The guy kept up a nice guy act, but was fully self-centered, tried to subtly force his religious views upon the workplace, actively formed cliques to sow disorder and refused to help anyone in any matter that “wasn’t in his contract”. He openly criticized anything that didn’t “meet his standards” and did so in an extremely condescending way.
His charisma attracted many and kept them from seeing through his act. His only goal seemed to be to gain power at any means.
I don’t know why, but I found him suspicious at first handshake. Somehow he just felt totally fake to me. His duties rarely overlapped mine, so I just kept my eye on him from a distance. After about 6 months a leadership opening appeared and he instantly tried to recruit me to his clique. His warm, joyous eyes turned to ice when I turned him down and told him that I’m aware of the game he’s playing.
In retaliation he started a smear campaign against me, but since I had done my duties well and had helped everyone whenever I could for the last decade, there was nothing for him to abuse. His attack backfired gloriously.
Soon after our boss called me to his office to discuss “reports of degligence in my performance”. I knew that these were fabricated, but I was still a bit concerned when I entered the office. Boss told me to close the door and went straight to the point: “How are we going to get rid of this lying asshole? These reports he gave to me about you are complete bullshit, but they are not enough to fire him.” The old sly fox had also been keeping his eyes and ears open and was as aware of the creep’s machinations as I was.
We made sure that the creep didn’t get the leadership position and started to insulate key personnel from his influence by informing them of the faked reports. In the next few months the word got around and his clique fell apart. The fucker was left pretty much alone and after that he resigned.
Thanks for sharing. I’m a domestic abuse outreach worker and he sounds like a perp, classic traits are lying, charm, manipulation, always thinking they’re right and selfishness (and more). It sounds like your gut instinct warned you about him, which is great. You handled it really well 👏
I’m cautious by nature and playing it safe seemed the wisest course to take. The guy built his schemes very cleverly and handled his own duties well, the only mistake he made was when he attacked my reputation.
I was also very lucky to have a boss who trusted me and saw things as they were. One of my co-workers ran into the creep a few years ago and found out that he had kept leaping from job to job until he had landed into a leadership position.
Absolutely. Can I ask a few questions? They may sound odd but there’s reasons. Was he impulsive? Did he have a normal emotional scale, show emotions other than anger? If he did someone a favour did he see it as something that was owed to him, bring it up frequently? Just wondering
I do not find your questions odd, fear not. In retrospect his case is quite fascinating.
Like I said, our duties rarely overlapped and I mostly met him at staff meetings and occasionally at the coffee lounge. He rarely expressed strong emotions - except frustration, since something was always being done “the wrong way” - and the only time I saw him express anger was when I called him out. He was often smiling, but in a weird way where his lips formed a smile but his eyes weren’t fully in on it.
He was the total opposite of impulsive. If you knew when to look, you could see him calculating the next steps before taking action. But he loved attention - he was in charge of the office christmas party planning and he made himself the central figure of the entire show. If there ever was an epitome of cringe, that was pretty much it. This was an apparent blind spot for him, his corridor charisma did not work at all on stage and his act was just plain bad.
I don’t know about the favours. But he would not help others if it wasn’t his job. This one time our old (one year to retirement) janitor was moving desks to another floor and asked me to help him out, since he had a bad hip and the desks were too big for the elevator. I was young and always happy to help, so we started carrying them up. The creep happened to see us working and walked to me and said “Don’t you understand that it is not your job to carry desks? That’s what the janitor is for.” And he said this out loud while the janitor was right there, holding the other end of the desk mid-stairs. I responded “I do understand. I like to help my friends.”
Then he just left and we hauled the desk up. The janitor was pretty much ready to go and punch the creep, but I talked him down.
He was married and had kids. He never showed any violent tendencies and was physically very non-imposing. I always assumed that manipulation and mental games were his primary tools, but one can never really know.
His eyes seemed pretty normal, but I remember that they were always moving. He wouldn’t look you straight into eyes for more than a second or two.
Yep not all abusers are violent and certainly not outside the home. Tbh the extent of the game playing was making me wonder if he had anti social personality disorder (psychopathy). People can often tell from the eyes eg Ted Bundy
An ex-colleague of mine.
