An Amazing Story About a Certified Asshole on This American Life

As regular readers of Work Matters know, since I published The No Asshole Rule in 2007 (or really, since I published a short essay on the rule  in Harvard Business Review in 2004) I have since been deluged with stories about certified assholes of every stripe. An astounding story about a candidate for the worst of the worst, the winner of this race to the bottom, perhaps the worst bosshole I have ever heard about, was played on This American Life a couple weeks ago.  It is called "Petty Tyrant,"and you can listen to it for free here. 

The story is about Steve Raucci, who was in charge of the the maintains department at the school system in Schenectady, New York.  It sounds like an innocent and valuable position, but the pattern of his behavior was just outrageous. He was a masterful bully, doing everything from forcing his employees to socialize with him, to making constant and open threats, to forcing them to campaign for members of the school board he supported (indeed, it appears that most of the members of the school board were beholden to him), to firing and demoting people who were disloyal, to relentless taunting that ranged from sliding burning papers in a bathroom stall were an employee sat to outrageous sexual harassment. 

Listen to the story if you want to hear the nuances, I can't do them justice here.  But this case is intriguing because, in many ways, Steve Raucci demonstrates the hallmarks of what might be called, for lack of a better term, an effective asshole.  He did a masterful job of "managing up" so that he had very powerful political allies in the administration and the school board, and was arguably the most powerful person in the school system.  He also did a pretty good job of running the department so that they did their job well.  And he used heavy handed tactics to force his employees to be loyal to him -- or else.   Yet, it still stuns me to discover how these power strategies provided cover so that he could get away with consistently outrageous behavior.  

Eventually, Mr. Raucci was sentenced to 23 years to life, "convicted on 18 of 22 counts against him for intimidating co-workers and perceived enemies with explosives at the school and union where he worked."  The picture above shows him at his sentencing hearing last May.  My only quarrel with the story on This American Life is that the term "petty tyrant" does not quite capture his evil nature.

 

Comments

[WHO WAS PARDONED BY HOLDER'S ..]

This man was a UNION REPRESENTAIVE,i.e., a Shop Stewart who was a straw boss. Part of his power came from trading his UNION POSTITION to supporting the management for elections. If anyone here ever wonder why complaints of sexual harassment by co-workers (read FELLOW-UNION WORKERS) are not Resolved at the Union level knows why, OR SHOULD.

[Peejay]

To me, what was almost as disturbing as his tyrannical reign was the fact that he was never actually fired and will be/is entitled to his pension--a whopping $80,000 annually! So, he's a maniacal convicted felon who stands to reap all of that money, yet if one of his subordinates had been arrested on a simple charge during his tenure, that person would most likely be fired and without any recourse. Astounding.

And this, during all of the wailing and gnashing of teeth over state budgets! I imagine that the protesters in Wisconsin would be especially appalled to contrast this with their situation.

[IesoAneba]

I too heard the story on This American Life when it aired and was so awe/dumbstruck that I couldn't get out of my car when I reached my destination for the need to finish the story was so great. I don't think anyone could have created a work of fiction so horrific as what Steve Raucci put his subordinates through. And his mediocre rise to power was astounding in its benignness. His actions were taken straight from the despot handbook. I've always been baffled by how tyrannical "leaders" (and I use the term loosely) are able to hold whole countries hostage. This is how. Through subtle manipulation that eventually turns to blatant abuses in power. But is Raucci to blame? I don't believe the fault rests solely with him. Some responsibility must be shared by those who allowed it to happen, from the subordinates who put up with his abuses, to the school district with its flawed policies, to the union that allowed him to rewrite his job description to leverage more power. Too many people turned a blind eye to what was happening which only contributed to more abuses. The worst part of all was how easy it was for him to rise to such levels of power and how liberally and blatantly he abused his position. Tisk, tisk, tisk – for shame!!

[Jacob Kelgard]

Wow, this is an unbelievable story. What a psycho, it is so hard to believe that someone like this was not only allowed to be in a position of authority, but that he was actually promoted to be a boss. Working for a “bosshole” is difficult enough, but Steve took that to a whole new level of insanity. I am happy to hear that Steve’s terrible tyranny finally caught up to him and he is incarcerated. It is just unfortunate that so many people had to suffer his influence for so long before Steve finally got caught by the right people. Individuals like Steve Raucci need to be noticed and declined early on in the corporate ladder so as to hopefully avoid such an incident from occurring again.

[Carol Murchie]

Don't know what's worse, Raucci or the nitwits who were supposed to be his managers.

Wow.

[Eleanor]

Yes but this guy was such an obvious asshole. The difficult ones have two faces.