So It Goes

A Simple Quest: Part II -- I Feel the Momentum Building

HOW GRATIFYING IT IS that so many people read and responded favorably to my last post about the need to hold restaurants accountable for the condition of their restrooms. According to my blog site metrics, an unusually high volume of people clicked in to read the post (don't worry, I don't know who you are.) This could indicate a silent, vast and heretofore untapped army of partisans who, to borrow the old Burger King slogan, want it their way when they dine out. My faith in the future well-being of humanity endures.

The other good news is that at least one restaurant reviewer -- Mike Berman -- includes the condition and layout of restrooms in nearly all his reviews. A colleague of mine tipped me off to this yesterday.

Berman, a Washington-based lobbyist in real life, is the publisher of his own blog, appropriately titled "Mike Berman's Washington Watch." He divides the blog between astute observations about national public policy and politics and reviews of a long list of restaurants he has visited, mostly in Washington but occasionally elsewhere. His reviews of the food and overall value and ambiance of each restaurant include some remarkably detailed descriptions of their restrooms. I'm very impressed. 

For instance: "The men's room is near the back of the restaurant, up two stairs. The room is not very large, but of ample size. On the wall to the right of the door there is a white ceramic washbasin with a silver framed mirror above it. The towels are cloth. On the wall opposite the door there is a white ceramic commode and a white ceramic, wall-attached, urinal. There is no separator between them. The walls are covered with large square charcoal gray tiles with light accents and swirls. The floor is covered with large black tiles."

And: "In most men's rooms there are one or two urinals that are relatively out in the open, easily visible. In this restroom there was no urinal in the open. There are 3 small 'rooms,' completely enclosed from floor to ceiling with full size doors. The doors and walls are heavy, dark wood. In each of the 2 narrower "rooms" there is a urinal. In the larger 'room' there is a white ceramic commode. There is also a large picture above the commode."

And: "There are men's rooms in the basement and on the 2nd floor. There is nothing special about the 2nd floor men's room. I did not try the basement facility. Surprisingly, it is what is know in the trade as a 'one holer.' It has a single commode and a washbasin and is relatively small. On the other hand it is bright and clean."

And: "The men's room is small, dingy, and slightly musty. As you enter, there is a 5 [sic] small dark stone counter just to the left with a gold colored metal washbasin. Next to the counter is a floor-to-ceiling solid wall that juts out about 2.5-3 feet. On the other side of the wall is a white ceramic commode. Across from the commode, in the relatively small room, is a white ceramic urinal. The floor is covered with large dark tiles, and the walls are painted a tannish yellow wall. Overall this room is not special."

And: "Then, as you stand at the counter to wash your hands, you can not help but notice in the mirror the large frame with dozens of photos old and new female nudes on the wall behind you. Of the many restrooms that WW has reviewed this is a first. We asked our female server whether they were pictures of male nudes in the woman's restroom. She assured us there were not."

And this more general tip: "Especially when an individual restroom is designed to be used by one person at a time, WW [Washington Watch] believes that unisex is the way to go. On those occasions when it seems appropriate, WW has recommended to women waiting outside the women's restroom to use the men's restroom." I'm all for that, too.

As it happens, most of the restaurants Berman reviews are pretty nice, high-end establishments (he definitely got me excited about a few places I have not been). Consequently, most of his restroom reviews are pretty favorable, which suggests that most of the better restaurants take their restrooms serious, as they should.

Berman sets a high and admirable standard for restaurant restroom reviewers. Now, if only all the rest would follow in his path.

Jeff

A Simple Quest

A FEW YEARS AGO, I was out with my family at a restaurant that rates as well above average in terms of quality, creativity, ambiance and service. Near the end of the meal, though, I went to the restroom and found that they were out of toilet paper. I asked the staffers if someone could restock -- and soon! They told me they were completely out and had to send a busboy to a nearby grocery store to get more. I won't get into details, but let's just say it left me in a very uncomfortable state.

It also turned an otherwise great dining experience into a bust, as far as I was concerned. And while I would eat there again, that episode dominates my thinking of the place -- not the food, which is what I should be thinking of.

