Have anyone have had a boss who is a psychopath?

Prothet_of_Doom

I had a hiring manager who I'd like to describe as a cross between David Brent and Alan Partridge.

Serious case of small man sydrome. Never got angry, but was a real back stabbing erm nasty.

Southend1

Takeaway_Addict wrote: »

Statistically you know you are wrong. There will have been plenty of cases where a bullying manager has been dismissed through the help of HR, employees and their bosses alike.

I'm not sure what you mean by "statistically" in this context?

I would put money on the vast majority (99%+) of bullying bosses going unchecked by HR.

If you know I am wrong can you point to any evidence to support this? As I said, genuinely interested to hear of any cases of bullying managers being officially dealt with by HR.

Takeaway_Addict

Southend1 wrote: »

I'm not sure what you mean by "statistically" in this context?

I would put money on the vast majority (99%+) of bullying bosses going unchecked by HR.

If you know I am wrong can you point to any evidence to support this? As I said, genuinely interested to hear of any cases of bullying managers being officially dealt with by HR.

So never has now changed to 99% plus, I wasn't saying it wouldn't be a high % just it was rubbish to say never (though remember a lot of the time the bullying isn't bullying and is just the employee going on the defensive by attacking after being found short...and I am not saying this is the case on this thread).

If I could be arsed to find some I would, I can't however so you will have to either accept you were wrong or be adamant in your belief....even though its wrong

Southend1

Takeaway_Addict wrote: »

So never has now changed to 99% plus, I wasn't saying it wouldn't be a high % just it was rubbish to say never (though remember a lot of the time the bullying isn't bullying and is just the employee going on the defensive by attacking after being found short...and I am not saying this is the case on this thread).

If I could be arsed to find some I would, I can't however so you will have to either accept you were wrong or be adamant in your belief....even though its wrong

Well as good as never. I mean you'd have to be a pretty useless HR manager to expose the company to compensation for allowing staff health to be damaged by bullying, but maybe it has happened on occasion.

Happy to be proved wrong, maybe someone else will be along with some evidence one way or the other.

Takeaway_Addict

Southend1 wrote: »

Well as good as never. I mean you'd have to be a pretty useless HR manager to expose the company to compensation for allowing staff health to be damaged by bullying, but maybe it has happened on occasion.

Happy to be proved wrong, maybe someone else will be along with some evidence one way or the other.

Exposing and dealing with it are different, if you come to knowledge of a bullying manager you can deal with it straight away, the issue comes when HR know about it, do nothing and then deal with it.

Sometimes its about limiting the damage.

Southend1

Takeaway_Addict wrote: »

Exposing and dealing with it are different, if you come to knowledge of a bullying manager you can deal with it straight away, the issue comes when HR know about it, do nothing and then deal with it.

Sometimes its about limiting the damage.

How can they deal with it without acknowledging it exists? I'm not talking about announcing from the rooftops "hey we have a bully here", but even by initiating disciplinary proceedings against a bully, the problem has been acknowledged.

Takeaway_Addict

Southend1 wrote: »

How can they deal with it without acknowledging it exists? I'm not talking about announcing from the rooftops "hey we have a bully here", but even by initiating disciplinary proceedings against a bully, the problem has been acknowledged.

No other member of staff would officially know the disciplinary procedures against the bully.

they may know by the grapevine but officially the bully is being disciplined and no one elses know this.

Southend1

Takeaway_Addict wrote: »

No other member of staff would officially know the disciplinary procedures against the bully.

they may know by the grapevine but officially the bully is being disciplined and no one elses know this.

The bully, the bully's union rep, witnesses called at disciplinary hearing, manager, HR officers would all know. And there would be a paper trail.

If any action was taken against the bully you could be sure that more people would know than HR would like, potentially leaving the company exposed.

Coraline

The whole situation just screws with your head so much as anyone who's been in one knows. You don't know who to trust and wind up becoming paranoid.

Don't know whether or not to trust HR, as would have go to a level really high up and there are many HR people there of which I think one is on a friendly basis with this person.

Either way I'm not going that route.

I've been mulling the whole thing over and it's interesting how no matter what the point or issue is, the conversation goes along the lines of:

1) The bully/psycho or socio path identifying everything that is or supposedly wrong with you.
2) How your mistakes and the way you work make them personally feel bad and afraid to deal with you.
3) If you try to address the issue diplomatically you get accused of being defensive. Typical response to shut you up: "See, there you are doing what I just said."

Weird. Never in my life have I experienced anything like this.

Southend1

Coraline wrote: »

The whole situation just screws with your head so much as anyone who's been in one knows. You don't know who to trust and wind up becoming paranoid.

Don't know whether or not to trust HR, as would have go to a level really high up and there are many HR people there of which I think one is on a friendly basis with this person.

Either way I'm not going that route.

I've been mulling the whole thing over and it's interesting how no matter what the point or issue is, the conversation goes along the lines of:

1) The bully/psycho or socio path identifying everything that is or supposedly wrong with you.
2) How your mistakes and the way you work make them personally feel bad and afraid to deal with you.
3) If you try to address the issue diplomatically you get accused of being defensive. Typical response to shut you up: "See, there you are doing what I just said."

Weird. Never in my life have I experienced anything like this.

Yes, bullies' behaviour follows a circular pattern which is repeated over and over. A colleague, who was also targeted by the same psychopath boss as me, and I used to joke that we knew what she was going to do or say next before she did.

One of my bully's most common behaviour patterns was....

1. Give a member of staff instructions about a task which were not clear or could only be carried out with information, resources or input provided by the bully.

2. When the staff member asked for assistance or clarification, accuse them of questioning her authority or being incompetent (or both)

3. Report the matter to HR or her manager as a disciplinary issue.


So we felt we had to get everything in writing and keep a paper trail for everything we did and were asked to do. The bully would then accuse us of being petty and undermining her by requesting everything in writing and report our "misconduct".

There were a number of other patterns too, but this was one of the most common patterns with this particular bully.