    As it applies to our guild though we are implementing the No Asshole
    
Rule. Current assholes no matter their knowledge or "worth" to the
    
guild will receive demerits for interactions that go against our
    
mission and rules.
    

    When
    
recruiting new members this will be a high priority in their joining
    
AND staying with us during their two week initiation. We do not need
    
anyone who cannot treat people with respect. No matter what they may
    
contribute in-game.
    

    So be aware of this new policy. Commit it to
    
heart. Be the best person you can be. If you feel you might be an
    
asshole and want to discuss how to improve Lavan or Auro are always
    
willing to discuss solutions. At the same time, we are relying on our
    
officers to alert us to our own asshole behavior when it surfaces.
    

    In short, they are building in punishments for assholes and will even use them to discipline star players. They are using the rule for recruiting and screening new members. And they are making it clear that it is everyone’s responsibility to enforce the rule.  It sounds to me like they are doing it right.  
    

    I will keep track of the guild through their blog and website, but I would appreciate any comments that people have about the application of the rule in online environments, especially in online games. I have blogged about Online Asshole Management before, but confess my understanding about this world is limited at best, especially in the world of online games.
    

    On the surface, however, the explanations used by the leaders of the RTFE guild sound remarkably similar to the reasons given for enforcing the no assholes rule at the software firm SuccessFactors and other more traditional organizations that I’ve examined.  
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    Why I Decided to Screen Your Comments
    
			
    I love the comments that people make on Work Matters and want to do all I can to encourage everyone to keep them coming.  We are now at over 800 comments here and I can hardly wait to read the next one. The comments made in response to my last post on Southerners, Civility, and the Culture of Honor are great examples. I love the range and thoughtfulness. Everything from one commenter who sensed some homophobia in the email I put in the post (I still don’t quite see it, although the asshole is described as effeminate, it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with his nasty behavior)to Bill’s charming comment and story:

    We Southerners – I am Virginian by birth (Like John Carter, a fighting
    
man of Mars!) and Tennessean by choice for many years now – are
    
particularly assholey when it comes to affronts to women. A young man
    
once accidentally bumped and spilled my wife’s tea at a big outdoor
    
event – he was just being exuberant and was bigger than I, and
    
immediately apologized – but suddenly he found this older guy telling
    
him in a flat voice that he needed to buy the lady another glass of
    
tea. I don’t know where that person was hiding in me, but he was out in
    
a flash.
    

    Not bad, huh? I have learned an enormous amount — and had some good laughs — from your ideas, stories, and facts.  I have also tried to be open minded and, when people put up comments that I disagree with or that are negative.  I nearly always have leave them-up except they are spam, in extreme bad taste, or I think they might hurt someone.  But — after trying to avoid it for months — I finally decided to screen and approve comments before they go on the blog.  
    

    The first reason is that the amount spam in these comments keep increasing — from advertisements for real estate, to porn, to travel sites.  I am getting several of these a day now. The second reason is that I have had some intermittent problems with
    
posts that are just a bit too nasty for my tastes.  In one case in
    
particular, I felt my inner jerk rising and I started composing a nasty
    
and arrogant reply  Fortunately, I erased it before posting it
    
because, well, I sounded like an asshole.  It also made me realize that
    
I had reached the point where it was best for my mental health to start
    
screening and approving comments.  Doing this bothers me a bit, as I like the idea of allowing the free
    
flow of ideas.  But a bit of screening seems better than unleashing a rash
    
of asshole poisoning here — which would be in bad taste, upset me, and
    
be hypocritical to boot. 
    

     I promise to get your comments up quickly (except when I am on vacation) and to approve nearly everything substantive. I say "nearly" because I reserve the right to delete stuff that is too nasty or that will turn me into temporary asshole right here on my own blog.
    

    As always, invite your comments!