Bad vibes from a workplace psychopath
PDF Lovefraud recently received an e-mail from a reader. Her company had hired a new guy and she was tasked with helping him learn his job. The guy immediately made her feel extremely uncomfortable. Here’s what she wrote:
I can’t look him in the eye or even stand to talk with him. He is very “nice” and has never shown any angry tendencies. I can’t explain my feelings but my intuition tells me to be wary and afraid of him. He exhibits self-important behavior and is glib and overly polite. Just the thought of him makes me shudder.
He’s never given me any concrete reason to dislike him. However when I very first met him, he was too familiar and presumptuous, calling me by my nickname on the first day, which only close friends and family do. He also pestered me to go to lunch with him every single day or would manipulate it so that he’d be alone in the office with me at lunchtime. He never made any type of sexual advances to me, but would ask me off the wall questions that were not work related and that I couldn’t possibly have an answer to; and once offered me $20 to buy myself lunch because I wouldn’t go with him. I reported him to HR twice to get that harassment on record and had his desk moved away from mine. Everyone who comes in contact with him describes him as creepy.
He has a wife and three kids and his wife is rumored to be well off. He is at work on time every day and doesn’t take time off. On the surface he seems to excel in his work but if you look deeper, you’ll see that it’s all shell with not much substance. He appears to excel at his job but some of us have caught him in borderline deceptions at work but I firmly believe he is manipulative and knows exactly what he’s up to. Others don’t detect that; they think he’s a really nice guy who just doesn’t fit in. He acts kind of like the dumb Southern nice guy next door but my intuition screams that there’s a sinister quality about him. Some of us joke about the target on our backs, don’t piss him off, that sort of thing. Dane Cook’s “Creepy Guy at Work” comes to mind.
I’ve done some minimal Internet investigation on him and extensive investigation into the behavior itself but can’t seem to pinpoint it. I have read so many books, including Robert Hare, Martha Stout and Gavin De Becker. A lot of things fit from the sociopath’s profile and your Red Flags page, though some really don’t; he doesn’t exhibit aggressiveness, hatred of authority or anger at work.
The presence and mere thought of this person causes me tremendous physical and mental stress. So I avoid him and his gaze at all costs. But why is this? I’m so curious to know what quality or element he possesses that repels me. I’ve never in my life felt this guarded around another person. Is there a textbook explanation? The experience has caused me to have a deeper look inside myself as I don’t like feeling this way about anyone.
Intuition at work
I congratulated this woman for listening to her intuition. She was receiving abundant warning signs, by her own physical reactions, that there was something wrong with her co-worker.
Read the symptoms she describes: She can’t look him in the eye. She can’t talk to him. She shudders. Her body knows that she is in the presence of evil. Her intuition is telling her that the guy is a predator, and if she is not careful, she will be road kill. The woman’s co-workers even joke about having targets on their backs.
And that gaze that she avoids? It’s probably a predatory stare.
Yet he hasn’t done anything to cause problems. He is not overtly hostile or aggressive. In fact, he is overly polite.
So she asks, is there a textbook explanation?
Range of behaviors
The answer is yes. The explanation is that psychopaths exhibit a range of behaviors, and some are worse than others. If this woman’s co-worker was tested with the Hare PCL-R, his score might be too low to be officially considered a psychopath. That doesn’t mean he is not dangerous.
The common perception of a psychopath, popularized by the media, is a violent, manic-looking serial killer. In a few cases—very few—this is an accurate portrayal. But the vast majority of psychopaths never kill anyone.
Instead, they do things like create problems on the job. As our Lovefraud reader noted, the guy “seems to excel in his work but if you look deeper, you’ll see that it’s all shell with not much substance.”
Psychopaths at work typically get other people to do the work and then take credit, figure out whom they need to brownnose in order to get ahead, and sabotage anyone who gets in their way.
Executive psychopaths
Some psychopaths, ruthless and cutthroat, claw their way to the top, and then turn into tyrants. Dr. Robert Hare and Dr. Paul Babiak wrote a book called Snakes in Suits about psychopaths in the workplace.
Here’s a statistic that knocked my socks off:
Dr. Hare believes that psychopaths make up one percent of the population of North America. (Other people, using different criteria, believe the number is higher.) However, Dr. Hare writes in Snakes in Suits that three percent of corporate executives are psychopaths.
Did you get that? There are three times as many psychopaths among corporate executives as there are in the general population.
So that’s what happens to psychopaths in the workplace. They move into the corner office.
