1 in 100 workplace adults is a psychopath

[Robert Oak]

Tell me something I don't know...now where could they be getting
their role models from.....could it be...the sociopathic corporate
entity?

Perhaps, but chances are just as good, and maybe better, that the psycho in your workplace is your boss, his boss, perhaps even your CEO.

Now can you hear the lambs, Clarice?

As many as one in 100 adults in the workplace is a psychopath, according to the forthcoming "Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work" by Robert D. Hare, Ph.D., professor emeritus in psychology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and Paul Babiak, Ph.D., a New York-based industrial-organizational psychologist.

http://biz.yahoo.com/brn/050414/15921.html

[Conservativesux]

1. Its true. I have worked with a couple of those people. Truly sick..

individuals who need mental health treatments, not being allowed authority over those who are not sick, as seems to be the case too often.

[EVDebs]

2. Movie "The Corporation" thesis is that corps are pathological 'persons'

The Corporation exhibits all the indicators of mental illness/pathology as a fictitious 'person'. Interesting concept and thought provoking.

Can you make a 'citizen's arrest' on a corporate entity acting illegally ? I wonder ...

[morcatknits]

3. Of Course

What's new about that? Usually they are called "boss," or maybe "supervisor."
morcatknits

[applegrove]

4. Absolutely terrifying to be the target of one of these freaks. Absolutely

terrifying. If one of these suckers is stalking and targeting you inside and outside of work, they will attack to keep from being exposed and purposely cause psychic trauma (they will goat senior staff people to go after you) so that you will fall apart/become angry/ go into shock/scream and they can point to you and say:"don't listen to x - x is crazy'. If that does not work and you do not visibly fall to pieces - then they will have car windows smashed in your name and spread it around (as you are leaving your job to get away from them)and you'll never be the wiser.

Go to the police and get out of town. Move! I didn't because I wanted to be close to my family & friends and they kept after me in all facets of my life with gossip. I didn't want to believe horrible the stalking had been. I went into shock. Now I have PTSD.

Protect yourself first of all.

[Montauk6]

5. I'm sure there are those coworkers you scratch your head over

Wouldn't you just love to have been a fly on the wall during their interview?

[fasttense]

6. I made the mistake of hiring one of those crazies.

At the interview she came across as normal and intelligent (she was taking her medication). But after working for a year (and I think she stopped taking her meds) I had taken steps to force her to do her job, she filed a religious discrimination grievance against me which made no sense. (She said I discriminated against her because she was Christian and I was Jewish. I am Christian and not Jewish and never have been Jewish. My sister is Jewish and she overheard me talking about my sister.) Anyway, she started calling at work and leaving strange guttural animal sounds (caller ID was blocked). Then she called my home and did the same thing. The good thing was that she never came back and failed to go to the hearing she set up to accuse me of discrimination. Thank God she worked for me and not the other way around.

[elehhhhna]

7. I hired a nutjob once-- in sales.

If she'd applied her fake empathy, her intellect, and her persuausive skills to the job, she'd have made 6 figures easily. I told her so when she "quit".

I actually incited her to quit...firing her might have set her off, and she was a dangerous & convincing troublemaker. So I let her catch me staring at her with a horrible but thoughful look on my face, eyes narrowed--once she actually jumped when she noticed me--and she quit in 2 days.

[Boomer]

8. Interesting distinction

>> Babiak says there's an important clinical difference between the psychopath and the garden-variety bully.

"Studies indicate that bullies are actually inept people who are not talented, maybe have a rage against themselves that they express outward toward people they see as being better than they are. It's from a point of weakness that they express their violence toward others. They need the audience," he says. <<

Guess my former boss was a garden-variety bully, rather than a full-blown psychopath. He used to disassemble and clean his Uzi in the middle of the graphic arts studio, which was an obvious attention-seeking gesture. After all, he could have cleaned it in his executive office, right next to the footlocker holding the rest of his gun collection.

[amazona]

9. no kidding

I would have figured it was closer to 5 percent actually.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[smirkymonkey]

10. It seems to me like it should be one out of five.

The workplace is rife with mental illness, and not just sociopaths.

I have long held the idea that most workplaces are like big, highly dysfunctional families and bring out the worst in everyone.

[raccoon]

11. I think you're right about that

I don't know what it is about workplaces, but they do seem to bring out the worst in most people. I guess part of it's because people are forced to be around people they wouldn't choose to be around, if they had the choice. Add to that you have a lot of people who are insecure in their positions. And add to that those who are miserable and want others' company in their misery.

[Kmarx]

12. So what else is new?

If you think 1 in 100 is a bad ratio just look at the figure in Congress: 100% are sociopaths!