The guy kept up a nice guy act, but was fully self-centered, tried to subtly force his religious views upon the workplace, actively formed cliques to sow disorder and refused to help anyone in any matter that “wasn’t in his contract”. He openly criticized anything that didn’t “meet his standards” and did so in an extremely condescending way.
His charisma attracted many and kept them from seeing through his act. His only goal seemed to be to gain power at any means.
I don’t know why, but I found him suspicious at first handshake. Somehow he just felt totally fake to me. His duties rarely overlapped mine, so I just kept my eye on him from a distance. After about 6 months a leadership opening appeared and he instantly tried to recruit me to his clique. His warm, joyous eyes turned to ice when I turned him down and told him that I’m aware of the game he’s playing.
In retaliation he started a smear campaign against me, but since I had done my duties well and had helped everyone whenever I could for the last decade, there was nothing for him to abuse. His attack backfired gloriously.
Soon after our boss called me to his office to discuss “reports of degligence in my performance”. I knew that these were fabricated, but I was still a bit concerned when I entered the office. Boss told me to close the door and went straight to the point: “How are we going to get rid of this lying asshole? These reports he gave to me about you are complete bullshit, but they are not enough to fire him.” The old sly fox had also been keeping his eyes and ears open and was as aware of the creep’s machinations as I was.
We made sure that the creep didn’t get the leadership position and started to insulate key personnel from his influence by informing them of the faked reports. In the next few months the word got around and his clique fell apart. The fucker was left pretty much alone and after that he resigned.
Thanks for sharing. I’m a domestic abuse outreach worker and he sounds like a perp, classic traits are lying, charm, manipulation, always thinking they’re right and selfishness (and more). It sounds like your gut instinct warned you about him, which is great. You handled it really well 👏
I’m cautious by nature and playing it safe seemed the wisest course to take. The guy built his schemes very cleverly and handled his own duties well, the only mistake he made was when he attacked my reputation.
I was also very lucky to have a boss who trusted me and saw things as they were. One of my co-workers ran into the creep a few years ago and found out that he had kept leaping from job to job until he had landed into a leadership position.
Absolutely. Can I ask a few questions? They may sound odd but there’s reasons. Was he impulsive? Did he have a normal emotional scale, show emotions other than anger? If he did someone a favour did he see it as something that was owed to him, bring it up frequently? Just wondering
I do not find your questions odd, fear not. In retrospect his case is quite fascinating.
Like I said, our duties rarely overlapped and I mostly met him at staff meetings and occasionally at the coffee lounge. He rarely expressed strong emotions - except frustration, since something was always being done “the wrong way” - and the only time I saw him express anger was when I called him out. He was often smiling, but in a weird way where his lips formed a smile but his eyes weren’t fully in on it.
He was the total opposite of impulsive. If you knew when to look, you could see him calculating the next steps before taking action. But he loved attention - he was in charge of the office christmas party planning and he made himself the central figure of the entire show. If there ever was an epitome of cringe, that was pretty much it. This was an apparent blind spot for him, his corridor charisma did not work at all on stage and his act was just plain bad.
I don’t know about the favours. But he would not help others if it wasn’t his job. This one time our old (one year to retirement) janitor was moving desks to another floor and asked me to help him out, since he had a bad hip and the desks were too big for the elevator. I was young and always happy to help, so we started carrying them up. The creep happened to see us working and walked to me and said “Don’t you understand that it is not your job to carry desks? That’s what the janitor is for.” And he said this out loud while the janitor was right there, holding the other end of the desk mid-stairs. I responded “I do understand. I like to help my friends.”
Then he just left and we hauled the desk up. The janitor was pretty much ready to go and punch the creep, but I talked him down.
I’m certain he’s a dv abuser, he shows classic warning signs. I know what you mean when you say about the mask like face that doesn’t go to the eyes.
When you looked into his eyes what could you see?
He was married and had kids. He never showed any violent tendencies and was physically very non-imposing. I always assumed that manipulation and mental games were his primary tools, but one can never really know.
His eyes seemed pretty normal, but I remember that they were always moving. He wouldn’t look you straight into eyes for more than a second or two.
Yep not all abusers are violent and certainly not outside the home. Tbh the extent of the game playing was making me wonder if he had anti social personality disorder (psychopathy). People can often tell from the eyes eg Ted Bundy