Listening to vibes
The Lovefraud reader was not comfortable with how she felt about this guy. I think she should be grateful to her intuition for being so vigilant. I also think she should acknowledge herself for listening to the vibes she was picking up.
I feel sorry for the people at her company who “think he’s a really nice guy who just doesn’t fit in.” They will probably find themselves as either victims, or unwitting accomplices, of workplace treachery.
By the way, chapters three and four of Snakes in Suits explains how psychopaths manipulate their victims. It is chilling.
written by Donna Andersen • Permalink •
hummingbird1418 says:
findingmyselfagain,
This will be difficult. I know that it must be done or I will continue to be in debt and in misery not knowing what he is doing or who he is with.
I have been working a second job on weekends to get caught up with my credit card charges. I really should be able to make it on what I make in my government job. This would have been the case if I hadn’t given him so much money.
Someone in his family was always having a financial issue: his mother lost her prescription medicine, his niece’s car needed a water pump, his son had to post bail for passing bad checks, his house needed repairs to confirm to the community association. I know the last one was a real issue, but I’m not sure about the others.
Fool that I was I even gave him spending money when he went with his family to Myrtle Beach last summer. He took the other woman with him. I wonder if she knows about my relationship with him or as blind as I have been to his philandering.
He is still home with the pneumonia that he was hospitalized for last week. I am waiting until he recovers to tell him that I know about his relationship with this other woman.
The part that I am ashamed about is that I left my husband to be with this man. He convinced me that my husband was not treating me properly and was not meeting my needs.
He always says things like “maybe we should take a break from this relationship and see if this is really what we want”. This has upset me in the past, but now I see that it is just another way to manipulate me.
I used to have a stable life before I started a relationship with this man.
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hummingbird1418 says:
I forgot to mention that I have been seeing this man for 4 years. That’s a long time to be fooled by his behavior and his cheating. I don’t know how I could have been so blind.
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Beverly says:
Dear hummingbird1418. Dont worry, your eyes are more open now and you have lots of support here. Get yourself a plan of how you are going to extract yourself out of the situation. As findingmyselfagain said – the more time you spend with him, the more unhealthy it will be for you and the more deeply embroiled you will be and believe me, as a target who only spent 1 year or so with a N, I suffered greatly. Please plot your way out and make it your priority, make yourself the priority. Take a break if you can and look at your situation from outside the ‘box’. Dont feel foolish, some people have been fooled for a very long time, which is very understandable, but many people stayed in their relationships in good faith and felt sorry for them, lent them money – we have all done that to certain degrees.
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Beverly says:
On the financial front, my exN’s family were all in debt and on state benefit, all loaning money from each other. Then I came along, working, with my own place, financially solvent with a car. His family then started asking me to transport them and their stuff, to places, then they borrowed money from my exN who was working, and he was broke from lending to them and he started asking me for money.
I thought, ‘ hang on, this is NOT right’. I visualised a chain of people all holding hands with me on the end, and when pulls the other I am going to be the one falling down. We arranged to go on holiday to see his parents in my car. Without asking me he volunteered that I should transport one sister and her stuff down there and then bring her back with his other sister. We didnt go on holiday, but look at the ways they can so innocently take you for a ride and play on your good nature.
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findingmyselfagain says:
hummingbird – yep, like Beverly said the best part is that you are now beginning to see. There will never seem to be a “right” time to do it. He will forever need help, forever be sick or depressed or needing you in some manner. Also there will never be a day when you feel 100% sure of what you are doing. You will doubt yourself and suddenly he’ll do something nice and you will feel your heart strings being pulled. Dont wait for the perfect day, except of course financially to some point, you will have to be ok on your own.
We all have little memories of who we were before we met them and it sure seems to be a much stronger, happier, more secure woman than what we become little by little, day by day with them. Its a slow transformation until you cant recognize yourself anymore.
Once you make your decision of what is best – do your best to stay on that path until you are clear of him. Emotionally too, it takes awhile to stop missing the good parts. Just know that the reality is the bad is more than the good and over time with him.. the bad is like a disease that overtakes all the rest of your good feelings. Dont stick around for that much of it! hugs and be strong
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OxDrover says:
An old saying is that “you can give people things, but you cannot help them, they MUST HELP THEMSELVES.”
If you are forever bailing someone out of a bind because they put themselves there by their own bad decisions, and constantly repeat these bad decisions, you are enabling them to continue to make bad decisions and YOU are paying the consequences.
