Scott and Alison Stratten have written 5 bestselling business books, they co-own UnMarketing Inc, and they co-host the UnPodcast. They speak to audiences around the world. If you haven’t read or listened to or connected with Scott and Alison yet, well, you’re in for a treat.  That’s all I’m going to say at the moment, because they’re waiting here to answer my questions about their latest book, The Jackass Whisperer:  How to deal with the worst people at work, at home and online – even when the Jackass is you. 

Nick: I love the title of this book!  Are there more jackasses now, or am I just getting cranky?  If yes, why? Not, why am I getting more cranky, don’t answer that, but the first half of the question.

Scott and Alison: The Jackass Whisperer could totally have been titled, “Are There More Jackasses Now, or are We Just Getting Cranky?” ;)  After writing five best-selling business books, writing this one was a little too easy. That’s one of the big take-aways from the book – if you’re constantly running into Jackasses, maybe the Jackass is you.  Now, we don’t mean you personally, of course –

Nick:  Thanks –

Scott and Alison:  — but we do mean that the solution to all these irritations is found by looking within. That’s what Jackasses are – the purveyors of pet peeves. These aren’t the big issues, these are the daily irritations that get us all down, slow us up and generally exhaust us.  Imagine all the energy we’d have to solve the big problems if we could all just be kinder to one another? How we react to the Jackassery we encounter, whether we pay it forward or stop the spread, that’s the secret to being a Jackass whisperer. So to answer your question, both. Yes, there are more Jackasses because we’re all walking around in a state of general frustration with one another and no, the things that bother us haven’t changed, you (us, them and everyone) have gotten more cranky.

Nick:  I was afraid you were going to say that.  What are your top three jackass-stoppers?

Scott and Alison:  Scott, who is particularly affected by the Driving Jackass, has learned to control his anger by breaking out into song whenever he encounters frustration on the road. He does an impressive medley of “Why Aren’t You Turning Right, It’s Your Turn” and “Your Blinker Has Been On for Ten Miles” set to the tune of Europe’s “The Final Countdown.” It’s a little thing, but singing totally breaks the tension – both that he’s feeling and the general tension in the car.  Remember how stressful it was as a kid when your parents would get angry driving? A little singing goes a long way.

For Alison the secret is preparation.  She knows situations like flying and any kind of activity with a line gets her Jackass antenna going, so her key to both avoiding Jackasses and preventing herself from becoming an epic one, it a little forethought.  She’s always a bit early, always has all the paperwork or tickets ready (or whatever someone is going to ask for at the front of whatever eternal line she’s stuck in).

And lastly, sounds can be a big Jackass trigger, so headphones whenever appropriate (this is not a good way to get through Thanksgiving dinner with your family), are a must.  Especially for those of you like Alison, who believe all Sniffers without Kleenex (not related to Doctors without Borders) deserve the stink eye.

Nick:  That’s already phenomenally helpful.  I’m reaching for the Kleenex now.  You’ve already delivered value, and we’re not even half-way!  Is it best to call out Jackassery, or just duck and cover?

Scott and Alison:  Throughout the book, we wrote about 125 different Jackasses, anything from an office loud talker to a treadmill hogger at the gym.  For each one, we included two possible reactions – the Jackass Reaction, that pays the irritation forward and the Whisperer Reaction, that stops the spread.  Most of the Whisperer Reactions are somewhere between duck and cover and writing a book about them.

The key to being a Whisperer isn’t so much about duck and cover, as it is empathy, and giving someone the benefit of their intent.  For example, here’s a favorite excerpt from the book:

(BOOK EXCERPT, USED WITH PERMISSION OR WHATEVER YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO SAY HERE)

The Jackass is a lazy teacher

In our son’s high school history class, they are studying ancient Egypt, so the obvious choice when his teacher didn’t have a lesson prepared (something that happens weekly, we’re told) was to show the class the ’90s “classic” The Mummy. 

There are so many things wrong with this.

1    History is a content-rich subject. You have thousands of years of material to work with. 

2    If you must take a day off a week, there are literally hundreds of hours of documentaries to choose from. There’s an entire History Channel, for Pharaoh’s sake… 

3    If you have to pick something fictional, based in the historical era you’re working through, there have got to be better choices than this rotten tomato. We’d rather they watched Indiana Jones. Brendan Fraser in The Mummy makes Brendan Fraser as Encino Man look educational.

The only other time we’ve seen Alison this angry at a teacher was when a Grade 10 English teacher told the same son that he didn’t need to finish reading To Kill a Mockingbird because they’d be watching the movie in class. We fear for the future.

Jackass Reaction – You tell your child to skip class on movie days. May as well; they don’t give detentions for skipping anymore. Plus, they really don’t need to respect teachers, right?

Whisperer Reaction – You wouldn’t want to switch places with this underpaid, undervalued teacher. They once dreamed of using their bachelor’s in history to travel the world unearthing treasures with a cool hat and whip, and now they spend their days surrounded by eye rolls from kids who barely put down their phones for class. They deserve that movie day more than anyone. Plus, it’s likely the small break from work is what’s keeping them from losing their goddamn, Brendan Fraser–loving mind. 

(END OF BOOK EXCERPT)

Alison and Scott, continuing:  If we can ignore for a moment that Alison reached peak Jackass by putting this person in the book, we can see that empathy for this person is what shaped the Whisperer Reaction.  When we are empathetic toward other humans, we make better choices and create better general situations.

Nick:  I’m afraid to ask this next question, as an author myself.  Can Jackasses read?  

Alison and Scott:  We sure hope so ;)

Nick: Tell us all about Scott and Alison, why you wanted to write the book, how you came to it, basically the “how we learned to love the Jackass idea and write a book about it” story.

Alison and Scott:  It all began back in 2009. Scott was on the train home after giving a keynote speech in Toronto and checking Twitter (as one did back in ’09) when he read this tweet. To protect the identity of the guilty, we’ll call him Patient Zero.

I deserve a cookie. I just watched five minutes of a video of Scott Stratten speaking and didn’t shoot myself in the face.

After reading it a few times, Scott replied: “Why the hate?”

To which Patient Zero said: “It’s not hate, just fact. Deal with it.”

Here’s the thing: With a platform like Twitter, this interaction didn’t just happen, it happened with an audience. A ton of other people chimed in, both in public and private messages, telling Scott not to block or ignore the feedback. “Kill him with kindness,” they advised.

“No,” said Scott. “I’m not the Jackass Whisperer. It’s not my job to rehabilitate jerks online.”

The Jackass Whisperer message became a rallying cry for everyone tired of keyboard commandos and people who use speakerphones in open-plan offices. It has been quoted with credit (amen and hallelujah), misquoted with credit (seriously, what is a Jackbutt Whisperer?), stolen (ugh), printed on socks and mugs, and even included in Brené Brown’s book Daring Greatly.  At this rate, it’s going on our tombstones: “They died as they lived, surrounded by Jackasses.”

Since then, we’ve written a bunch of business books, like UnMarketing and UnBranding that are part consumer advocacy, part marketing and part a crash course in what to do (and what not to do) in the world of business.  We’re also cohosts of the UnPodcast, the Business Show for the Fed Up, where we talk about current events, business and the general plight of the customer, entrepreneur and all-around human. Over the years we saw how small irritations add up in business and also in all the other spheres of our lives – at home, at school, at the mall, on a plane, on a train etc.  We saw how our own reactions could shape the experience and also how powerful our reactions could be to lowering stress and freeing us up for the important things – and the Jackass Whisperer was born.

Nick:  I feel so much better already!  Thanks, Scott and Alison!