Jocko Underground: How to Deal with Adult Bullies.
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- This is the Jocko Underground Podcast number 156 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. We got some questions from the troops. First one, I'll be interested to see your assessment of the first one. - Yeah. - Let's get into it. - It goes hard. Okay. First question.

I work in a role where I often make final decisions on business financing transactions. I've worked in this role for three years, playing a major part in turning the company around to the positive. We have an internal sales team who work on commission of these transactions. And I have the final say if they're approved or not. And these decisions are factually 100% up to discretion.

There's one team member in particular who it seems cannot handle adverse decisions and goes out of the way to to over the top. Sorry, it goes out of the way to be over the top, disrespectful and insulting whenever there's a chance to speak to me without the C-level execs around. Very small company over three years.

What started as simply crass has escalated to outright offensive. Sexual jokes about my wife and two year old son outright just calling me a faggot and telling me fuck you first thing in the morning. Not leaving my office when asked

and standing over my shoulder trying to make sure I'm skipping to his files. I'm confident in my ability to physically defend myself, small guy with five years of jiu-jitsu training, not too scary. However, as a guy doing a job in finance trying to support a soon-to-be family of four, physical violence is not worth the risk, especially in the workplace over somebody who is clearly acting horribly and in the wrong.

It took too long for me to formally complain about this behavior due to exhausting any other methods to deescalate. But when I finally did, with a witness of our CFO, said they could potentially discipline this person, but basically implied I was being a big fat pussy over this whole thing by saying, have you just told him not to do that? So I went to somebody for assistance and he said, have you just told him not just not to do that same thing? This has been going on for three years now.

I'm the awkward, laughable, and physically harmless enemy standing between them and their money. I believe that I'm trying to handle this correctly. I believe that the complete lack of support in the situation is reason to give up on this place. The answer I got out of that conversation proves they do not care about me and have no future there. Either that or they're just stupid. Maybe I'm stupid. I don't know. What's your thoughts? Yeah, you're not stupid. You're doing a good job. You're

You're trying to remain detached. You're staying calm. Sounds like this guy's a jerk, honestly. This guy sounds like a jerk. He sounds like a bully. And if you train jiu-jitsu, I would not be... I would push back against this dude. I would probably move his files right to the bottom.

You know what I'm saying? Like, what is he going to attack you? Is he going to assault you? Is that what he's going to do? If he does, he's going to get choked out. Like, that's what's happening. You back down enough. You've deescalated enough. It's been three years. And look, I'm not saying get into a fight with him, but I'm saying do not get pushed around anymore. At a certain point with someone that's making sexual jokes about your wife and your two-year-old son,

And this is a person that you work with, this is a person you interact with. Like this isn't some dirt bag on the street that says something about your wife, whatever dude. This is a human being that you work with and interact with that's disrespectful and not acceptable. Not acceptable. You make sexual jokes about my two-year-old son and it's not acceptable. You are not gonna get, that's not gonna happen. So yeah, I would probably just push back against this guy a lot. I would say, yeah,

I'll get to your file when I'm ready. What's he gonna get in your face? Can you yell and scream? Yep, I'm not doing it. I just went one down. Even one more down. By the way, like, I'm not giving you this commission on this one. What are you talking about? Cool, bring it up to the chain of command. No, look, I don't want to, you don't want to do anything that's not, you want to maintain the high ground. So what I just said is not, I'm saying if the guy doesn't deserve the commission, don't give it to him. Okay.

And listen, in the meantime, as you start that process, I would get your resume ready because this place sounds freaking crazy for a guy to be acting like this and for no one, for it to be allowed to happen. You allowed it to happen? That's bad. It's not bad when you allow it a little bit. When you're like, okay, the dude's frustrated. I'm not going to fly off the handle. But three years, a guy making sexual comments about your wife? Nope. Can't do that, bro. Can't do that. And you know me, dude. I'm as...

Unemotional as it gets, but you work with this individual. What's he doing to other people? This guy's a bully. So that's what I would do. I'd start preparing a resume. You obviously are a hard worker. You've got a bunch of experience. You've been there for three years. You know you play a major part. You've played a major part in turning around the company. This guy's a jerk. This guy's a bully. And...

I would definitely not accept this type of behavior from him. And, you know, your boss that said, have you just told him not to do that? Yep, you should. Like, hey, don't talk to me like that. What are you going to do about it? Well, I'm not going to process into your files. You can't do that. Yes, I can. I got all these other four people. I'm going to do theirs first. Maybe I'll get to yours today. What's he going to do? Yell and scream? If he goes and yells and scream, cool. This guy treats me bad and I'm not doing his stuff. You can give him to someone else.

This is just unacceptable behavior, man. Honestly. It's just unacceptable behavior. So, you know, again, the whole idea of like, I got disrespected. You've heard me talk about this before. Like 99% of the time, it doesn't matter because a person that's disrespecting you doesn't even respect themselves. They're trying to cause problems. They're looking for reaction, all that stuff. This guy's a bully. He's saying things about your wife and your son. Like, unacceptable.

it's just unacceptable behavior and yeah i would i would look i don't want to go over the top and say like you should antagonize him and make him get physical with you because that would be wrong but you have nothing to fear here like this guy's a jerk and he's being a jerk to a lot of human beings so i would hold the line i would

not accept any of this behavior from him, I would probably have like a recorder, my phone ready to record his dumb ass when he does this dumb stuff and when he like attacks you, when he gets in your face and when he gets in your face, laugh at him. Be like, dude, you're an idiot. I'll do the file when I feel like it. I'll do the file in the order that got turned in. You're not getting moved from the list. Oh, what'd you just call me? What'd you just call me? You just said my wife?