WAnting to be a “nice” person and “help people out” is what made me an ENABLER. Enabling others (i.e. taking responsibility for their welfare when they should have been taking that responsibility for themselves) is ALWAYS a losing proposition.
They eventually resent you for helping them, and you eventually resent them for relying on you as a “right” of “entitlement.”
It is NOT my responsibility to drop everything I am doing to do for you what you should be doing for yourself. I have a vehicle because I worked and paid for one. If you need a vehicle, get a job and pay for one.
Giving someone a ride when their car breaks down is not the same as continually providiing transportation for someone who won’t provide this basic service for themselves.
Ns and Ps though some how feel that if you have anything that they ought to have access to it. If you don’t want to give them access to what you have worked hard for, then they convince you that you are “stingy” or “tight fisted” —and we (enablers) fall for it.
No longer! I am still a caring and helpful person, but I no longer will do for anyone what they should do for themselves. A therapist told me once that the only “legitimate rescue” is to drag an unconscious person from a burning house. I think that’s a bit harsh, but not too far off the mark.
Hang in there Hummingbird, and take care of YOU. You are not responsible for someone else’s life unless they are under 18 and you gave birth to them!
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Beverly says:
Yep Oxdrover. I knew all that in theory, but when it came to staying in a positive tune with his family, I was willing to help at first. Then, another more distant family member rang me up and said her boyfriend was coming out of prison on a weekend break and could I drive 30 miles to collect him, bring him here and take him back. I couldnt believe the cheek of it. I said doesnt he get transport allowance from prison, isnt there a bus? I refused the request, but realised that my exN had known about this and hadnt screened her out, but he gave her my phone number. I didnt do it, but it was the sense of family obligation and wanting to please them, that I found so difficult. Men are so much better at being selfish! I am a strong woman, very capable and independent from 6 years old and also an enabler all my life to the point where nobody helped me out even when I was asking for it.
Over the last years I told people that my slogan would be ‘that I am a door opening service for people’, even I have been forced to do things for people in different situations that I didnt want and that used to make me mad – in retrospect I think that was the beginning of me feeling put on, worn down, taken for granted, unappreciated. Through hard lessons, I have learnt that the only person I am going to enable is going to be ME. Full Stop!
(((Hugs to you all)))
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OxDrover says:
I have found that when any request for “help” is made to me and I have a feeling in the pit of my stomach that I don’t want to do it, I form my mouth into the shape and say “NO!”
Because if you do it, they want more, and if you don’t do it after having done things for them, they are resentful, because after a while they “depend” on you, like you have an obligation to do for them and at a moment’s notice.
Another trite little saying I like is
“Poor planning on YOUR part does NOT make it an emergency on MY part”
It’s all a learning process…I am sometimes sorry that I have been such a dull student and had to repeat the lessons over and over, but I think I am getting them now. LOL
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Beverly says:
Dear Oxdrover, talking to you in real time!! I didnt even get the feeling in my stomach, I was always at everyone’s service without another thought, always pleased to help and ‘open doors’. When I was at work, I started to get wise to the people who were taking me for granted. I ran a charity project helping people and as I got more and more tired I started to filter out those who were just using extra help ontop of help they already had!! I finished at work last week and am going to concentrate on myself.
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OxDrover says:
The feeling I am talking about is more or less an “irritable” feeling of, “okay I will do it, but I really don’t want to stop what I am doing and take care of their problem” I only get this feeling if I realize the person actually has caused the problem themselves or by their procrastination or poor planning etc.
I never get this feeling if it is someone in genuine distress or a problem that just “happened.” I only get this feeling in my gut if I REALISE I think at least sub consciously if not consciously that the problem is self-caused.
A dear friend this past week asked me and my son to come help him move stuff out of a commerical building that he had sold. He had known for a year that the closing date was coming and had procrastinated to the very last minute. We were in the middle of an important project ourselves. I told him NO, because HE HAD CREATED THE TIME “EMERGENCY” and it was by his own doing. I wasn’t going to “bail him out” at the last minute. If I had, I would have resented having done so and NEGLECTED my own project what is time critical as well.
I don’t feel bad that I didn’t “help” him, he managed to do it without my help, but even if he hadn’t it was NOT my responsibiliity to help him clean up a mess he created,and will always continue to procrastinate til the last possible second. That is his life pattern. I can’t change it, but I am not going to “enable it.” Yet, there is nothing in this world I wouldn’t do to genuinely HELP him or his children, we’ve been friends for 20+ yrs. He’s a good guy, just a procrastinator.