Now, every establishment is entitled to a glitch now and then, and this was, I hope, an unusual moment for what is a usually a well-run place. But I'm amazed how often I'll go into a restaurant's restroom and find it in a shambles, dirty, out of paper towels, damp and sticky all over or any number of other signs that the management seems unconcerned with the impression it's making on patrons like me: people who value a good restroom experience, wherever we may be. I can't understand why so many restaurants that go out of their way to keep people happy in the dining room seem to have such a blind spot when it comes to their restrooms.

Anyone who has ever spent even a little time with me, let alone a long car trip, knows that I strongly subscribe to a rule that Lord Mountbatten is reputed to have once said (though I've heard it attributed to Churchill, too): "Never pass up a chance to go to the restroom."

So you might call me something of an expert on bathrooms, at least from a user's point of view. And while I'm not as picky as you might think, it matters to me what I find when I open the door to the men's room. Not that I'd decline to use it if it's unkempt and gross (again, never pass up a chance...). But it will definitely color what I think when I walk out.

That's why I'd like to encourage everyone who will listen to join me in insisting that a standard feature of any restaurant review include the state of the eating establishment's restrooms. I mean, it's part of the entire experience, isn't it? Yet, I don't think I've ever seen a restaurant review mention restrooms.

Why not? Why shouldn't it count alongside factors such as the inventiveness, taste and execution of the restaurant's food, the quality of its service, the atmosphere (which many reviewers are increasingly interpreting to include the decibel level of the din, which is a great breakthrough) and overall value?

Along with general upkeep of the restroom (along a spectrum ranging from backyard outhouse to so nice you don't want to leave it), reviews should also assess the layout of the restroom. I've noticed increasingly over the last few years, for example, that many restrooms have both a urinal and a commode, but with no divider in between. Technically, I suppose, that means two people can use the same restroom at a time; I'm seeing so many like this, something tells me they just barely meet local commercial building codes.

But effectively, it means only one person can use it at a time. If you're the one using the restroom, that's no problem. But if you're the one waiting to get it, it's annoying, and in a busy restaurant your chances of being the guy outside the door are pretty high.

Look, I realize there are more important things to worry about in life (such as Jay Leno vs. Conan O'Brien), and this is one I can (and will probably have to) put up with. No, I will not go to the barricades or howl to the heavens about it like Howard Beale. But someone has to say something for all those who won't. We can't just keep this under wraps forever, can we?

I'm not asking here for world peace or the cure for cancer. It's just a simple quest. And, with this post, I will no longer suffer in silence. If restaurants are going to go to so much trouble to keep us happy and wanting to return, why are so many alienating people like me (and, I assume, so many others)? And why are so many reviewers, who can be strangely picky about so many other things that happen in restaurants, give them a pass?

Who's with me on this one?

Jeff

In Defense of (a Few) Typos, Part II

THOUGH I HAD FIGURED I'd left the subject for good after my last post, So It Goes readers might want to know about a New York Times editorial today that admonishes those who would reject others simply because of a small typo.

The editorial, with the headline, "For a Typo?", recounts a case in which an otherwise qualified candidate for public office is disqualified because "a cover page on his packet of signatures said that there were 131 folders when there were actually 132."

To be fair, the editorial is really about how difficult it is for new, underfunded candidates to gain entry into the sweepstakes for any elected office, even at the local level, as was the case here. But I think it also strengthens my contention that typos need not be treated as an instant "game over" no matter the context.

Let me be clear, as I may not have been in the last post on this all-so-important issue, typos are not a good thing. They can lead to embarrassment at best and dangerous confusion at worst. The world would be better without them. Also, I acknowledge there's a different between a typo -- which I define as an error overlooked by someone who truly does know better -- and bad language skills? I mean, even a good speller can sometimes absent-mindedly use "there" when he means "their" or "they're." But when you see someone mistake them repeatedly, there's a problem.

But can't we just treat typos as a small red flag, certainly to be considered among an array of data, rather than an end of discussion?

Speaking of which, enough on this subject already.I promise.

