Book Review: "The No Asshole Rule"

When I first got this as a gift on Saturday from my pal Elizabeth, I chuckled because of the very out there title. But, of course, I was also immediately intrigued and started reading on my flight back the next day.

The No Asshole Rule is a great book for anyone that has ever dealt with jerks in the workplace or life. This means that it's great for anyone, really, though it does have more of a businessplace bent than a general life perspective.

The book is engaging, of course, and came about from a Harvard Business Review piece that Bob Sutton had done a few years ago. This is simply a more detailed look at how to deal with jerks though it is sometimes confusing whether Bob is advocating no toleration vs. learning how to tolerate them. My take is that we shouldn't tolerate jerks, and thus should do everything to get rid of them (here he offers many suggestions), but that if you HAVE to deal with them (because of monetary, job, etc circumstances) then you should follow the advice he provides in later chapters.

Anyways, the book is an 8 of 10 and is an easy read. It should only take 3, 4 hours to tear through and you won't regret some of the advice you'll encounter.