The Supervisor
As the workplace mobsters re-strategized how to win me over and destroy me, the workplace dynamics took a change for the better. I don’t know that my prayers had anything to do with it, but I thank God for the reprieve. All I wanted to do was work – not put up with narcissistic behaviors from immature adults. I’d had enough. I had even come to the verge of quitting, but it simply wasn’t the right time for me to do so.
The narcissistic supervisor, who I’d finally figured out was leading the charge of my destruction to push me out was moved to another facility. After I found out what type of person he really was, I can’t say I was too surprised, but as it turns out, he’d wreaked havoc upon more than just me in the workplace too. However, with me, he was more careful and more subtle with his behaviors. With other coworkers, he was downright mean to their faces.
Since I was in a previous profession where I was top tier with documentation, this supervisor tried to play it very safe with me. He was very careful to always word things just right while twisting his words into a chaotic word salad and making absolutely no sense. However, I was always steps ahead of his game. I wrote down everything he said, memorized it, and then regurgitated it back to him when he tried to gaslight me. I had learned from previous experiences with narcissists that I could never be passive and just take their abuse.
After careful observation, I had recognized this supervisor’s penchant for gaslighting me into believing he’d not said things that he had. He constantly attempted to make me question reality and my own sanity. So I documented every single one of our conversations. I wrote down details that would surely make sense to him when I needed to repeat them, and when I did repeat them, I made sure to gain clarity from his statements when I wanted him to further elaborate on them. When he tried to recant some of his words, I made sure to repeat to him his words verbatim all while making sure to add in who was around (or not) when he said what what he said.
A few times, I’d gotten a weird vibe from this supervisor. He seemed flirty with me at times when no one was around, but I knew this was all a part of that narcissistic charm of love bombing. The moment I sensed this vibe, I also thought about how this vibe was intended to initially make me feel. Singling me out and making me feel as if I was on some sort of pedestal was what he wanted me to feel, but I’d been down this road with actual narcissists so many times before, I absolutely couldn’t take the bait.
Instead of succumbing to what this supervisor desired of me, I played it cool and ignored his flirty behaviors. I played dumb and would often just stare at him and then respond with some off-handed comment about the actual work to throw him off. I knew this mode of narcissistic operation very well, and I saw how he used this same flirty behavior with others when he thought I wasn’t aware. In fact, I became very aware that this type of behavior was used to triangulate and isolate his intended targets with his dismissiveness towards them when he couldn’t get them to do what he wanted them to do. His discards of people were immediate and swiftly done in the heat of anger.
This supervisor was nothing short of a con artist, but I personally didn’t think he was smart about it. I chose to settle upon what his flirty behaviors and other manipulative actions were designed to get me to feel and do for him. I personally believed that he wanted to show he had power over me and others through manipulation, but in the workplace, I’m a professional at all times. I always let anyone know that I’m big on workplace policy and ethics. When there was a chance to have a sit-down meeting with this supervisor, I made him aware of this, and he realized, with that crazy stare in his eyes, that I was no dummy and that he had to play it safe with me.
Through all of this, I had no idea the havoc and discord this supervisor had caused elsewhere in other departments. As I had suspected, he was a notorious liar, and eventually his lies caught up with him and cost him his position. The level of hope I had for him overall dwindled quite a bit when I realized the nature of his true character. He was not a good person. He basically contorted himself into the person he perceived everyone wanted him to be, but he couldn’t hide his true self for very long. In fact, it didn’t take long for many coworkers to see what type of person he truly was within the work environment.
I wasn’t sad to see this supervisor go, but I was disappointed that he wasn’t as positive a person as I had previously believed him to be. I had given him the benefit of doubt by trying to see the best in him until the best of him was too hard to see. I also hadn’t realized until much later that the supervisor was the reason for many of the woes that befell upon me in the workplace. There was a bully that he catered to in place of another bully he replaced, and I was none the wiser to his narcissistic tactics at first. I sincerely believed he’d come to clean up the toxicity within the workplace only for him to actually add even more toxicity to it. He traded in one narcissistic headache for another, and both of those headaches radiated their absolute disdain and hatred against me.
For as long as I’d been in the particular department I’d been in, this supervisor moved in others and placed them above me despite my good work and honest efforts. I’d been in the department a lot longer than anyone else since there’d been a huge turnover after so many coworkers left when the previous team lead and coach were fired and demoted from their positions. Yet, somehow I was demoted in status too but still expected to train everyone that was sent to work with me. I was unaware that this supervisor intended to phase me out as well. He had an entirely different agenda than he had originally talked up to me, and it seemed to revolve around destruction.
I was unaware, at first, that this supervisor actually used the actions of a mob group against me to push me out. How uncanny it was of me to actually go to him and say, “I feel like there’s a force attempting to push me out of here … make me want to leave, but I won’t leave unless I know I’m supposed to.” I didn’t realize that he, along with the mobsters, represented that force that was attempting to drive me out. Yet, he pretended to reassure me that my position was safe and that I had nothing to worry about. However, all the while, he carefully curated terror against me while smiling cheerfully in my face.
Once this supervisor left, the chaotic behaviors of the mobsters toned down a lot, and they eventually were disbanded and separated by team leads. Team leads noticed that productivity within the department had drastically decreased and that any time I was actually working my assigned post (and not moved around by the supervisor), productivity actually increased. As the team leads and two other coworkers put it, “You’re the glue holding things together in this department. What was he [the supervisor] thinking by keeping you from doing what you’re gifted to do?”
So, after the supervisor was gone, I was sent back into my position, with the promise to never to be removed again. After an overhaul and thorough observation of all the damage that the supervisor had caused within the department with his unprofessional work moves, the mobsters were somewhat disbanded as it was seen that there was always drama and a lack of productivity when they were together. This disbanding made it a lot easier for me to want to go to work and not worry about narcissistic tactics and backlash for simply doing my job.
For once, I had the opportunity to see into each individual psyche of each member of the mobbing group. It turns out that the schedules were arranged in a way that I only ever had to work with the mobsters as a whole just one day. Otherwise, I worked with each one on separate days which gave me an opportunity to learn what drove them to behave as they did towards me as well as in general. I came to learn that they weren’t so tough when they were apart.
The mobsters only had perceived strength against me when they were together. Yet, even when they were together, I realized that my ability to react with obliviousness and to appear dumb, silent, and nonchalant would send them over the edge. I could only wonder why they all needed to bond against me when I had done absolutely nothing against them. Individually, they were weak, but together, I realized they were also weak. They needed each other to mask their individual weaknesses like a moth attracted to a flame.
But, as I said, I took the opportunity to silently learn about each mobster one by one, and I realized that they are all just people trying to survive. They are all people dealing with a cluster of issues and looking for ways to alleviate them. They are all people who haven’t truly learned the best ways to regulate their emotions, which is why they had a tendency to behave and react so immaturely. Yet, I had to learn quickly that giving them the benefit of doubt would be a huge mistake. As much as they each pretended to be, they were never going to be my friends, and I should never give them the benefit of doubt.
Stay tuned for more …
My Voice Unchained 