Jeff

In Defense of (A Few) Typos

ACCORDING TO A REPORT I heard on the radio this morning, the business world has a low threshold of tolerance for typos. That's according to a survey conducted by the staffing agency Accountemps, which found that "three out of four (76 percent) executives interviewed said just one or two typos in a resume would remove applicants from consideration for a job; 40 percent said it takes only one typo to rule candidates out."

My own feeling about this is that it's much too strict a standard -- that is, to disqualify someone for an errant punctuation mark or a dropped letter (about grammar or stylist transgressions or about repeated misspellings that suggest you really don't know the rules of writing, I'm less forgiving). Not that we shouldn't all be careful with everything we write, whether it's for a resume, a memo to a client, a more public document or whatever. I'm all for getting it right, and, as some of my colleagues know, I'm a pretty rigorous copy editor (though I'm less careful than the truly good copy editors). 

But I'm not perfect, either when I write or edit others. That's why at work I almost always insist on having others read my stuff before I send it out. (Note to applicants: ask a friend to proofread your resume before you hit send.)  Indeed, one of the downsides of having my own blog is that no other eyes but mine see what I write before I post, and, no matter how many times I review my copy before I press "publish," I always seem to have a typo or two (or three). I wouldn't be surprised if I've committed a few errors here in this post. I wish I had a copy editor, but I don't worry about it too much.

The problem I have with the strict one-strike-and-you're-out rule with typos is that a typo is not necessarily a window into the soul of the writer. In fact, I know plenty of people who are fastidious about eradicating typos from their writing, but whose writing is not all that good, sometimes to the point that I don't understand what they're trying to say. And some of the people I've known who were quick to penalize typoists (is that a word?) were far from great guardians of language themselves. They were overly obsessed with style over substance, and I've got a problem with that.

That's because I'm also aware of some supremely talented people who are just not good spellers. I won't mention any names, but a college professor of mine, whom I still regard as the smartest person I've ever met and who has made his living as a writer, was reputed to be a miserable speller (according to someone who had intimate exposure to his manuscripts). So maybe he didn't have the spelling gene. Is that a crime? It surely hasn't gotten in his way.

If Shakespeare applied for a job with your public relations company, and he closed out his cover letter with "your truly," would you throw away his resume? Or if a candidate, not a writer, but someone who is sure to find the definitive cure for cancer and make your pharmaceutical company a lot of money misplaces an apostrophe, would you bump her, too?

Let me be clear: ideally, everyone's writing should be void of typos, but it should also be clear. Being typo free does not confer greatness on anyone, nor do a few mistakes imply bad character, as some seem to presume. As New Age people might say, let's look at the whole person. To err is human and all that.

Jeff

P.S. Can someone please proofread this for me now?

Jargon: Enemy of Good Communication

A WRITING TEACHER I HAD IN COLLEGE once told our class that if readers don't understand what we write, chances are it's our fault, not our readers'. It's our job, he said, to be understandable more than it is the readers' job to understand.

That advice has stuck with me since, and it applies not only with writing but with every form of communication.

That's why one of my pet peeves is jargon. Jargon is the enemy of good communication. It immediately throws up a wall between the communicator and his audience, one that the communicator can quite easily eliminate.

Jargon is inside code language, used by people who wrongly assume that everybody knows the secret handshake, and if they don't, well, then they don't really matter anyway.  That or they mistakenly feel that they will sound smarter and more informed by throwing out a bunch of obscure acronyms and references that only they a small group of people on the inside understand. But instead of sounding smart, they are, at best, confusing to most audiences and, at worst, incomprehensible. It's kind of annoying, when you think about it.

Jargon lurks in pretty much every subculture we can imagine, whether it's a particular industry, avocation or other field of endeavor. It exists for a good and healthy reason: to save some time, to provide a shorthand among those who know a lot about a particular issue or field. In fact, I have no problem with people wielding jargon among their peers; they don't need to spell out everything to people who will understand what they're saying. It's like French people speaking French to other French people. Of course.