I'll tell you what. If you want to talk that way to me, I am going to talk to our leadership about your behavior. What are you going to do? Yeah. I'm going to run it up the chain of command and I'm not going to do your file and you can take it elsewhere and just stay calm. And he's going to try and push you or take a swing at you and then put him to sleep. I hate to say it, bro. Whatever. But we all think that kids. Am I wrong? No, you're, I don't feel like you're. Okay. Um,

You just said record him. Yeah. So is that illegal? I don't know. I think there's certain guidelines. Well, I wouldn't say, I would say not, I would say not a clandestinely record him, but just be like, Oh, hit the phone. Be like, I just hit record. What are you going to say? I mean,

For quality purposes. You know, just to make sure we, you know, for the complaint department. Yeah. What's that? Yeah, that's a perfect line. Hey, for quality assurance, I'm going to hit record on this phone right now. What do you talk to me? 100%, bro. What are you going to do? And he's going to swear at you and stuff? Yeah. Yeah. So even the clandestine, the spy, the record. Look, I'm pretty much against that kind of stuff. Like, you know, like invading people's privacy like that. It's like, you know how.

it's almost like what you know what's the freaking law the illegal search and caesar right you know that thing where it's like hey you don't have a warrant because you're going to start looking for this very specific thing you're going to find some other stuff about people's privacy i get it bro so i wouldn't normally say that but if it's to this degree yeah dude this guy's out of control man yeah this is like out of line deliberately it's not like he got mad yeah he's like what like an under you know andrew paul talks about this dynamic right like

the underwriter has to kind of prove these things. So that guy, and you, I would imagine he'd kind of understand like, Hey, some people are going to get mad if I don't approve this stuff. I get it. This guy's been doing this for three years. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not like the guy's just sort of getting angry and then the guy's just all sensitive, taking it personal. Bro, this guy's getting straight up personal on purpose, by the way, saying stuff about his wife, his son, all this like weird stuff. And like,

So he obviously knows the difference, you know, between taking a personal and straight up. It is personal, right? So when it gets to this degree, but I'm kind of for it, to be honest with you, because he's doing, he's doing it for a very specific purpose, you know, where he's like, Hey, I'm going to keep this. I'm going to record this for, I don't know, a month. I don't know however long, and then I'm going to bring it up and I'll bring it up in kind of a big way. Be like, Hey, this is like, there's some laws. I don't know. Some HR. Months worth of recordings. Yeah. Yeah.

So then, yeah, when you bring it up in a big official way, if it got to that point, you know, yeah, I got evidence. I mean, hey, whether it's admissible or not, that's a whole nother issue. Yeah. But we got the evidence. See what I'm saying? But anyway, yeah. Put a little quality assurance. Put a label on it. Put it up on the wall. Quality assurance. Being recorded. Yeah. Being recorded at this time. You know, I talked about this before. Sometimes you got to bark. Yeah.

You know, like sometimes you got to bark because this, this, like when someone comes to my house and they hear my dog bark used to be Odin. Now it's Vidar. They're not coming in. Yeah. Like they recognize there's a limitation to what they're going to be able to get away with. And it ain't going to be getting into my house. It's not even going to be able to get in my deck, my back, my back patio. We got the dog door. Like he's coming out to get you. Yeah. That's what's going to happen. So when you, but when you hear, so when somebody says, Oh,

Fuck you. And look, when they say it, cause they're walking down the street and they say, fuck you man. And you go, yeah, whatever dude. Like you don't respond. You don't even say whatever dude, just completely ignore them. Someone cuts you off and rolls down their window in traffic. Just fuck you motherfucker. Don't even look at them. Just carry on with your day. Like that's what we're doing when you work with someone and this is how they behave. You got it. You got to put a stop to that shit. Fuck you. Fuck who?

You see what I'm saying? Like, yeah, this, this dude's totally out of line. Totally out of line. Yeah. I'm so glad this dude trains jujitsu. So awesome. Yeah. That's a good little, like, what do you call it? Like boundary, right? Like, look good. Little like the,

I'm gonna say this again. You're more right than you know, because there's that, right? Where it's like, you know, there's so many elements to the value of barking as it were, where, yeah, it kind of like indicates like, hey, I'm just not going to be like pushed around and stuff like that, because especially when it's out of line like this. But here's actually one that's more important, even on like lower levels, because let's say,

Which is actually pretty likely when you think about it, because there's people like this where they have they have a dark, dirty sense of humor, you know. And sure, that sense of humor can when they get angry, it can kind of overflow into being mean and stuff like that. But that but generally speaking, just at that idol, the idol at that weird, like kind of crass kind of state right where they're.

They talk, they swear a little bit too much. They talk a little bit dirty, you know, and especially if there's all guys or whatever, it's like kind of, it can be part of the culture sometimes, you know? So if this guy's saying going too far and he's just like, whatever, I'll just suck it up and you know, whatever he's, the guy's kind of like,

Sure, I know I'm being mean, but I don't realize how mean I'm really being because I'm not getting any feedback in that way. No pushback. No bark. No bark. Keep walking into that house. There's no warning signs. Exactly right. So, frick, I was literally talking to my brother about this today where it's like,

after while especially if that's part of your personality a little a little bit or a lot and you just normally act like that and you get no bark you are going to continue to do that stuff and it doesn't necessarily mean you're doing it to be mean to be more and more mean sometimes it's just how yeah and no one's really like putting those speed bumps and you know that you kind of need to curb your behavior like that you know yeah i kind of have to just complete this thought um

You know cuz I kind of when I when I when I said, you know when the guys is fuck you go fuck who fuck you Don't talk to me like that. And when the guy now says to you So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko underground podcast So if you want to continue to listen go to Jocko underground calm and subscribe and we're doing this we're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms

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