It’s a safe assumption we have all worked for a narcissistic and dishonest boss. Law of averages and all. You know the ones I’m talking about, they always speak in absolutes, weave wild webs of lies on literally any topic discussed, and credit themselves for every success. They live for the next title, promotion, and paycheck, using the bodies of subordinates as rungs to climb on their way up the corporate ladder. At best their behavior can be characterized as immoral; at worst it is criminal. Unfortunately, this type of unscrupulous behavior has become all too common among certain types of men striving for success and leadership. They are often accompanied by their Faithful Sidekick whose sole purpose in life is to enable the boss’s reign of fuckery, hire the private investigators, and keep track of all the lies and bullshit.
Throughout history, these notorious pairs have caused immense harm to their victims and the people around them. Just off the top of my head are dictators Joseph Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria, Wall Street tycoons Leona Helmsley and Alvin Schwartzman, and ‘The Homestead Murderers’ William Tingle and Charles Scrivener. I realize you’re over there like “Stalin? Murderers’? A bit dramatic no?” Nope. This is learned behavior people! Secret prerequisites handed down from generation to generation, all designed for awful shit-fuck behavior to be continuously emulated and celebrated with promotions, payouts, and privilege.
‘Patty Hearst… She had Munchausen Syndrome Right?’ ‘Do You Mean Stockholm Syndrome?’ ‘Obviously…’
I spent nearly a year Patty Hearst’ing my way through the culture of chaos created by The Weird Liar and his Faithful Sidekick. They manufactured an atmosphere of confusion through fear-based manipulation and good old-fashioned gaslighting and I watched helplessly as everyone in the office was made to feel small, stupid, and humiliated. We were silenced with threats of termination or demotion for making mistakes, even if it was The Weird Liar who had made the error. To survive, we spent all of our time, energy, and efforts attempting to appease the whims of our hopeless leader, while actively avoiding any type of challenge that might incur repercussions. So much misinformation was flying around, it was impossible to decipher truth from fiction.
My brain can handle a lot of bullshit, I mean A LOT, but cognitive overload and information paralysis set in quickly, and my gorgeous little brain slid even further down the rabbit hole of fuckery. At one point I recall feeling so overwhelmed by fear and doubt that I couldn’t make a decision – any decision – no matter how big or small. Stay? Go? Right? Wrong? I honestly didn’t fucking know. All motivation had completely disappeared and I felt like nothing mattered anymore; not even my own well-being. Picture walking the tightrope again… but this time it’s the unemployment office/impending poverty on one side and an unfathomable void of absolute nothingness on the other. It’s no wonder that so many of us have come to accept this behavior as normal and become desensitized, especially women who often receive a double dose of manipulation. We have been conditioned by society to believe that our worth is measured in babies, boobs, and bottom lines and if we don’t perform, our value decreases significantly. This thought process can be paralyzing when we are put into situations where our Psychological, Emotional and Physical safety and livelihoods are at stake.
The Weird Liar + His Faithful Sidekick = A Machiavellian Bromance
The Weird Liar and his Faithful Sidekick had a bromance for the ages. Their unique bond of deception and self-preservation has allowed them to stay one step ahead of their competition while trampling everyone else who gets in their way. Their relationship was based on subterfuge and exploitation – they would use each other to accomplish their own selfish goals while throwing everyone else under the bus. They would lie, manipulate, threaten, and intimidate their way to power, making sure that no one else could succeed or even come close to challenging them. They created an oppressive atmosphere where the truth was impossible to find amongst all the gaslighting.
I’m not even sure when the Weird Liar acquired the services of his Faithful Sidekick… assigned at birth? Included in his employment contract like a super creepy sign-on bonus? Regardless of when, those clowns went everywhere together, performed all kinds of shady activities, and possessed an uncanny ability to understand each other’s intentions without speaking a word, like fucking treacherous telepathy. And neither of them looked the part of the supervillain, or card carrying members of The Boys Club. More like your mean uncle Larry that is always miserable from the latest gout flare-up and tends to run people over with his scooter while blaming them for using the sidewalk to walk.
The Weird Liar loved to kick off every meeting by making a grandiose statement, offering up an outlandish solution or promise that is impossible to fulfill. Meanwhile, the Faithful Sidekick would stand guard from the corner, nodding his head and agreeing with everything The Weird Liar said, no matter how absurd (or completely made up) it may have been. His unwavering loyalty always seemed to reassure The Weird Liar that everything that came out of his mouth was right and true, and clients ate that shit up… for a little bit. Together, they were able to sway people’s opinions on any given issue and make them believe whatever they are selling, whether it was a product or service or my soul. And any time a truth or a story didn’t check out, or people started comparing notes, the Faithful Sidekick would serve as the voice of reason and provide a false sense of security to those around him because he always had an answer for anything – even if it didn’t make a bit of sense.
If You Can’t Beat em’… Follow em’.