It's just when they start throwing around arcane terminology and, worst of all, acronyms that only the insiders would know. You hear this sort of talk a lot among government and military people (though they're not alone), but I hear it in business all the time. We've all got an acronym for everything. And unless you stop the jargonist and ask him to define his terms (something that most of us find intimidating to do because we think we sound stupid to ask), you are bound to miss something. Again, whose fault is that?

I would appreciate it if more of us thought a bit before we talk. Instead of tossing out an acronym -- at least on the first reference -- consider saying the entire term from which the acronym comes. It really doesn't take that much more time. Or instead of showing off by referring to the technical name of a rare disease, just tell us what the symptoms are first. Or instead of using fancypants business terms that everyone seems to be using -- like "double bottom line" or "Six Sigma" -- try explaining what those things are first.

After all, it is your responsibility as communicator to make the communication work. 

Jeff

P.S. I'd love to hear your examples of amusing jargon and jargon stories. Send 'em in. And I'll highlight some good ones from time to time, if I can.

Feeling the Chill

I HAVE LONG MAINTAINED that there is no such thing as the "wind chill factor." At least, I don't believe in or abide by it.

The wind chill factor is supposedly "the temperature that a person feels because of the wind". We only hear about it, of course, when the temperatures are pretty frigid -- usually below freezing -- and when the wind starts to pick up. Quite simply, the concept goes, the higher the wind speed and the colder the temperature, the colder it feels to humans. So if, for example, the air temperature is 20 degrees and the wind speed is 35 miles per hour, it feels like it's minus-17 to a person's skin. So they say.

I reject this for three reasons. First, how do others really know that a certain combination of temperature and wind speed feels the same to everyone's skin? How do I know that what I'm feeling is exactly the sensation that someone else is feeling, even if the external stimuli are the same? Isn't that like assuming that the red I see on a rose is the same red that another person sees? How would I know that? It strikes me as empirically unknowable.

Second, why am I allowing someone else to tell me how I feel? Isn't it mentally healthier for me to take charge of my own feelings instead of letting someone else dictate them to me?

Third, even if there is an objective, universally shared sensation, why do I need to know with such precision the pain (or for some, I suppose, pleasure) I'm experiencing? I'm sure that somewhere, for important, yet arcane, scientific reasons, that sort of information might be useful. But do I, a lay person, really need to know that I'm feeling exactly minus-17 degrees Fahrenheit? I'm mean, especially when you get that cold, does it really matter if it's minus-17 versus, say, minus-25? Both are pretty damn cold.

Of course, it's necessary to know that when the weather is so extreme that I should take precautions -- wrap up more, or just stay inside. That's good sense. But wouldn't it be enough for the meteorologists --   who are constantly introducing concepts like the wind chill factor and its opposite number, the "heat index" -- just to say, "Hey, the temperature will be very low -- around 20 -- and the wind will be blowing hard -- 35 miles per hour, give or take -- which means it will be dangerously cold, folks. Be careful. Try to stay home, and if you have to go out, be sure you dress right and limit your exposure...." Something like that gives me all the information and warning I need to protect myself. And when the so-called "wind chill factor" is only in the teens or 20s, well, it seems that the meteorologists are just trying to scare us. That sort of precision has no real meaning to us.   

Trivial and pedantic as this may sound (but not to me; I've been stewing about it for years), I also think it's roughly analogous to the way media and others talk about crises -- such as the economic recession we're facing right now. Okay, very roughly, but bear with me here.

There's no question that the economic crisis story is a priority the media, and it is massive in its scale and potential impact on the lives of millions of people. And, in spite of some of our political leaders to soft pedal it earlier on (remember, for example, Phil Gramm's references to a "mental recession," and "a nation of whiners"? ) we, the public, need to know the whole truth, even the scary stuff. And it's entirely legitimate to feature the wrenching profiles of the casualties of the recession. We cannot live on statistics alone.

But, I dunno, sometimes I feel that, like so many stories of this magnitude, there can be a point at which the reporting can become almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. Economics is a behavioral science. So isn't it possible that the profusion of doomsday coverage can further demoralize consumers and business leaders, who consequently decide not to spend, hire, expand, lend, borrow or do any of the other things that make up the nation's complex of economic activity? Isn't it possible that, like the wind chill factor, we are essentially being told -- unintentionally -- how we should feel?

