That’s the thing, isn’t it? - Us on a bad day or lousy influences we tolerate.

We leave trails of impressions behind us the consequences of which we should not underestimate.

I never thought of that Twain quote in this context - excellent!

Thanks for stopping by with this.

Hopefully he, or she, is us on a bad day, but “us” it is. Sometimes the nastiness and stupidity comes from people who only have a little bit of power in their world and mean to use it. Sometimes it comes from people with a lot of power who have had their behind kissed for years and are out of touch with the havoc they can wreak with the smallest comment.

I know that I look back on some of the awful things I did when I was younger and I can’t help wondering what new idiocy I’m practicing today, but unaware of.

One serious aspect of this issue is that it only takes one mean or nasty or thoughtless comment to affect the behavior of the person you’ve just ripped. As Mark Twain said, “A cat that sits on a hot stove will never sit on a hot stove again. But he won’t sit on a cold stove, either.”

I once was in a discussion with some senior managers who were complaining about another senior manager who worked for one of them. One of them said that when you see a poor manager like that, ask yourself how management development efforts are. If you are too timid to critique and correct your juniors, ultimately you have no choice but to praise them in your evaluations. If you do that, how can you not expect them to be promoted when the time comes (especially when, as in this organization, promotion is handled by a committee at HQ)?

That’s part of the problem, but I think another is that we raise people with this attitude by displaying it ourselves. Young adults entering the work force may be adults, but they are still young, and even a transient encounter like the one described in the post can have a profound effect on the path the rest of their career takes.

Does that make sense to you?

That’s one heck of a good closing question. And I’ve been trying to figure out a sensible answer. But I can’t.

The kind of individuals described are the kind that, I think, most of us avoid at all costs. How they get connected, promoted, and “tenured” would be a fascinating study for someone willing to undertake it.

In the meantime, their toxic presence will continue to cause everything from stress to turnover to actual disease. . .