Editor’s note: The following letter was sent by the Lovefraud reader “Speakout.”
Have you ever wondered what happens when your sociopath goes to the office?
Where to start ”¦ I should begin by saying that my experience included getting to know his ex-wife after I was fired, reading the transcripts and emails of their seemingly endless divorce. She is the one who opened my eyes. I reacted poorly to her when she first told me about her experiences with him; I sat there in stunned silence. I had to let it sink in. She told me later that my response confused her. I had no idea such creatures as him existed. I’m a girl geek I’m not good with feelings and people.
Some highlights that demonstrate his true self, I’m sure most readers can infer the fuller story:
He always had a victim. There was always someone in the company that he would gang up on and try to entice others into the same behaviour. He was a new employee in a very senior position.
Bragged about being a member of Mensa. Even put it on his resume. Who does that?
Giving jobs to friends. Holding a position open for 6 months. Giving jobs to people that weren’t qualified, thus making them indebted to him.
Badmouthing and the pity play in tandem. Talking about his bitch of an ex-wife and her bitch lawyer in the office, to his staff. Often.
At one point he told me that his ex’s bitch lawyer was trying to get copies of his expenses. At the time I said to him “smart lawyer” and laughed. His eyes turned cold and dead.
Charging more expenses in six months employment than his predecessor had in two years of employment. I know this because he bragged about it. (I eventually contacted his ex-wife to tell her about this and to look into his expenses as a source of income)
Charging cases of wine, items shipped to his home, taking staff out to lunch, drinks in the afternoon and/or drinks after work and appetizers. Who drinks bottles of wine at bars with staff during the workday? I think he charged every meal breakfast, lunch and dinner to the company.
Badmouthing a subordinate who was going through a horrible personal tragedy, got the employee fired in the long run. I had to clean out his desk and I found notes about the life insurance the company had for employees and the suicide clause.
Reusing work product stolen from a previous employer (file properties revealed that). When I asked him about it he was as proud as a peacock. Told me to change the information in the properties and to make it look like other company docs.
Lying about two impressive degrees on his resume. A resume that didn’t have any gaps long enough to earn those degrees. I sent human resources the court transcripts where he confesses to the lies on his resume and nothing happened.
I half ‘volunteered’ him for some presentation to the new owners it would be a very good opportunity to showcase his department. His eyes narrowed and he was silent.
Mirroring. I am an avid cyclist, one Saturday when we were at work he brought in some old 10 speed and an ill-fitting helmet. Gave me the creeps riding home behind me (we lived close to each other) so I stopped and said I had to leave him and go to the grocery. He was huffing and puffing and sweating profusely.
Coming into work wrinkled, unshaven and smelling. “Working all night.” Pfft.
Monitors on his desk that a visitor could not see. I shudder to think what he was doing.
Pictures of his two children facing visitor chairs, not him.
Kept pressing me to tell him what I wanted. I kept replying that I wanted more experience. “Not money??” I gave the answer that he couldn’t use to entrap me in his web.
He was eventually fired for accessing confidential client financial records (those records had nothing to do with his job).
To this day there are people at that company who will vouch for him. That he got a raw deal.
I will never understand how he got away with all this, why human resources never became involved. The constant hiring and firing should have been a tip off if nothing else.
Happily I can get a new job and move on, wiser and more wary. I’m sorry for the pain inflicted on spouses and children who can’t move on or heal as quickly. I hope this helps in some way.
Speakout,
You have really nailed this guy–and noticed some of the subtleties (the children’s pictures facing visitors!). What REALLY resonated with me was your observation that few people acted when you exposed his various crimes. OMG–so typical! My ex–an embezzler–is still playing tennis at the club he stole from!!
Good for you for trying to inform people. Best of luck to you!
My ex was a senior vice president in a multinational tech company…. So much of what you say is spot on Speakout!!!!!
1 He charged almost $ 15000 to the company per month during the five years he had an affair with his secretary in another continent.( each group he had in different countries had administrative assistants)
2.When he was laid off from that company he used my connections to get himself hired at another company….promoted his mistress to a position she was not qualified for and moved her under his chain of reports.
3.Continued to charge the company card for all affair expenses and then reimbursed the company by personal check so that I would not be able to take those charges as affair damages during the divorce.
4. Had an entire system of pawns patsys and prey set up that became very evident and almost textbook after he was fired from his second job.
He did not get any consequences besides a golden handshake( lots of $$$) when they asked him to leave. Unfortunately this was post divorce so I did not benefit at all!!!!
