Jerks at Work

Nancy Germond writes on AllBusiness about the hidden costs of employing jerks (read the article here). The jerks described in this article (which quotes heavily from Robert Sutton's No Asshole Rule) are of the Crusty variety.

Costs associated with allowing jerks free reign in the workplace are the risk of losing other valuable employees, alienating customers, and downgrading everyone's productivity.

Although this type of PITA is the most visible, everyone knows that the workplace is filled with many other types of PITAs who can run off good employees and drag down the entire operation. They might not be throwing tantrums, but they are every bit as counterproductive as those who are.