[Asbostos]

Helping people with problems is absolutely the best thing to do. When people offend us, we tend to write them off as an "asshole" or general bad person. But they're still a person with the same motivations as everyone else.

It's entirely possible that most other staff aren't showing him as much respect as they do each other. He may feel miffed when he does something great and nobody compliments him while others doing seemingly lesser things are publicly congratulated. People responding to "assholes" in this way only perpetuates the hostile feelings of everyone involved, and even makes their behavior seem more justifiable.

Something to look for in a company when you're applying is how they treat people with problems - either poor performance, not fitting in with coworkers, etc. Some companies try to help the people with problems while others try to get rid of whichever party to the disagreements is most powerless. I've even seen a case where many coworkers were rude to one individual and antagonized him into aggressiveness, then he was fired after taking a vote and finding he was unpopular!