It didn’t take long to truly understand the level of fuckery the Weird Liar was capable of and his bullshit burrowed deep into my brain until I could not process any more lies. And don’t get it twisted reader, I am not living on a pink cloud of perfection. I lie. You lie. Everyone lies. Shit, most studies show that the average person lies 6 to 8 times a day, but those are white lies. Lying to your friend and assuring her that she looks great when in fact she looks like a drunken trash panda is just smart for everyone involved. The Weird Liar was a master manipulator… that shit hits different.
My attitude shifted from ‘keep my head down and survive’ to ‘burn it all down anarchy’ real quick. I used the one arrow in my quiver and began pointing out the inaccuracies of his stories every time he opened his mouth. It didn’t matter how big or how small, who was around, or what the fallout was, I was on a fucking mission to take him out. The Weird Liar soon realized that not only was I a problem, but I was fucking relentless in my pursuit to make him look like a fucking idiot. He began strategically assigning me tasks that kept me out of team meetings, uninvolved in making important decisions, and as far away from the client as possible. I was isolated and ostracized but I didn’t care about his angle anymore, I was having way too much fun watching him backpedal as his world started closing in around him.
Eventually, the client caught on and began avoiding any interaction with The Weird Liar. His solution? To circumvent all proper channels, and promote me to client liaison. I naively thought it was a positive move for my career, nope. At that moment The Weird Liar declared war on me, my career, and anyone foolish enough to stand by me. He placed a target on my fucking forehead and got his Faithful Sidekick all worked up over the imaginary power struggle. The Weird Liar then instructed his Faithful Sidekick to a private investigator to follow me and my colleagues… in our personal lives. Our fucking personal lives.
I don’t live under the assumption that I am swimming in a sea of personal privacy. I know better. But to have someone creeping around your personal life making notes and reports, all to destroy your life and your career is a whole ‘nother level of fucked up. The feeling of finding out I was being watched 24/7 had a profound effect on my mental health and behavior. I was stripped of any sense of Emotional Safety and filled with stress and anxiety, as well as feelings of paranoia, fear, and isolation – all of which can be debilitating in their own right. While it was not directly related to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the psychological distress experienced was similar in many ways. Research has also shown that when people feel constantly monitored or judged, it can lead to cognitive decline, increased risk-taking behavior, suppressed creativity, and reduced job satisfaction – all of which were true for me during this period in my career.
“If You Tell the Truth, You Don’t Have to Remember Anything.” – Mark Twain
Working for someone who cannot be trusted is exhausting and it felt impossible to speak up because there was zero Psychological safety and the Weird Liar never took responsibility for his actions and was able to bullshit his way of any inquiry. Have you ever read through your receipts and proof only to have the defendant stare into your soul and continue to lie? That shit will make your eye twitch. After a while, I started to feel like Paula Alquist in Gaslight until I realized that I was not alone and I got to know some really amazing people during this time. We had all become victims of a Weird Liar and his Faithful Sidekick trying to manipulate us for their own gain; we had all been gaslit one too many times. Over time, we started to bond over our experiences and created an underground network of people who could be trusted and supported each other over hard-fried chicken wings and dirty martinis. We created a space where truth mattered and we were able to be honest with one another, no matter how difficult it was. It helped us to stay strong in the face of adversity, allowed us to remain resilient despite all the lies and deceit around us, and lined us up for years of self-medicating through alcohol abuse.
Ultimately, bonding through trauma was how we were able to survive working for someone like the Weird Liar and his Faithful Sidekick. We found strength in our shared experience, and we fiercely supported each other – offering solace when any of us were down and celebrating our successes together. And we had some major successes to celebrate! We didn’t just use our happy hour sessions to sit around bitchin’, we workshopped every idea we could dream up. There were no rules and no money but once we went rogue, we worked together to develop and launch some of the coolest concepts that account had seen in a long time and we fucking printed money.
I Regret Nothing…
Though it was short-lived, working for The Weird Liar and His Faithful Sidekick was an experience I will never forget. It taught me how to cope with working for someone who lacks integrity – setting boundaries when dealing with manipulation, to rely on allies for support, foster psychological safety amongst colleagues, understand resilience, and take collective action against injustice. I also learned that clients can have the best intentions in the world and still throw you to the fucking wolves. It’s up to each one of us to look out for the signs of workplace manipulation and exploitation and work together to create a culture based on trust and Psychological Safety. By standing together against those ass clowns, we showed the Weird Liar that there were people who wouldn’t buy his bullshit and that we could still successfully operate under his tyrannical reign whether he was in the way or not.
In the end, working for The Weird Liar and His Faithful Sidekick was a wild ass journey that I will never forget. It taught me how to survive in an environment designed to break you. It reinforced my faith in the power of collective action, and it provided me with a network of people who support one another no matter what. And if you ever find yourself in a situation like this, remember – don’t take their shit anymore. Stand up for yourself, speak your truth, and trust your gut; you will get through it. I promise.