Excessive narcissism has been a fascination of society for several thousand years and is based on the Greek myth of Narcissus who fell in love with his own reflection. Extreme narcissism is characterized by beliefs of vast importance and uncontrollable hunger for recognition to a degree where the narcissist will create elaborate scenarios where he is continually the hero while acting in explosive rage toward all challengers. All people have a degree of narcissism that goes along with a concern for self that tends to diminish with age and experience — but not always. In a very rare few (approximately 2-3% of the population) it develops into a dominant personality feature that is loaded with a bucket of crazy episodes of narcissistic rage combined with genuine congeniality. It is nothing short of an explosive roller coaster ride that makes each day seem like an eternity and every minute of separation feel like a furlough. Narcissism is both a freedom killer and a source of innovation as people develop elaborate ways of escape.
I write this because I worked for a person with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), and it was the worst 2 years of my life yet vastly important for me. I would have quit my job if I had a normal job that I could actually quit without going to jail. It made what was supposed to be a dream job a living hell. But, believe me, I considered the jail time daily while lying in bed at night hoping my boss would have a terrible accident. This is not a healthy way to live, and strips away any feeling of freedom very quickly. While I’m not big on diagnosing every aspect of a human as a disorder, I kept a journal on this person’s indisputable actions for over a year, presented it to a psychologist, and diagnosed this satisfactorily enough to develop coping strategies that actually helped.
Here’s the FG guide to surviving the worst boss in the world:
1. Focus on survival. With Bossman, everyday was a survival feat where success was measured by how much I didn’t have to interact with him. If you are trapped in a typical American organizational hierarchy and have a powerful boss, complaining to a higher authority (sometimes a person that doesn’t actually interact with Bossman) is extraordinarily stupid. You must focus on the end state whether that is quitting, transferring, or forced retirement and chip away at that strategy every day. In my case, I knew the exact date when I would no longer have to deal with Bossman, and held onto a single mantra: “you can’t stop the clock.”
2. Understand that you cannot change your boss. It’s not you — it’s him. Everybody who works directly for him thinks he’s an asshole, yet HIS supervisors and “the little people” think he’s a God of Productivity — you’re in the shit layer and he knows it. You can’t change him, and attempts to try may actually make it worse. There is a fair chance that if Bossman knows what he is doing, his supervisors may be afraid of him too. A person with NPD is actually suffering, and this is important to remember the next time he calls you at 0200 to yell at you for somebody revving an engine too loud outside his window.
3. Create a support network. This is not a pity party, but a real network of sanity that you can rely on. After all, you still have a job to do regardless of your boss’ arbitrary whims to make people stand at attention in a parking lot at 0500 or the mother cussing over a drop of paint. Hopefully, you have work that matters beyond your boss’ mood and internal power struggle. Focus on the people who are also feeling the pain and take care of them and realize there are plenty of other admirers who only see the badass, take-charge guy who is a supposed “leader.” Many people may actually worship Bossman.
4. Keep a journal. This will help you when you are wondering “am I crazy?” or when your NPD-havin’ boss comes out of left field with the nicest and most genuine remarks you’ve ever heard (btw, he doesn’t mean it) an hour after he just called you a pussy for doing something he ordered you to do. People with crazy-making personalities will force you into thinking, “oh, he’s not that bad…” Yes, he’s that bad.
5. Believe the lies. People with NPD are going to lie and embellish stories that are unaccountable so that they come out the hero. There is no verifying, and it is much easier to simply listen to the lies and nod in agreement because pointing out every bit of nonsense turns into nonsense. This is difficult but gets much easier with practice. At first it feels like you’re participating in the lie, but to this person it is real, so just let it be real sort of like you’d listen to a child tell a superhero story. This helps a lot.
6. Understand the intelligence. Disorders have nothing to do with intelligence or capability. Extremely intelligent people can be batshit crazy in other ways to the point where you will question your own sanity. Imagine hearing a hard line, adamant policy everyday for a year, one day having it completely reversed for 72 hours, then go back to it, “because you’re incompetent.” You’ll need witnesses in order to not be set into professional traps. This completely sucks to the point you may long for the sweet release of death.