Maybe that's why I've recently heard some economists and personal finance experts counsel, half seriously, against even peeking at our 401K and stock statements. Rest assured, they're saying, picture is bleak, but do you really need to know precisely how bleak. (Low temperature, high winds = cold. Need you know more?) Does the precision have any real meaning to us, or are we just trying to make ourselves feel bad? I mean, in what may be the most preciously ham handed statement of his tenure, President George W. Bush said in September when he said, “If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down”. Precise and authoritative? No. To the point? Yes.

Barack Obama's tone, by the way, has none of that bombast and, on balance, is just right. He readily acknowledges that we're up against some tough times; how can anyone in leadership not? But he projects a welcome steadiness that he -- and we -- can steer us through. Even that, to be sure, is meant to engineer (in the best sense) how each of us feels.

I'm not suggesting we all put on rose-colored glasses. To be sure, I'd rather get a comprehensive, sophisticated and honest explication of what's happening around me than not. I need to know what's going on. 

But, if we are to weather this crisis personally and collectively, it seems to me that each of us needs to take control of his or her own emotional reactions to it, rather than allowing the others to dictate how we feel. In that case, some of us will fare better than others. Some of us will feel the pain more than others. But at least that sensation will be ring true to each of us, and that might be critical to our nation's future.

Humiliation: America's Favorite Past Time

ROSIE O'DONNELL IS RIGHT ABOUT ONE THING: the humiliations the judges dish out on the show "American Idol" ought to stop. But, if the popularity of the show and many other shows like it on the air tell us anything, that's unlikely to happen. Humiliation, it seems, has become one of America's favorite past times.

Most of the so-called "reality shows" (though they don't reflect anything I've ever witnessed in real life) include some sort of humiliation. To wit:

• Last year, while I was working out at my gym (this is my excuse), I happened to watch "America's Next Top Model," in which supermodel Tyra Banks induced a lot of up-a-coming young models to engage in a series of degrading acts and manipulated them to the point where every one of them broke down to tears.
• Two Bravo Channel shows -- "Top Chef" and "Project Runway" -- which pit leading chefs and fashion designers, respectively, against one another until they are eliminated one by one. I have to be careful here because my kids and wife love the shows and, for the most part, I think they're pretty good, too. But I'm really troubled by the way the smarty-pants judges scold and lecture and belittle the contestants, most of whom are pretty talented. These shows are much classier than "American Idol" and "America's Top Model," but they could be nicer and more respectful.
• "What Not to Wear" is a show where the two hosts, who claim to the madarins of fashion, take over a woman's life and tell her that everything in her wardrobe and the way she wears her hair and makeup are all wrong, wrong, wrong. She's a mess, they tell her, and they snicker and tsk, tsk, and really make her look bad, as they throw out everything she owns and replace it with a new, hip collection and get her a new hairstyle. I would be embarrassed, and I would question who these show hosts are and what makes them such experts.
• Sports shows are all about humiliation. A receiver drops a crucial pass in a big game, a pitcher gives up a winning run, even a high school basketball player misses the clutch free throw and he's a bum, doesn't have the right attitude or didn't want to win more than the other guy, or was too distracted by his antics off the playing field, or some other personal failing. And God help him if he gets paid a lot but just can't seem, singlehandedly, to bring the team a championship, which is the rap on Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees. He becomes hated, a pariah, worse than a child predator.
• All the confessional shows, like Dr. Phil, Dr. Keith Ablow (one that I just discovered the other day that is just like Dr. Phil), Montel Williams, Judge Judy, and the like are really for audiences that want to see people humiliate themselves. The humiliated probably realize this. They have to. Apparently, they don't care. I read a few years ago that someone did a study of these poor fools and asked them why they went on these shows, revealing really embarrassing things about themselves, and, for the most part, it was the thrill of being on TV that appealed to them.