In the past, I probably would have franticly raced to help him clean up his mess. BUT NOT NOW. I am listening to my gut, and when my gut doesn’t “catch it” (and sometimes it doesn’t) I try to catch myself when I want to “enable” someone.
I am setting solid boundaries and enforcing them WITHOUT a guilty feeling that I have “let someone down.”
When I was working, I always was efficient and kept my work done, and those that didn’t work effeciently or goofed off would call on me for “assistance” and I gave it–but that enabled them to push their problems off on me. I quit doing that finally at work, but didn’t bring it home with me in my private life.
It kind of amazes me that we will have one set of boundaries at work, or in some part of our life, but in other parts of our lives we will have little or no boundaries. How we reconcile this I am not sure, denial maybe? I would never have let a spouse hit me or talk terrible to me, but I saw nothing “wrong” (with me) when I let my son or my mother do that, and eventually let a boyfriend. I could never “see” how a woman could put up with the second slap, or hit, much less the 1000th, I even felt superior to those women, until I realized that I WAS EVEN WORSE in denial.
I ended up having to go NC with not only my son, ,but my mother because she is so deep in denial about my P son (who tried to kill me,and I believe her as well) that she would still financially support him if my other son didn’t tell her he would go NC with her if she sends another dime. Which she is liable to do if she thinks she can get away with it.
It was only after I retired from work (so I didn’t have to deal with the Ps at work—and in the medical profession I think there is a high percentage of them) and went NC with my mom as well that I started after a few months of “mental thumb sucking” to heal and recover some of what I “used to be” only the “New and Improved” version. I feel better now than I have in years and years, stronger, and more sure of myself. I am alone (a widow) and I miss a companion, but realize that it is not likely (statisticly) that I will find one I would have (I have pretty high standards now!) so I may never have another SO but that is okay too. One is a whole number.
I am just so glad that I was able to retire and get away from the awful stress of dealing with liars, cheats, and Ps at work. It seemed I came home every time I worked grinding the caps off my teeth. I didn’t have the strength to fight them all and retain my sanity. No matter how badly you want to drain the swam, if eough alligators are biting your butt you don’t make any progress. Some how you have to get away from them before you can accomplish anything. I sort of felt like that in addition to the alligators, someone was always setting my pants on fire! LOL
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hummingbird1418 says:
Thanks for the comments. I feel like I am not alone in all of this.
I haven’t even said anything to my adult childen about this yet. He had convinced me that it is too soon after my divorce to introduce a new man in my life. He has used this same reason to keep me from meeting his family. Yet he took this other woman (his godson’s mother) on vacations with his family.
I think that I must be an Enabler. I felt sorry for him and for his financial situation. He is always needing something. His health has not been good. He had a scare in 2006 with a tumor on his pancreas. It turned out to be benign but they removed part of it and his spleen. I can’t count the number of hours that I have spent with him in the hospital and doctor’s offices.
He seems to be getting better from the pneumonia and asthma. I will wait until after the Easter holiday to confront him with what I know.
The hardest part will be working in the cubicle next to this man. I have 16 years invested in this job and at least 13 more to go.
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findingmyselfagain says:
hummingbird ~ how are things going? Its Easter weekend, just thinking about you and if you are planning to confront him after the weekend. Let us know how you are.
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hummingbird1418 says:
Findingmyselfagain,
He is still off work with the pneumonia and asthma. We are both off work on Mondays and if he is better by this Monday the 31st I plan to confront him with his deception.
The sad thing is if you met him you would think that he is the most moral and kind man. I am reading Dr. Hare’s book Without Conscience and finding that psychopaths seem very normal but manipulate and use people without remorse.
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findingmyselfagain says:
I know, its disgusting how likeable they can be to the general public. Many people who know my S, like everyone at work for instance think he’s the nicest guy. He smokes a ton of salmon frequently and brings it in, with crackers for everyone at the office and you’d think he was a Hollywood Star to them all. No one would have a clue about how full of lies, cheating and deceit he is.
I’ll have to find that book and read too ~ sounds good
I hope it goes well for you. Be prepared for a very convincing show he may put on for you!
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hummingbird1418 says:
Findingmyselfagain:
Does anyone at your workplace know what kind of person your S was? It is embarrassing to acknowledge being manipulated by someone like this. I thought that all his manners and concern were genuine. He still asks me to call him when I get home. Until recently, I thought he was just being considerate, but now I feel it’s a way of controlling where I am.
Was your S affectionate? Mine was early on in our relationship, but in the last year I don’t feel that we have kissed or cuddled very often.