7. Remember that someday soon, none of this will matter. If you seek freedom, nobody can stop you forever with mere words and stupid crap. Bossman is playing a game with you that has a deadline, so while he may continue to harass and manipulate his way up the ladder in order to make even more people miserable, you’re leaving.
8. Keep your cool. Bossman makes stuff personal even when it’s not. This makes you want to strangle him over the accumulation of things that are minor on paper [you set Bossman's car on fire because he insulted you out in front of 100 people?]. Realize that it’s just pride and button pushing. Eliminate the buttons and do your job admirably and with conviction — nobody can ever fault you for it. If your work matters, then focus on the content of your work and keep cool.
9. Enjoy your time away. This is very difficult because a NPD boss is powerful enough to make you wish you were dead, but it is important not to drag your family into your drama and recognize that you are also a powerful person that can outlast the demoralizing stress. I owe my wife a lot simply for tolerating my moods and constant stressing over Bossman. Thank you.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Been there and I agree it was absolutely the worst time of my life. I had no idea what was going on. Somehow I bore the brunt of all his anger and was made to feel like I had the attitude problem. I didn’t at the beginning, but by the end I sure did! He was completely paranoid, somehow thought everyone was plotting against him and treated everyone like stupid dim-witted minions (we were all well educated aerospace engineers). As the second in command to him, I was the one that suggested his behaviour towards the team was not acceptable, and from that day forward he had a personal vendetta against me.
I wish I knew then what I know now. I would have seen his behaviour for what it was and given myself a break. In the end I only lasted about 4 months working for the guy before I went on leave and then asked to be transferred. If I end up with a boss like that again I doubt I’d give them a month before I was out of there, but it’s because I value my freedom more than anything now.
Thanks for this, Mia. Good to see you here again.
I had limited choices with Bossman: 1) endure the two years 2) go AWOL 3) hope for a transfer that would never come. I was also second in command and had a whole unit to run which was actually easier than dealing with his ego everyday. Eventually I had to separate the two as distinct tasks.
It’s amazing how powerful psychology really is, but the whole experience made me realize a lot about what freedom really means physically and mentally. In this regard, it was very valuable and actually helped frame a lot of what gets read on FG. I knew I would write about it eventually, but to describe the total effect would take a book that nobody would be interested in reading.
Whoo, reading this shit makes me grateful to be unemployed. I can do what’s vitally important to me and my loved ones and tell the rest of the world “You ain’t the boss of me.” At least untill the welfare runs out or a miracle happens and I find a job.
Actually I do have a pretty solid job lead at a decent place via my cousin and I’m trying to warp my mind back into “employee” mode in case I get an interview so I don’t make him look like the cousin of an anarchist freak or something. Heh, anarchist on welfare! Complicated world, ain’t it?
Most bosses suck because most jobs suck. Jobs are an affront to natural order and a recent invention of industrialization which has been further massaged by modern Plutocracy. The problem is, of course, we need money. If you die in the Matrix, you die in real life too.
Entrepreneurship is the bastard child of shitty bosses.
Everyone in the military should go through a training regimen based on this entry, TK. Right after they are tested for their position on the autism spectrum.
Power corrupts too many and destroys so many more.
As Chief Dan George said in the movie Outlaw Josey Wales, “Endevor to persevere!”
Never being in the military but working on projects at military basese I have had the opportunity to work with some really great people and grade A class 1 genuine pricks. I have seen some of these guys do things to their reports that make me shudder. And the enlisted have little recourse to either refuse or resist. The result is a DH discharge after a court marshal. And the actions the enlisted must endure could be the result with a conflict with higher ups that the enlisted and NCO’s suffer because of these conflicts.
But I know people in the civilian side that have the same type of management and think they have to put up with it.
And we all have. But what we all should do in this situation is you start lookgin for another job. No job in the world is worth the life that will be sucked out of you by these people.
That opportunity may not happen tomorrow or next week or next month, but once you start making a move, forces start working with you to change your situation.
And sometimes just the action of beginning makes the situation change. Maybe you can tolerate the bastage a little easier. You know what you are going to do and the bastage does not.
I am the last person one wants to ask for job councling. My view for working for a prick is move on.
