THE "DON'T BE EVIL" RULE
Does your boss give you dirty looks, rudely interrupt you or send you withering e-mail flames? Does your colleague regularly use sarcasm to get a point across? Like most people, you've probably come across a workplace bully or two.

Robert Sutton, a respected 52-year-old Stanford University profess or, has seen and heard it all in the course of researching his new book. And "bully" just doesn't do it for him. Instead, he uses a far blunter epithet for his new book's title - The No ---hole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One that Isn't.

The profanity, which he also uses liberally throughout his book, isn't meant to offend anyone, Sutton has insisted in a number of recent interviews. It's intended to communicate the kind of nasty person he's talking about. It's also meant to get the attention of corporate America as Sutton launches his crusade to rid the workplace of obnoxious behavior. Sutton's even made sure that the book is thin enough to slide underneath a boss's or coworker's office door.

Bullies, Sutton argues, drain the energy of others, stifle performance and drive good people out: "I am disgusted with the norm in business and sports that if you are a really big winner, you can get away with being a creep," Sutton said in a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle. "My dream is that leaders of all organizations will eventually treat acting like an -- hole as a sign of bad performance rather than an excuse for good performance."

As he predicted, people seem to know exactly what he's referring to via his coarse language - the boss or coworker who thrives on mercilessly torturing sub ordinates or colleagues. Sutton has received thousands of e-mails from fellow sufferers from around the world describing their worst encounters with jerks at work.

During a recent 60 Second Interview in Metro, an on-line media source, Sutton shared some of their stories:

• A woman who worked in a small office had to use the toilet a lot because she was pregnant. Her boss, who could see everything she did, started making a note of how long she was gone each time and took the minutes out of her lunch hour.
• A salesman who had leukemia described how, instead of offering sympathy, his boss insulted him every day and doubled his sales quota while he was still undergoing chemotherapy. He quit and recovered.
• One American film producer had 109 assistants in five years, not counting those who stayed less than two weeks. He fired one for buying him the wrong breakfast muffin.

THE COST OF BULLIES

Sutton defines a workplace bully as someone who uses brutish behavior to oppress a sub ordinate or a colleague. Tactics can include personal insults, sarcasm, teasing, shaming or treating people as if they were invisible.

There's a difference, he says, between "temporary" jerks who have the potential to act like jerks but who don't do so all the time, and "certified" jerks, who are routinely nasty.

Fortunately, more American companies are beginning to recognize the cost of tolerating bullies. Sutton sees a definite trend among American companies to stop rewarding bullies with promotions or even to get rid of them.

"There's lots of evidence that an ---hole's behavior drives out the best employees and those people who witness it, reduces commitment and productivity and increases absenteeism." Sutton said in the 60 Second interview.

Plus, the cost of replacing a valued employee, experts say, is two-and-a-half times his or her annual salary if you factor in all the hiring costs as well as the potential for lost productivity.

Bullies also tend to stifle open discussions. The last thing you want on a committee charged with coming up with innovative ideas is someone people don't feel comfortable with. When people don't trust each other, the creative process can slow or even shut down.

BATTLING BULLIES

Spurred by a growing recognition that bullies can be costly, some companies have instituted "zero-jerk" policies or company-wide "jerk-free zones." Google calls theirs the "don't be evil" rule.

Others are trying to identify and eliminate belligerent personalities before they're hired and have the chance to contaminate their environments. Using lengthy interviews, they aim probing questions at an interviewee that are designed to reveal any browbeating tendencies.

Once on board, a welcome letter from one company for new recruits lists 15 corporate values. The last one is: "I will not be an --- hole."

In hopes of creating a kinder, gentler workplace, still others are showing far less tolerance for the bullies they already have on board. Someone who builds a reputation for being a certified jerk, especially a senior manager who pushes workers around, will get far less leeway than she otherwise might. If a bully's performance falters, she's much more likely to be quickly shown the door.

Sutton lays out a simple rule for jerk-proofing a workplace: "The no ---hole rule is simple - don't hire them in the first place. If you have, don't let them continue that behavior. If they persist, then fire them," said Sutton in the 60 Second interview.

The bottom line for this latter day Defender of the Downtrodden is also simple: Life's too short to work with jerks.