5. He is now posing as a start up CEO of his own company and is asking a lot of investors for angel funding to the tune of 2 million $$. Angel funding does not have to be repaid if the start up does not succeed. He is very successful….
In the meantime he has married his mistress, brought her to the US and has her captive here because should the marriage end before two years she would be asked to leave the country.
In the meantime I have started being lovebombed majorly…. He has told me he has every plan of divorcing that woman before the two years is up so he can re- join our family and continue our life!!!!! Doesn’t even have to pay alimony!!
OH the arrogance and utter lack of human essence astounds me.
And just incase anyone wonders….my door to my heart for him is forever shut. Do enjoy the gift giving though!!!! Use all of it without an ounce of guilt.
Pawns patsys and prey! Perfect!
I meant to include a helpful tip – if your sociopath was ever employed by a public institution see if you can do a freedom of information request on them. As a former or current employee or contractor. When the request is being processed you may get more than you’d expect if they burned their bridges.
You can also call former supervisors and bosses as “anti”-character witnesses.
Excellent topic! I have been pondering this very subject since the abuse allegations have come to light with Richie Incognito terrorizing another football player on the Miami Dolphin’s team to a point that the player (Martin) just walked off the field and has not returned in the last 10 days.
Since Martin (last name ?) left the Miami team countless former football players have come forward with allegations of verbal, mental, emotional and physical abuse at the hands of Incognito. This guy has a every long history of bullying all the way back to middle school not only has he bullied his team mates he has been arrest for domestic violence and while at a golf charity event he sexually harassed a women and even throw water in her face, she filed a police report but nothing ever came of it (finally she is being hear by all of us now and more importantly believed).
Some of Incognito’s team mates have come out and said “he is a great guy”……WHAT!?!? This is NOT a great guy he has been describe as a “cancer in the lockeroom” by ex teammates yet he is still able to con, manipulate himself onto another team despite the fact he has been kicked off EVERY team he has played on all the way back to his college days.
The sad thing is Martin’s new football career is most likely over because he will be a sitting target on the football field…but I do believe he did the right thing, the stress of being around someone day in and day out at work will emotionally break you down the same way if you are married to one.
My ex H got fired from every job during our marriage, of course he was very manipulative to make me feel sorry for him as it was “not his fault”…mean while I always had to be the adult and worry about the finical side of things…He eventually talked himself in a job he was not qualified for and over the next several years manipulated everyone from the CEO down to believe his bs. Eventually his nice boss the man that hired him was fired because my husband was able to plant seeds of lies in the CEO’s mind that his boss was not good at his job…guess who then moved into the management’s job…yep my ex, who was once again not qualified for the job…a job where he proceeded to have a long term affair with one of his coworkers, manipulate his expense account and after reading the post above I wonder if he too embezzled since he was in change of the extremely large office budget that was separate from the main HQ’s.
Eventually his employees started putting two and two together about his affair and went to HR many times…HR called him and his mistress into their office the same amount of times where they denied any involvement…of course I had no clue about any of this (I did question him if he was having an affair he denied it and turned everything back to me). My ex got one of the main employees who contacted HR demoted and other one fired…as for his mistress since one of the employees was fired that position had to be filled according to him, he and his mistress discuss that he would not hire a attracted young women (clearly she knew he would cheat on her) when the day came for interview guess what he only interviewed young attractive women for the final interview…he told me his mistress was livid. Eventually HR got their proof of the affair and fired both of them…my ex response “I should have fired my mistress the first time I was called to HR”. (at this point I was done with the marriage until my ex got friends involved who convinced me to say – that’s another story)
His next job again he was able to plant seeds in the Owner’s mind and got the General Manager fired because the GM “was not doing a good job and was not qualified”….why did my ex get him fired.. because the GM could not be manipulated by my ex, he saw right through his bs but like me and everyone that dealt with my ex had no clue that he was dealing with a ruthless, manipulative, cunning, pathological liar who manipulated everyone around the GM.
Ever wonder what happen to the middle school, high school or college bully?
He grows up and bullies in the work place….and at home.
The thing about Human Resources that many people (including me) get wrong is thinking they are there to help employees. Totally wrong. HR is there to protect the company FROM the employees. If you complain, you become the problem. You have to make the sociopath the problem and the threat to the company. Tricky business.
