# The Palmer jerkiness continuum and what distinguishes all toxic cultures

- **Episode:** [217](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/217.md) (2025-07-24)
- **Type:** interview
- **Tags:** toxic-culture, jerkiness, continuum
- **Time:** 16:11–19:39 (start 971s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/217?t=971](https://truthliesandwork.com/217?t=971)

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[16:11] Andrew Palmer: It totally isn't. So, but by loud, I really mean the one that kind of silences debate before it's happened. Yeah, I think that Steve Jobs is a sort of problem because he sort of gets wielded as this ace card in any kind of story or debate. And he was both a kind of one-of-a-kind genius and apparently a bit of a jerk. And so neither of those things are particularly helpful in a normal workplace. Most people are not going to invent the iPhone. Their range of achievement is going to be slightly less high. And most workplaces could, I mean, maybe we should talk about jerks because I think actually you can get, zero tolerance of jerks is not good, but that's definitely not code for you should behave badly. So Jobs got away with it because of what he'd done. And I'm not sure that's a useful lesson for anyone
[17:17] Al Elliott: You just said zero tolerance is not the way. That sounds odd to me. I would've thought you don't want any horrible people or jerks in your organization
[17:27] Andrew Palmer: Okay. So I'm going to, like, I don't want to be the person who's sort of arguing publicly for horrible people, but I think there are a couple of issues. One is the definition. of a jerk, right? It's subjective. So one person's jerk might be another person's kind of sort of grit in the oyster, truth to power kind of person. So I, you know, most of my columns are about trolling my colleagues, so I won't actually mention anyone, but there are people here who I can think of who are kind of exceptionally useful in the workplace. Because they're willing to say things in a way which is kind of, if not confrontational, at least provocative. Some people might regard that as jerk-like behavior. Actually, I think it's extremely useful. So the subjectivity is a problem. Who gets to define who's a jerk? And the second is like the jerkiness, if that's the word, may be coming from a particular place. It may be that that person is just not in a great, in the right job and needs to be somewhere else. It may be that person is absolutely brilliant, but shouldn't be managing people or should be locked in a home office and not allowed to come into work. So I think there's probably a lot of kind of square pegs, round holes, which leads to jerky behavior. And you can solve that with lateral moves. People can be good in different positions from the one that they're in. And goodness doesn't just mean competence. It can also mean behavior. So for the record, not a big fan of jerks. Don't think horrible people is where, you know, you should put all your hiring effort. But zero tolerance for jerks strikes me as a bit like, you know, it's a bit Salem. It's a bit like, you know, that's a jerk. Let's get rid of him or her. Um, and I, it's often not that simple