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.
Thank you – I want you to know that I was not accusing nurses, as I know you were/are a nurse, and it takes fantastic empathy and self strength to to dedicate as the profession demands…but I completely understand your position and applaud your decision. I have been through my own turmoil in the last year and suffered at the cruelty of a management person in the healthcare industry, which only added to emotions I was dealing with (not S related, my mother died and I went from being employee of the quarter to having an “attitude problem” because I wouldn’t work overtime anymore while I dealt with my family obligations and grief) I am not sure this management female was an S, but everything was peaches and cream when I worked 56 hours a week, but, but when I needed 5 instead of 3 days for bereavement, well, I stepped over some sort of line.
I posted somewhere else that I was going into business for myself…I am a paralegal that deals with Health Insurance issues…I have been in hell….I can’t work for these people anymore….So I found it VERY interesting that you said that….I was looking for some insight, as my situations have left me feeling very alone without a way to put my finger on my situations.
I went bac to work about 3 months after my husband’s traumatic death in an aircraft crash, (I pulled him out of the fire) I only worked 2 days a week (actually nights) but came in to work one night to have only 2 of us when there should have been 5 RNs, with 3 patients actually dying, and 2 of those were from DEHYDRATION from not enough staff on the day shift—when I called the administrator she was concerned ONLY with whether or not I thought she was TRYING to get enough help. I didn’t care how hard she was TRYING, but was dealing with the fact that patients were DYING because of the FAILURE of having enough staff.
Of course she became angry at me, and told me I had “an attitude” and was “not a team player”—both of which I agreed with. I did have an “attitude” and I wasn’t a team player because there was NO TEAM to play on!
I suggested that if there was not enough staff to care for them that patients be diverted to another hospital that DID have staff, but she let me now that THAT WAS NOT an option.
I turned in my notice. During my best of times I could deal with that “stuff” but not when I was still grieving, and it was more important to me to take care of ME, than to fight a situation that I COULD not win, and quit work and retire.
Most people are given 2 or 3 days off for the death of an immediate family member and then expected to return to work. Since my job required a great deal of concentration I didn’t feel tha tI was able to return to work at all until 3 months, but then realized, really that even then I was not ready. With the other stressers in my life going on at the same time, I shouldn’t have even tried to go back to work.
I don’t care how strong a person you are, there are somethings that NO ONE can cope with and still do a stressful job well. I finally stopped holding myself to a higher standard than is humanly reasonable. I never held anyone else to that standard, but for some reason I held myself to that standard.
Learning to be KIND TO MYSELF was the first of many steps I needed to take in order to start the healing process. I also realized that the “healing process” will never end, it is like an alcoholic “heals” but it is a day-to-day process, that is never “complete”–it is an on-going process, not an end point where you can say “I am healed.” Accepting that healing is on-going was another concept that was difficult for me to grasp. But that concept has made it easier for me to reach twoard the goal and not beat myself up if I am somewhat short of the goal on any particular day.
Life isn’t perfect now, and I am still far from perfect now as well, but as long as I can stay on the “right path” toward improvement, I won’t slide back too far. Right now, though I must accumulate some strength so that when the next “shoe falls” I won’t fall to pieces with it…but will have the reserve strength to handle it “well.”
I am a nurse as is my P husband. I tend to agree that healthcare professionals have a higher number of psychopaths than other professionals, and in my experience, they definitely gravitate toward management positions. I have known very few fair, compassionate directors of nurses. Most of the ones I’ve known have been very cut-throat and self-serving.
I wonder if psychopaths are drawn to helping professions. All the better to fool you, my dear! Well, that’s certainly the case with my husband. He is one of the most competent nurses I know. He is Mr. Hero on the job (and doesn’t hesitate to brag about it; every night when he’d get home from work I’d hear about the wonders of his workday; to hear him talk he was the only decent healthcare worker in the place; everyone else was an idiot).
He gets more compliments from patients. Honest to God, he has patients and patients’ relatives telling him he was “born to be a nurse.” That he is “an angel.” Barf. I guess listening to this day after day helps him maintain the lies he tells himself. Helps to fool others, of course, and fool himself too.
Not only that, for a man, working in a hospital offers an extremely lucrative female to male ratio, which my P, and I’m sure many others like him, do not hesitate to take advantage of.
I don’t want to make it sound like there are no honest, good-hearted healthcare workers. Most are. But if 1-4% of the general population are psychopaths, my impression is that the numbers are higher in healthcare professions.
Whether this man is a sociopath or not, I wonder when it became alright to pre-judge an individual who has never harmed you and place them into a position of persona non-Grata, for your feelings. I wonder how much your feelings have been shaped by what you have read and by this site instead of based on your own personal experiences. To me it is unfair to project upon someone else that which you would like to see. If the man has not given you any reason to find negativity in him, other than going out of his way to try and get to know you and be friendly, then you must ask yourself, why would you compare him to a sociopath. Secondly, no matter what list of traits you may create for any disorder, most individuals will meet 1 or 2 of those traits at given points in their life. That is why the DSM-IV and most other psychological list demand that a person meet a definitive amount of the criteria. I feel that this is rather catty, a form of finger pointing and a cry for attention rather than a real description of real world sociopathy. I mentioned earlier the act of projection, which in psychology is when you choose to see an individual in the manner that you want to despite the reality of their actions or personality. This is done when you feel a weakness or lacking internally due to a personal affliction of your own. That is what this seems like more to me, than some real life confrontation with a sociopath.
