tech ramblings

Warning: This post contains many occurrences of the word "arse".  ("ass" if you are American)  If you’ll be offended, you should stop reading now.

So, in my talk at kiwifoo I talked about hiring and keeping good staff.  I had a slide that read:
1.  Don’t be an arseclown.
2.  Don’t hire arseclowns.

I was really stealing from George, who said once that the best thing about OmniTI was that we didn’t employ any asshats.  I have always preferred the term arseclown myself, from first having heard it in Office Space to Roy and HG’s telephone poll on The Dream ("Is Arseclown A Real Word?  Vote Yes or No") and their then nomination of the Arseclown of the Day.

I wandered into Borders and what should I see but this: "The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving one that isn’t." by Bob Sutton.  You can even take the Am I an Asshole? quiz online via Guy Kawasaki’s blog.

P.S. Don’t worry, one of the first things in the book is a note that different cultures use different words: asshole == arsehole == arseclown.