With bullies and the bully culture becoming unacceptable in schools I hope that workplaces will be next. Workplace bullies are quite common in Britain, there have been a number of lawsuits – they are slowly falling out of favour. In Canada I learned they have a new standard for mental health in the workplace: http://www.mentalhealthworks.ca/media/coming-soon-national-standard-of-canada-psychological-health-and-safety
There is a book called ‘Snakes in Suits’ that talks about the sociopath in the workplace. I read it and felt it left a lot out and didn’t offer much. Could have been my state of mind at the time.
Again, in no way do I compare this to what is done to spouses and children by these creatures.
I agree with you about HR…but in my ex h’s case they called him in…I truly think that the employee that was demoted and the other one fired should have sued the company for what happened to them especially after my ex was fired for lying about his affair….but they had no clue like most that they were dealing with a sociopath…had they I have no doubt that they would have won a suit rightfully so.
I have not read Snake in Suits but have heard about it…there are several documentaries free online one is called “I,psychopath” which shows a man named Sam Valkin journey to find out if he is a psychopath (yes he is by the way) but the most powerful part of the documentary is how he emotionally breaks down the film maker so quickly that film maker ends up with anxiety, sleep issue and does not think he can finish his own documentary…Sam’s wife is a stepford wife zombie in the documentary because she has been broken down and is so brain washed as most wives are…its sad to watch but shows exactly how a sociopaths can destroy people very quickly.
The other documentary (not sure of the same) is about a sociopath in the work place…the film maker interviews coworker of the sociopath and they state that they had emotional break downs because of the sociopath’s abuse, this is what happens in a domestic abuse situation too…a normal person can not deal with the mental abuse, high anxiety that literally their bodies shut down.
In the work place sociopaths are much more covert in their manipulation/the coworker will not speak up for fear of being fired or not promoted, where as in the home they will drop their mask everyday, the wives will confront the sociopaths which will most likely to the sociopath becoming physical towards their wives, either way it’s devastating to all the victims whether at home or the work place.
I’m sorry that you had to deal with a sociopath in the work place, it’s very commendable that you called his wife and filled her in on his abuse at work….just out of curiosity why did you not believe her when she told you about her husbands abuse towards her? When i first left I told our married friends and none of them really believed me, clearly they had no clue they were being manipulated by my ex throughout their relationship with him.
Oh I absolutely believed her. I just didn’t react much when she first told me. I was stunned. I just thought he was an unethical boss. Little did I know!
None of this woman’s friends or family believed her either. Some friends did come around. He’d even gotten her own sister to turn against her. It’s less effort to go with the status quo. Plus they know how to push buttons and flatter – never underestimate it.
Odd thing, I remember first meeting him and thinking ‘whew, at least I’ll never develop a crush on him’ yet he was tall, fairly good looking, well dressed and well mannered.
One of my co-workers at the time used to be a psych-nurse. Looking back I realize they got him and became a ‘grey rock’.
Up date to Richie Incognito…during his first interview this weekend Incognito now states that “Martin is his best friend”….yep Incognito is now messing with everyones mind like a sociopath does…he is manipulating everyones perspective on the situation…he is switching everyone’s thinking from he abused martin to now he is a best friend of Martin…..they are so twisted in their minds! And sadly some people including some press will believe Incognito’s BS.
I’m sorry I read up on this ‘thing’. Amazing how brazen he is. I can see him basking in the attention.
Jan, my belief is that those #@.......%$&s are so incredibly skilled at allowing people to deal only with the mask of sanity, that it is hard for most people to detect the very covert manipulations that they do.
Its rare that their mask slips at work if they are truly skilled at maintaining a façade. Now with 20 20 hindsight and lots of reading I see that there were lots of red flags even in his work life….Read Snakes in Suits and actually understood a lot of the dynamics that allow these cretins to infiltrate upper management. The higher they rise though the harder it is to bring them to true accountability. The HR in my ex’s case decided to allow him to leave with his departure clause because they were in the middle of doing an acquisition of another company and they did not want bad press.
