Psychologist tessa west is a professor of psychology at new york university. She studies how we deal with each other and how those interactions affect our mental and physiological states. A lot of work jerkery is rooted in innate feelings and behaviors, laziness, jealousy,. the various emotional fishers we experience in marriages repackaged for office life on needling, pettiness at work. We can all be jerks. Some of us get overwhelmed, so we ghost people do a disappearing act at work. Others get anxious, so they micro manage. Problems arise whenever a group works together. I've seen nobell laureates act the same way in meetings that i saw the shop floor