Did you lend your S money as well?
I end up paying for almost everything we do including the car purchase.
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Outlier says:
OxDrover I hope you don’t feel I keep singling your posts, but you just described my mother to a T below. This woman is a close friend and a mother, and a little bit my responsibility. I could protect her for eternity. She allows people to abuse her to the point of owning zero intuition when it is occuring. She says ‘I don’t mind, let them” and then continues to be a good soul, providing for others. Two of her children abuse her good nature; they just see a stupid woman. She is 100 times stronger than all of us together. One thing I hope to have is her strength when I am 70. Her therapist noticed the change in her when I relocated here. I sacrificed my life to empower hers. She no longer needed his help as she is (always was) normal. I taught her a lot about narcissism, validating everything she confided with me. She held her peace for 60 years. She’s living for the first time only now. This is better than never having that chance.
I have also observed that many people who have no malice or guile in their hearts, truly sweet good people, have a total disbelief in the EVIL aspects of anyone else unless they are an ax murderer screaming and swinging an ax at that moment. They become so “nonjudgmental” that their instincts totally die, so that when they are hit blindsided by a P they don’t realize what hit them. Many times, as well I have observed these people being hit again and again, and still hanging stubbornly on to their “there is good in everyone” theory, in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
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shana31 says:
re: EnnLondon
“It’s like they always say stuff that you wouldn’t need to say if it was true. Like the bizarre ‘I’m a fan of your personality.’ What?!”
This is one of the ways when I knew my ex was lying to me. After staying the night at his house for the first time after 8 months of dating (red flag I know, but there were “extenuating circumstances”), he sent an email the next morning saying “that’s the first time anyone has been in the house, much less the bedroom”. Huh?!
In regards to giving him back his cell phone when we were finished, “I never checked the calls or messages on your phone, you never gave me reason to, I respect your privacy”. I had never given any thought to the fact that he would, but after that, I knew he did.
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Buttons says:
Outlier, it’s the “martyr syndrome.” These pour souls (like my own mother) somehow believe that if they demonstrate enough support (especially, financially), their “love” will be returned in like kind. Of course, the users and abusers out there bleed them dry emotionally, financially, spiritually, and in every other way.
OxD, your post was spot-on: we maintain different boundaries, don’t we? Sure, some boundaries may need to be tweaked on an individual basis, but the foundation of all of my boundaries should remain the same for each and every person.
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Buttons says:
…to clarify the “martyr syndrome,” it should also be noted that the martyr expects reward and/or recognition and/or acceptance for their “suffering for the better” of others.
Examples:
* if I’m running a fever and am clearly sick, maybe my son-in-law will appreciate me if I take care of his children so that he and my daughter can have a night on the town.
* maybe, if I give that thousand bucks to my sister, even though it will be taking food off of my table, she will appreciate me and accept me as someone of “value.”
There are a number of underlying motives as per the “martyr syndrome,” but whatever the issues are, it’s self-depricating and completely useless where spaths and N’s are concerned. They will never, ever “recognize” the suffering of others, much less (MUCH LESS) personal sacrifices by others on their behalf.
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Outlier says:
‘afternoon Buttons! . I should clarify that my mother does NOT expect anything in return. She simply plays the role of motherhood. She doesn’t think badly of her children who do abuse her. “It’s their nature”, she says. She may well have a different perspective, being a certain authority, but I do observe her fear and intimidation when her firstborn (a bully) can be quite aggressive with her. She seems to switch off and carries on in her world ignoring people’s bad nature. My perspective as offspring is quite different. Perhaps I misunderstood the gist of OxDrover’s paragraph. I’m like my mother where I was alwasy obligated to do things and don’t expect anything back also. I stopped doing this in my 30s. Re: my N father, I stopped this last year when I finally had a label for his behaviour! I know when to draw the line when I suspect a lazy/greediness. I’ve learned to say no and that sense of obligation that crippled me gone. My mother however will be stepped on like a rug time and again by the one and only person who takes and never reciprocates – her DSMdaughter.
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Buttons says:
Good for you, Outlier {{{hugs}}}! As I mentioned, there are a host of underlying issues as to why women (in particular) martyr themselves. Sometimes, it’s in expectation of acceptance, and other times is because they believe that it’s a requirement. Still other times, it’s everything in between. Whatever the core issue is, it can be crippling to the soul. Tolerating and accepting fear, abuse, neglect, etc. is the end result, and it’s wonderful that you have constructed that boundary at this point in your life!!!!
Brightest blessings to you!!!!
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