I cannot understand working the political angles of a job. To me life is too short. Others do and Budda bless them.
But to me the work I do will be meaningful and not only feed me physicaly but mentally and spiritually. If it does not I am stealing from the person who is paying me and stealing from myself because I know I am not giving the one paying me all I can.
Good advice to start looking for another job, it does change your mental state, and helps you see the reality of the situation and achieve detachment so you can still do your job well, and leave the rest in the shitter where it belongs.
It was like that for me when I worked at a F50 corp, though I had a great immediate manager, all the rest, ALL of the director level and above execs, and most of the employees, were a fishbowl of DSM diagnoses. Flying over the cuckoos nest would have made more sense.
But I was on of the 20% that got shit fixed and done, and my boss (ex-Marine, if there is such a thing), supported me fully (cuz I got results), even when I “politely” told a VP he was full of shit and clueless about the technology he was “in charge of”.
But looking for another job gave me the realization that my current situation was temporary, it would change, things always do.
This also gave me the courage and calmness to not jump into something else, to make sure the new opportunity was correct. Heck, my counter offer I was given to stay at F50 corp was substantially higher than what I make now, but at this point I don’t care about the money as much as I care about what I am doing, who for, and to what end.
I am richer in non-monetary ways, and most importantly, more free now.
Tommy, I grew up with a narcissist. My older sister has NPD. There are apparently two kinds, the benign and the malicious, she was the latter. She did everything she could to make my life hell. As for them suffering, I don’t subscribe to that theory, I think they love it. It’s a power trip.
There’s a really good website called narcissists-suck.com. Other than the somewhat religious bent, it’s excellent in techniques for coping and understanding these people.
I learned a lot from my sister, I learned how to fight. I learned how to trust my instincts, my narcissist detector (N’s make me very uncomfortable the first time I meet them). I learned how to outsmart their devious and sneaky ways. I learned that N’s are attracted to certain types of people (the ones who think they’re suffering and and are really good inside and want to help them).
No one in my family has any contact with my sister and we’re all happier for it. Her loss.
I can understand why you’d say they don’t suffer, but I had to believe it.
I had a similar experience to Chinle’s. Only it was my older-middle brother. And he was physically aggressive to boot. I never realized he was a super-narc until I read this post. I just thought he was a power tripping drug abusing asshole. But as you described him to a T…
One of the things I’ve learned about super-narcs is that one identifying characteristic is that the credible threat of force is generally not an effective deterrent. They back off and then come back at full force a short while later.
Tommy, this guide, slightly modified, would apply to people in the midst of a cheating spouse situation…similar dynamics.
In particular, “It’s not you — it’s them”…exactly…not realizing that it’s THEIR problem and THEIR choice, is what mind fucks the most…once you figure that out and truly internalize it…then EVERYthing changes for you.
“Entrepreneurship is the bastard child of shitty bosses.” -ok, that is just sardonically true and funny…:)
Been there. Not as badly. Handled it not too well but survived it.
Your point 4, ‘Keep a journal’, is excellent advice. Early on, I took to keeping a shirt-pocket notebook and a pencil in very plain sight, and making entries in the notebook with a great flourish of note-making. Entries like, “1129 hrs — went to take a leak; 1133 hrs — back to troubleshooting printer s/n xyz1234 — still unresolved at 1230 hrs, need parts, lunch break.” You get the idea. The written word is a scary monster to these types. Use it.
In my case, everyone involved somehow ‘grew out of it’. I’m still there with the same major players, and it’s worked out ok.
If I can play devil’s advocate here, I think some of these people are
‘victims’ of the relentless burden of ceaselessly having to cause money to change hands just to stay alive. (Not really applicable to your experience, I imagine, but applicable to many in the much vaunted ‘private sector’.) Meeting a payroll is something I’ve never had to do, and would run away screaming from if the ‘challenge’ ever presented itself to me. Business and commerce are a couple of bitch goddesses who could stand a good slapping.
Good timing on this one, Tommy. I have been overwhelmed and demoralized by my sucky job lately and an equally sucky bossman.
Amazing that you used the same “you can’t stop the clock” mantra that I did when I was in the Marines.