For the rest of us, that's entertainment. And there's so much of it -- I could go on and on with more examples -- it's really rather sickening. The real question is whether this is something new to the human condition or whether we've always enjoyed watching the misfortunes of others. I suspect it's nothing new. Leave it to modern-day entertainment to recognize that and keep our natural impulse alive.

Naked Guys In the Locker Room

THIS MORNING, FOLLOWING A WORKOUT AT MY GYM (a rather irregular act for me, but that’s for another posting), I went into the locker room to gather my things. Standing at a sink, a totally naked man was shaving.

Now, I suppose that sounds like a dog-bites-man lead, if there ever was one. A locker room is not such an unusual place to see a naked man shaving. But for some reason, whenever I see guys doing this sort of thing, I don’t know, it unsettles me. Let me explain. 

I realize that naked guys in locker rooms are rather like raisins in Raisinets; without them, locker rooms would have no identity or purpose. But I’m not talking about the vast majority of us guys who dry off and change clothes, exposing ourselves only briefly to our locker mates. Nothing wrong with that. Again, that’s what locker rooms are there for.

I’m talking about the guy who walks around with nothing on and is in no apparent hurry to get dressed. He carries on conversations in the buff, attends to himself and just, shall we say, hangs out. I’ve seen this not just in the gym I go to now, but in many such locker rooms over the years, and this type of guy seems to show up in all of them.

He doesn’t seem to be engaging in exhibitionism, and there’s nothing sexual about it. It’s more like he has a supreme sense of comfort and confidence. It is as if this is his zone of liberation, and he’s going to savor the privilege slowly and luxuriously as he would a glass of rare scotch.

I’m real happy for these guys and even a little jealous of how comfortable they are with themselves in this state (maybe I’m too up tight). But their comfort is just a bit too unselfconscious for my taste. It's off-putting.

Not only that, some of these guys really don’t freshen up the décor when they’re completely unclothed, if you know what I mean. They're not too easy on the eye. Many of them would help things a lot by just covering up.

Also, every once in a while I’ve actually known one of these guys and had to carry on a conversation with him. It’s pretty difficult, and distracting. You have to concentrate intensely on not losing eye contact, which is tougher than it sounds.

I'm not going to make a big deal out of this. This issue does not deserve to be treated as any more than a pet peeve. I will not crusade or pillory these guys for what amounts to a clash between my sensibilities and theirs.

But I don't know if I can take watching another one of these totally naked guys sitting on the locker room bench, with one leg up in the air so he can clip his toenails. Can't he do that at home?

Jeff

The Devil Is a Jerk

A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO, my family wanted to see the movie "The Devil Wears Prada," even though I really didn't want to (not the first great sacrifice I have made for my family). I had read some lukewarm-to-bad reviews and really don't care about what appeared to be a foofy profile of the fashion industry, something I care about even less.

But I misjudged. Not that it was one of the greatest triumphs in the history of filmmaking. In fact, the story was fairly formula. About 15 minutes into it, you could predict with near precision pretty much where it was going to go.

Other than Meryl Streep, who delivered a masterful performance (I truly could not wait for her next entrance and wished that she would never leave any scene), all the  other actors were appealing and carried out their roles about as well as the script would allow. (Not surprisingly, the exception was Stanley Tucci as Streep's loyal henchman, who took his role a lot further, I suspect, than even his script writers could have imagined. His character revealed a tender, independent interior aching to break out of a brutal, up-tight exterior.)

But what really grabbed me about this film was what it said about the working world. Streep's character, Miranda Priestly, based on the editor of Vogue magazine, Anna Wintour, is miserable, sadistic and manipulative  to everyone around her: not only to the subordinates who report to her, whom she seems to delight in putting through her equivalent of Marine boot-camp humiliation tactics, but also: fashion designers, who would kill to have a mention of their lines on her pages; would-be challengers to her throne; her husband; and her own publisher, the only one who, other than God (if she believes she is not the deity herself), to whom she is theoretically answerable.

She runs her powerful kingdom -- and it is powerful, shaping the fortunes of businesses and tastes of millions -- through fear and intimidation. And, as played by Streep, she does it without ever raising her voice and sometimes through a mere pursing of her lips or other cryptic signals that everyone is required to understand.

