A couple of interesting things were published on The No Asshole Rule during the last few days. First, Sig at Forthcoming put up a very thoughtful and self-reflective little essay on the book, talking about the situations that drive him to be less than nice (it happens to everyone .. that is why one of my last points are "assholes are us") and I was especially charmed by his report that "...my 15 year old picked it up and started reading it with great interest! And kids should know all about assholes. Even if their "workplace" is less infested with hierarchies." I first heard about Sig from Diego at Metacool when I was just thinking about learning to Blog -- I remember Diego telling me that he doesn't do a huge number of posts, but all are very thoughtful.
Second, the folks at Hanser, my German publisher, tell me that Der Arschloch-Faktor got a very nice review in the online magazine ChangeX. Alas, I don't read German, But Anna Markgraf at Hanser tells me that it was "really inspired" and they even liked the fact that excerpts from the book had been published in German tabloid Bild (Wikipedia reports it is the best-selling newspaper in Europe), because it is " a sign that you in fact write for everybody." I will show it to my German-speaking friends. Here is the pdf:
In 1982, my business partner and I were writing the business plan for our new business...which went to go public five years later!...and we got to the people part, and how we were going to hire people. I said I had heard about the airplane rule...if you had to fly across the country with someone, at the end of the trip, would you like them more or less. He said that was great, but what it really meant, was..we just won't hire assholes. It seemed to stick since it was crystal clear to us what that meant. Congrats on your book!
~GL
Posted by: gl hoffman | October 26, 2006 at 07:15 AM