Objectif Zéro-sale-con: A New Blog for French Edition of The No Asshole Rule

I wrote a post a few weeks back about the forthcoming French edition, which will published by Vuibert in April and is called Objectif Zéro-sale-con.  I love the explanation from my publisher about the process through which they developed the title. As I said, Geoff Staines explained:

The literal translation of asshole is "trou du cul", a form of endearment generously employed throughout the French-speaking world, but during an impromptu Vuibert seminar on the subject its meaning was felt to be halfway between sneak and jerk, besides which it is not used in relation to women. The very commonly used "con", in many ways the natural choice, usually means plain stupid and lacks the disruptive/destructive/mean-minded nuance. The more selective expression "sale con", however, does it all because the qualifier "sale" (dirty) emphasises the intentional nature of the con-ness. And as for "zéro" instead of "règle" (rule) or "facteur" (which means factor but also postman), we went for it because it harks back, amongst other things, to "zéro défaut" (from the quality circles'  elimination of faults).

Vuibert  has also just launched a blog about Objectif Zéro-sale-con. It looks fantastic.  For starters, it has a translation of my post about why I call them assholes, the self-test now known as the ARSE Test, and an excerpt, with more to come. As those of you who have read my posts about the reaction to Der Arscholch-Faktor in Germany know, I've been quite interested to learn what it takes to be known as workplace jerk in different cultures, and the different ways that they are handled in different cultures.  I hope that those of you from France (and from other French-speaking regions, such as Quebec in Canada) will enlighten us in French on both the new Objectif Zéro-sale-con blog, as well as on this blog in English. 

Meanwhile, I will turn to one of my favorite Stanford students, Tsedal Beyene to help me translate what written in French about the book -- Tsedal went to French schools when she was growing up and speaks it fluently, along with another four or five languages.

Comments

[Pierre-Antoine]

Thank you for brightening a dark corner of microeconomics by adressing the cost of counterproductive destabilization of employees' psychological stability at work. I am convinced that beyond mere unfriendliness, assholish behaviours have a real negative impact on firms productivity. It seems perfectly logical that 'attacked' people will spend more time trying to recover their stability and thus less time doing their work. I think a good individual performer may end up with a low efficiency at work if the 'collective cost' of his efficiency is too high (meaning if he needs to harass everybody to do his job correctly).

[marguerita bornstein]

MAGNIFIQUE!!!!!!!!!
Please note THE FRAGEBOGEN
http://atireugram.blogspot.com.

We are in the meme wavelength.
Would love to collaborate with you.
My artwork &your writing.
Maybe????
Let me know
Au Revoir
Marguerita

[Cath]

Hi Bob !

I posted a note on your excellent book on quite "un sujet" the other day on my blog, and got an avalanche of reactions.

Long life les sales-cons hélas.
How can we fight them, all of us "small cons" = UNITE ?

petits-cons power
petit-con is beautiful
petit-con is trendy
you are a sale-con, you're out
you are a petit-con, you're in

http://planetargonautes.typepad.fr/planetargonautes/2007/04/les_trous_du_cu.html

[miekellee]

Thanks a lot for that refreshing book. We needed help in France where thoughts about job are so often off record, even in case of suicides. My own book," My job, from fear to pleasure" , (mon job de la peur au plaisir) tried to propose some unusual solutions. Is it the end of assholes, that steady poison of most organisations and management? Are we really prepared to that main work revolution ?

[Marie-Pierre VASLET (éditions Vuibert)]

Thanks Bob,

Merci ! Le blog n'est pas encore très fourni, mais il nous allons l'enrichir progressivement. En tout cas, ce n'est pas la matière qui manque ! Et nous espérons recevoir plein d'histoires de sales cons à la française.
Tous nos voeux pour la parution du livre aux Etats-Unis. En France, il sort début avril.

[Alain Jourdier]

Bob,

Vive la France! As a French-born, naturalized American, I salute my former countrymen in recognizing how "con" people in business can be, especially a la belle France. I herald the spreading of your powerful words there, where I have witnessed a dire need to come to grips with an equal elan the dreaded asshole poisoning.

C'est magnifique.