What's amazing to me is how all these people jump to her every command -- whether it has to do with the serious business of the next issue of the magazine or to the peculiar way she likes her cappucinos. And, God forbid, anyone should slip up, or she will bring down her wrath upon them.

I was discussing this with a colleague at work yesterday who had seen the movie four times already (she loved looking at the clothes, she said). Even if this an exaggeration of what the real Anna Wintour is like (and the word is, it's not, but, in fairness to Ms. Wintour, I'm not relying on first hand information), I said that it's a pretty sad state of affairs. And, I said, how is it possible that Vogue is still able to put out what every has to agree is a good product given its culture of fear and intimidation -- let alone, from my vantage point, clownish snootiness?

Well, my colleague argued (though she wasn't defending Wintour or Streep's Priestly but rather playing devil-wears-Prada advocate), maybe the nastiness only extends as far as Wintour's immediate circle.

But, I countered, my experience is that the person at the top tends to set a tone in an organization's culture, and if that leader shows all the managers down the line that this kind of behavior is okay, they will feel safe in behaving the same way. I don't want to take this comparison too far, but, hey, how do you think so many in fascist societies feel free to carry out hideous atrocities and other garden-variety indignities on their fellow citizens? Because they know they can do so with impunity and, indeed, might even be affirmatively rewarded for acting that way.

What's more, doesn't it seem natural that, when hiring others, a leader will look for qualities that he or she likes in himself or herself? If that's the case, who do you think will populate those upper-tier and middle management positions?

Also, I said, how could putting people under such perverse pressure bring out their best and get them to perform well? My colleague answered that in an environment like that people know that if they don't perform well they can be replaced easily. "There are thousands of others who would die to have your job," Streep keeps saying.

And that's probably true. And it's probably true that there are many supremely talented people who are willing to put up with these sorts humiliations to practice their craft at a place like Vogue, which will be their ticket to admission into virtually any other design, editing or photography job anyplace else -- if they can just stick it out long enough at Vogue.

But if they are dying to get out almost as much as they are dying to get in, what's that say about the place? If they perform to spite their boss not because of her leadership, vision and encourgement, how good could that be for the finished product, really? And doesn't that mean that the success of the place balances precariously on a weak foundation that would take only a good, well-focused competitor to undermine?

The exhibit I have in my argument is that I happen to work at a place that is about as opposite as one can get to the kind of environment portrayed in "The Devil Wears Prada," and I can say without any hyperbole that my firm is one of the best performing in its class. People around the industry -- clients and competitors -- acknowledge this, and many of my colleagues who have worked in other firms say ours is one of the most collegial environments they've been in. I think that, not fear and intimidation, is what brings out the best in us and makes us succeed.

As I said in an earlier blog about jerks, bad behavior ought to be a factor when leaders are selected. But, sadly, it's usually overlooked or rationalized ("he's so brilliant," "she's a genius, you know," "he's a very good fundraiser," "I'm not sure what we would do without her,"... ), even when it's obvious and unbearable to everyone. (My experience is that the people who have the real power to remove a jerky leader, his or her superiors, are the ones who who are least likely to bear the brunt of his or her antics, even if they're aware of them, which is why these problems never gets addressed and the underlings keep taking their hits or just keep quitting).

If enough of us would just stop playing along with them and indulging their jerkiness, we could put them in their place -- far from the corner offices and positions of authority where I think they do more damage than good.

Jeff

Jerks

About 15 or 16 years ago, I attended a fundraising dinner honoring a prominent businessman. It was, by every normal measure, a resoundingly successful event. I remember there were upwards of 1,500 people there, nearly all of them business associates beholden to the honoree in one way or another, so much so that they were willing to pay a premium to be in his presence.

Tributes to this captain of industry flowed generously from the official rostrum. But at the tables and in the lobby, attendees were trading stories illustrating how detestable a person this honoree was. Hardly a person who knew him, professionally or otherwise, could deny that he could be verbally abusive, self-absorbed, vindictive and generally unpleasant.

