Nodal Bits

Lucrezia Borgia (1480-1519), infamous lady of the Borgia family who purportedly poisoned rivals.

I’m periodically reminded of some of the worst people I’ve had the pleasure of working with in corporate America. While everyone’s worked with people who are merely negative or less-intelligent or annoying, the worst-of-the-worst people are downright evil and malicious.

We spend so much time at our workplaces that morale and enjoyment of the people you spend your life with becomes very important. If one of those people is a sociopath, it can really put a strain upon your workdays. Strange that I would still think about these people, but negative incidents stick with you a lot stronger than positive ones, in many cases.

Some of these psychopaths float from company to company, leaving destruction and casualties in the wake of their passing. You can identify them pretty quickly — I remember one woman who introduced herself to me via an email note that was a fairly blistering flame — truly awesome intro for a relative newbie who can’t possibly have the full context of what/how/why things are done at a company. I say that it’s easy to identify corporate psychopaths, because, when they arrive at a company, they often go in seeking to shank the strongest first, like the new alpha-male, entering a prison block! They’ll attempt to sideline and eliminate the high-performers in order to be able to manipulate and control the entire environment.

These people are pretty wheels-off, out-out-of-control in many cases. They are primarily out for personal gain with no regard to anyone else, and/or they are out for inflicting unhappiness upon others for the sheer enjoyment of it.

Oh, the stories I could tell — (more…)