Are you a psychopath?

So I was reading this interesting article a few weeks back about this new phenomenon (or old one really, they've now just put a name to it) of corporate psychopaths. They've probably been around since one caveman beat another one over the head for his hard-earned hunt or to impress some chick, but these days they're far cleverer and more devious than ever.

It got me thinking of all the office psychos I've had the misfortune to call my colleagues over the years.

And led me to take a online psychopath test to make sure I wasn't one of them myself. Well, you never know, right?

It turns out I don't exhibit any psychopathic tendencies but I meet 100% of criteria for some sort of personality disorder, likely an antisocial one. Mwahahaha, there's a thousand people that could've told you that.

So fortunately for all my fellow workers, I'm not a likely candidate to undermine, intimidate or bully you or make you seek counselling. Well, I may make you seek counselling but for an entirely different reason.

But I have been on the other end of the old corporate psychopath, in fact, in my younger days I tended to be the magnet for the bastards. Probably due to my shyness and lack of standing-up-for-myself, I always managed to attract the attention of some psycho or another to practice their specialities on.

These snakes are tricky bastards, as their general MO is to lure you in with charm and friendship first and then increasingly seek to undermine and criticise you and generally make you feel like a worthless human being.

And I've fallen for it big time. More than once. Sometimes it can take years to even realise that you're in the equivalent of an abusive relationship, and even harder to extricate yourself. It's worse when the psycho is your boss.


The worst part is I've spent years wondering what it is that I've done wrong. It's dented my confidence and affected my behaviour and made my performance suffer. Which then makes the cycle worse and it all begins again.

Basically I fed the beast.


I've felt so helpless and powerless in my past but the great part is I've learned how to recognise them and hopefully next time I simply won't get sucked in.

Have you worked with an office psycho? Are you one yourself? Do you get a kick out of manipulating and controlling people, and don't really have an empathy for anyone else? Or that the end justifies the means?

I'm not perfect (and clearly my test results demonstrate this!) but at least my personality issues probably make me care too much, not the other way around. I can manipulate persuade with the best of them but am more likely to kill you with kindness and make you walk away from my desk feeling 10 foot tall.

I'm just giving like that.

I'd love to hear your stories.

(caveat: thankfully I am now in a job where I haven't yet identified the corporate psycho although I'm sure she/he exist. If you're reading this, please leave me alone).

xx