Everyone involved with the organization of this event knew of these not-so-wonderful traits; it would be hard not to know. But he had had a truly transformative impact on his industry, not to mention on the fortunes of many of the people at the dinner. In spite of his temperamental flaws, he was able to pack the ballroom. All for a good cause.

I mention this by way of recalling that at about this time last year the political leaders of this country did something we rarely see: they actually took into account the bad behavior of a candidate for a public office.

I’m referring to John Bolton (left), who, according to pretty much everyone (though I can’t confirm this firsthand, of course), was reputed to have a tempestuous personality. He was prone to shouting at, belittling and threatening colleagues, particularly subordinates; in one case, he directed his wrath at a career intelligence officer at the State Department who refused to bend what he knew to be true to fit  Bolton’s ideological agenda. At a certain point during the debate around Bolton’s nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, even many of his Republican supporters conceded that he was not Mr. Congeniality. His confirmation stalled in the Senate, and the White House, ever afraid to appear afraid of criticism, pushed his nomination through in a recess appointment. It remains to be seen whether  Bolton will make it back to the U.N. when that appointment expires.

What’s so disappointing about that episode was how rare it was. Too infrequently does bad behavior trump other character traits.

We can all cite examples of the men and women who are revered in their communities (or by whole nations) for their genius, and even for their humanity and unselfish service to the public, but who are also well-known for their hot tempers, for brow beating effectively defenseless underlings and for otherwise making life miserable for all within their orbit.

Why doesn’t this count? Why, when we assess a person’s worth, does personality usually figure so low in the calculus, unless of course that person’s contributions are meager in other ways that do "count?" And why are these people so often rewarded with top jobs, where they terrorize subordinates and do damage to the organizations they are supposed to be serving?

That’s why, leaving aside what you think of his philosophy and his politics, and of the fact that the White House essentially ignored all the appeals to civility, the debate about John Bolton was an unusually bright moment in our national discourse. For once we openly acknowledged what everyone was whispering out in the hallway. For once something that can have a debilitating effect on organizations and certainly within households is raised to its proper level of importance. For once we noted that being a jerk is as much an impediment to job performance (particularly one that requires diplomacy) and to one’s contributions to society as anything else.

How self righteous I am, you may say. Fair enough. I admit that it can be hard to judge, let alone forge much consensus around, when a person’s behavior is truly beyond the pale. You can always find some people who will defend those actions and others who will account for the cirumstantial evidence.

And while I consider myself a nice guy most of the time, I, like anyone else, have my assholic moments. Also, I must confess that my own job benefitted from that fundraiser I attend 15 or 16 years ago. So maybe I, too, in some way rationalized what happened there because it was too inconvenient to do otherwise. I understand this isn't simple.

But I’m talking about people who have clearly and chronically passed an admittedly hazy line of what’s nice and what’s not. I'm talking about the equivalent of regularly and with impunity going 70 in a 40 mile-per-hour speed zone and weaving recklessly across lanes, while most of the rest of us are generally following the rules but only occasionally going 10 or 15 miles over the limit.

I’m happy to say that behavior can count for something if people resolve to make it count. I’ve noticed that in my current workplace, prima donnas and those who generally don’t play well with others don’t fit in well and tend not to stay long –- or if they do, they find their roles marginalized because nobody wants to work with them. There seems to be an unspoken, but I think consciously formed, ethic that no one should be forced to suffer such colleagues, and the truth is it just gets in the way of our doing a good job. Maybe that’s why my office leadership has created and maintained that culture. I think it's no coincidence that we're also a successful business.

This just in. As I was finishing this entry, my wife and daughter emerged from the TV room to report that Harold Dieterle (left) had won the title of America's Top Chef, Bravo Channel’s culinary answer to American Idol. His championship round competitor was Tiffani Faison, who everyone on the show (of course, the show’s producers loved to incite and make much of the snippy fights between the contestants) agreed could qualify as America’s Top Jerk, even if her cooking was great. The audience, which was allowed to vote for the winner, overwhelmingly picked Harold, who was more widely liked as a person and respected as a chef.

There’s hope.

Jeff