Ted Audio Collective

All right Jeff can I just have you start with your name and occupation?

My name is Jeff Nunberg. I'm a professor and a linguist

How in the world does a linguist end up writing a book about assholes?

Well who better than a linguist?

Heads up this episode is gonna use a lot of that word linguist. No, not that one

Bounder, no, can, no, heal, phony, no, and no. Those words all articulated a certain sense of the moral life and

Asshole comes along and kind of displaces them

Today we're talking about assholes

Somebody who cheats on his wife, but not necessarily done his expense reports

The asshole is somebody whose efforts to expand and swell his own sense of privilege is hurtful to others

The other employees whose work he takes credit for the secretary who we has picking up his laundry whatever

Look I know it's not a polite word, but it's not going away and neither are assholes and

The word itself evokes a feeling in us that something tamer like jerk just doesn't

So we're gonna use the word because that's what the pros do

I said I want to use the word asshole and you would never publish that in Harvard business review. She said try me

I'm Adam Grant and this is Work Life my podcast with Ted. I'm an organizational psychologist

I study how to make the people you work with not suck

In this show, I'm inviting myself inside the minds of some truly unusual people

Because they've mastered something I wish everyone knew about work

Today assholes a field guide everyone's worked with at least one

How do you deal with them and is it possible to create an asshole free office?

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