In a piece discussing the horrible effects mean bosses have on the health and productivity of people at work, Christine Porath also catalogs a couple of excuses that these bosses use:

I’ve surveyed hundreds of people across organizations spanning more than 17 industries, and asked people why they behaved uncivilly. Over half of them claim it is because they are overloaded, and more than 40 percent say they have no time to be nice.

I may just start asking candidates I interview flat out whether they sometimes feel like they’re too busy to be nice. More generally, it feels like a series of questions about how a candidate handles stress may be really useful. Some ideas:

• Tell me about a time when you felt like someone else’s mistake reflected poorly on you.
• What do you do when you feel like someone doesn’t feel the same sense of urgency you do about a task?
• How do you get a meeting on track when you’re the only person who’s prepared?
• How do you handle it when it’s obvious that your boss didn’t read your email?
• How do you handle it when a peer/subordinate didn’t read your email?

I’m always looking for ways to identify people with toxic personality traits in interviews. Digging into responses to stress seems like another way to get there.

As we see the elimination of surveillance programs he unveilled, let’s take a moment to recognize Edward Snowden. He published an op-ed in the New York Times last week:

In a single month, the N.S.A.’s invasive call-tracking program was declared unlawful by the courts and disowned by Congress. After a White House-appointed oversight board investigation found that this program had not stopped a single terrorist attack, even the president who once defended its propriety and criticized its disclosure has now ordered it terminated. This is the power of an informed public.

For The New Yorker, John Cassidy argues that the US should drop the criminal charges against Snowden:

To repeat, none of this would have happened without Snowden’s intervention. Doubtless, the intelligence agencies are pressing the White House to stick to its hard line about prosecuting him, on the grounds that dropping the charges, or making some sort of plea bargain, would encourage other leakers. But that is a self-serving argument, and it doesn’t stand up to inspection. In a free society, we want whistle-blowers who have persuasive evidence that great wrongs are being carried out to come forward and tell us about them.

And finally, Glenn Greenwald looks at the reaction of media outlets that have called for punishing Snowden:

When it comes to taking the lead in advocating for the criminalization of leaking and demanding the lengthy imprisonment of our source, it hasn’t been the U.S. Government performing that role but rather – just as was the case for WikiLeaks disclosures – those who call themselves “journalists.” Just think about what an amazing feat of propaganda that is, one of which most governments could only dream: let’s try to get journalists themselves to take the lead in demonizing whistleblowers and arguing that sources should be imprisoned! As much of an authoritarian pipe dream as that may seem to be, that is exactly what happened during the Snowden debate.

If you haven’t watched Laura Poitras’ documentary on Snowden, Citizenfour, you should check it out. More recently, John Oliver interviewed Snowden for Last Week Tonight.