Concerned Viewer,
I don’t know if you are speaking in generalities or talking about one poster specifically, but imo it is more than “alright to pre-judge an individual who has never harmed you and place them into a position of persona non-Grata, for your feelings.”
Besides the fact that most, if not all, of the examples on this thread are about people who are anything but harmless, experience demonstrates that our intuition is there for good reason. It can serve us, protect us, and trusting it is usually the right thing to do.
In our society we are often influenced by thinking like yours. Don’t be judgmental, always look for the good. And being the sensitive people most of us are, we feel vaguely guilty; we think we should change. We don’t want to be unfair. We don’t want to be unkind. We don’t want to think, let alone say, mean things about other people.
And so these people–sociopaths–obtain another advantage. We are demonized for even trying to protect ourselves. We are duped, once again, into suspending our innate judgment and good sense–protective mechanisms we’ve been practically brainwashed to ignore.
Many who encourage us to think this way do mean well, but coming from a sociopath, these admonishments are darkly manipulative tactics: a way to put us on the defensive, a way to deflect blame, a way to gaslight us and get us to suspend judgment so they can get away with unbelievably monstrous behavior.
Don’t feed the troll. Whose judging, whom?
Holywatersalt – Concerned viewer didn’t understand what this page was about…WE know it is about relieving negative feelings and finding peace again…that is what concerned viewer failed to understand…They didn’t read the home page, they didn’t take the time because what they were in search of information that didn’t apply to our situations and they are a college student…they have yet begun to experience life, let alone, have understanding of what we went through, and this forum onto which we gathered. CV did not understand their audience, and as we all know, that comes with time. That IS just being human. Quick to judge? Yes. But we all learn from our mistakes with patience and guidance.
Apparently, Concerned Viewer jumped-in between commercials and has lost the plot!
CV, these aren’t men who “just wanted to get to know” us. In many cases, they’ve been abusive, done despicable acts against us, and have proven themselves liars, cheats, frauds (hence the title of the blog) emotional and/or physical abusers and all around sick b@stards. (Pardon the French.)
Nobody is crying for attention. We’re just going over events in the aftermath, trying to make sense of the nonsensical world of the sociopath, who, by the way, is quick to make judgments and condemn other people for being somehow “inferior.”
Hope you’re not doing that, or meaning to come across that way.
I can well remember when at age 19, in all the narcissistic arrogance of youth I sat in a place in California and expounded on the causes of all political upheaval and wars… my later husband (who was older than I was) and knew much much more about the world than I actually did, smiled benignly at me with sort of a grin that I recognize now as a very tolerant smirk. Years and years later when we married, I looked back on this time in my life and I asked him “Why on earth would you tolerate such a know-it-all adolescent without at least saying something to bring me down a peg?”
He laughed and said, “But you were so cute about it!”
Years later, when I listened to a very “know it all” teenager (who had been one of the most pleasant younger children I had ever known) expound on why he should be allowed to drive his parent’s vehicles even though he did not yet have a driver’s license. This was after a very lengthy and logical discussion on what the ramifications would be if he were in a wreck–both to him and to his parents—and at the end of it all he shouted, “Just give me ONE good reason!”
AT the time I despaired of this young man ever growing up to be a model citizen, but he did—-
When I went back to college as an older student to finish up my undergraduate and then graduate work, I was in classes with people of different ages, and it was a very interesting experience.
Later, when I went back to a college as the health care provider I enjoyed the freshmen’s narcissistic views of the world, and then when they came back as sophomores, after a summer of working in the real world many of them had matured into adults–it took a few more years for some of the others, and a few never matured while they were in college.
Yes, and sometimes I was NOT as tolerant as my late husband was when I was a narcissistic teenager, but opinions are like noses, every one has one. Unfortunately for some of us, we have gotten our REAL educations in the UNIVERSITY OF HARD KNOCKS, regardless of where our academic degrees (if any) came from…personally, I learned HOW to learn in college, and was exposed to “new ideas’ (not all of which I agree with today) but my practical and useful education came from the U of Hard Knocks—and I have awarded myself a Post Doctoral degree in that August institution, I paid a HIGH TUITION and studied hard, as most of us here have. I think many of the people on this list are still working on their “master’s degree” but many if not most of us have at least gotten our “undergrad” work out of the way.
Commencement will be in May—the year is optional. LOL
OXDOVER,
I work with Teen girls. They have it ALL figured out. And yes, they are little Narccissists. Weren’t we all? This is a normal developmental stage. But we aren’t talking about teenage Narcissism, are we?
I was a little harsh on Concerned Viewer on the other thread. I just don’t like when people jump in with big studies and fancy words to try and tell us what this was all about. And as far as Man-Haters, I am definately not one and I left another site before ending up here at LoveFraud because there was a lot of bashing going on but no answers. While we do commiserate and recount the long list of details, I find the level of conversation to be very intelligent and accessible here at LoveFraud. Here, we explain in plain words what a Sociopath is by sharing our experiences and recognizing the common threads.
I have read lots of clinical explanations for Sociopathy and other disorders from the DSM-IV. However, reading about people’s experiences in plain words is what has clarified this experience for me more than any clinical definition. And for us, Sociopaths are not just a chapter we read about in one of our classes. We didn’t know what they were before but now, WE KNOW!