SpeakoutI want to say congrats on your freedom from the sociopath co-worker. I must say from personally experiencing both at one point in my life, a boss or co-worker you can walk away from, an ex spouse or lover(especially one you have children with) is a whole nother bag of drama and hell!The common factors are that they both use people to get where they want and make themselves look better and yes…they both take “prisoners”! Once you leave your job, you are free…and even thought it is unfair that you would have to leave because of someone else…you don’t have to come home to that “person,”or parent with that” person”, it ends when you walk out of the workplace! the victims don’t end in a family situation with a sociopath, the children remain as pawns, control is dominant, and you feel as if you are having the life choked out of you 24/7. I give you credit for standing up…it takes balls, I know! I have had to become so diligent in saving my husband and I from his sociopath ex! Lies are her life, she thrives on them…they help her control and manipulate everyone in her path. We all have to stand up, and not give them anymore of ourselves whether directly or indirectly….this is the beginning of the end! God Bless Winifred
SpeakOut – this post is so validating to read – thank you.
About 10 years ago, through a reorganization where I work, a spath came into my work life and played her games with me for 2 weird years and a third really bad year. The first 2 years were feigned interest in every aspect of our work group and the third year was a nightmare with lies, falsifying work reports, stealing confidential files, claims mostly toward me of being mean to her. The way she was hired was she showed up without an interview appointment and would not leave. Really.
2 things she did and still does that totally work every time:
1. Socializes constantly – giving parties and inviting co-workers to lunch and chatting very glibly about whatever resonates on any given day. Yes – she drinks at lunch time every day.
2. Creates over the top drama and chaos to cover her tracks. People get overwhelmed and just stop trying to deal with her.
2 things I’ve noticed about her reality:
1. She literally does not know how to work. How to start a project/assignment and see it through. How to actually pay attention to a specific item and make sense out of it.
2. She spends every moment socializing and never, never, never does anything at all with work. Skips meetings if she is not in the mood. Impulsive.
How the workplace deals with her:
1. Took her completely out of a technical position and put her in the admin office and now she buys things. The workplace paid for her to get a Master’s degree in science (someone else wrote her thesis for her) and now she just buys things. But she kept her elevated paycheck and the admin folks just hate her.
How I deal with her:
1. I learned the hard way that HR / management would not touch the falsified records with a 10-foot pole. I had to recall the reports and fix them myself.
2. I transferred to another work group.
3. When she tried to transfer to my current work group, I said I would not work with her. She stayed in admin for now – thank God.
4. When she manipulated some managers to try to force me into early retirement last year so she could have my job, I recognized the source immediately and saved the nasty e-mails and phone calls. I called them all out on it and they have been silent now for over a year.
The active interaction was only 3 years, but it was a nightmare. Thank you for sharing your story. I still feel the effects and stay vigilant. Very best wishes to you and congratulations on surviving the experiences and most of all for believing in yourself.
I’ve wondered what would be the perfect occupation for a sociopath – the one that would keep them busy, satisfied and stop making people’s lives miserable.
“Buying Stuff” sounds like a perfect fit! (too bad about the rest of that group)
– they get to spend other people’s money
– variety
– they get to show off
– bragging/lie telling to get better pricing
The only downside I can see is if they started getting kickbacks. Too bad there isn’t any travel involved to give the coworkers a break.
Oh Speakout if there’s travel there would be a mistress who was being victimized at every stop!!!….These poisonalities are incorrigible!!!!
the simple fact is no one knows how to deal with a sociopath (or even know what a sociopath is)…look at the one healthy parent who is exhausted from their toddler sociopathic craziness, then they are passed onto the school system and they including their teachers don’t know how to deal with them, throw in their bf/gf/spouse and work place and sociopath’s have a very long history of creating chaos that sadly is extremely destructive to each and everyone one of their victims.
Thank goodness Donna is making a difference with her education college/high school lectures.
I worked at a huge multinational entertainment corporation for over a decade, and at one point found myself working directly under a new spath boss and her spath boss. Upper management had booted out my original boss (a really talented man who had made lots of money for the corporation over the decades) because he wasn’t considered “young and hip” enough any longer.
These new bosses seemed (to me, at least) to be on a mission to either fire me, or make me quit.
I had put in over a decade at that company, had always gotten excellent reviews, raises and promotions, and had enjoyed the creative position very much up to the point that these two entered the picture. At first the subtle and not-so-subtle mistreatment made me literally ill and I felt like quitting, but instead, I worked at getting myself transferred out of my immediate boss’ department. It worked! I was able to enjoy many more years at that company in a different but equally fun and creative department without being interfered with by the “dynamic duo.”
So, my advice is that if you find yourself involuntarily working for a spath, and if you are vulnerable to their abuse due to their greater influence and power in the corporate hierarchy, then try to get yourself transferred or start job hunting in another company ASAP. Its not worth getting sick over; your healthy body and your healthy mind are the most important things you have, really.