I've seen this in operation at a number of companies myself. Those of you that have followed my blog over time have seen me share accounts of "Jay" who behaved in this way with his treatment of women. Instead of advancing on their own merit, they cast an envious and jealous eye on those who have. At that point, a plan is hatched to take them all down at any cost.
Machiavellian morality
This type of person has a name: Psychopath. The problem is that they are born without the inner "governor" that we all have which guides us in the battle between right and wrong. That inner guide and moral compass is almost completely absent in their vacant minds. Without a fully formed sense of guilt and empathy, they will engage in the most wicked of actions to replace someone at your company with no feelings of remorse.
On the contrary; psychopaths, sociopaths or narcissists – whichever you wish to call them, get a perverse sense of joy at causing others to suffer. If you read up on how these people work, they have a need for what's called: Narcissistic Supply. Imagine a gas tank of power and pure evil that needs to be refilled on a regular basis. The psycho needs to commit regular actions to top-up his tank of power and evil whenever it starts getting low. It always ends up being at the expense of your employees.
Now to the unsuspecting management, the new worker seems great! These people have an outer facade, and can be quite charming at first. Their lack of empathy and cutthroat drive, would seem to make for a great salesperson for instance, until the pillars of your company begin falling down. Employees who've been solid for you, suddenly find their legs cut right out from under them. They don't realize that the psychopath is orchestrating all of this from behind the scenes. One by one they fall, leaving the narcissist alone at the top.
And that is the problem for the erstwhile business owner. In order for the 'narc' to succeed, he feels has to take out everyone else who's competent that might be in the way in his path to the top. So he cuts through them like a knife, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. The business owner usually finds out what happened long after his best people have been run out of the company. He's now at the mercy of one person, who's removed anyone else that was competent, leaving you totally reliant on them.
You may remember me sharing with you about being robbed here while I lived in Germany in 2018. I used to manage the building I lived in, and the company had a number of properties all run by different managers. Until one day, they hired a psychopath as the janitor...
She'd attended an AA group with the owner and begged him to hire her as no one else would. Remember, these people have an outward shell, and can appear to be something they're not. Her shell was of a holy Christian woman, which she was anything but. She was hired as the cleaner for one of our smaller buildings, and immediately began plotting against the manager.
Destroying lives
Now that man was an actual God-fearing believer. However since she was in group with the property owner, she began spreading false rumors and innuendo that he was beating his wife. I'd done some work for the owner and was leaving the office, when I saw the kindly manager weeping outside. Everyone liked him and I went over to see what was the matter. Wracked with sobs, he said that someone had spread a rumor of domestic violence about him, and he was going in to be fired. This man cried on my shoulders, and I was incredulous at the news.
Since we all liked him, I was able to talk to him and his wife separately. They each denied the rumor, and couldn't figure out where it came from. After speaking to the owner it was apparent that the damage was done. Years later we all found out who spread the falsehood, and guess who replaced him as building manager? The drug and alcohol addicted sociopath.
Not content with getting one manager fired, she started plotting to take out yet another. You see, she had an expensive drug habit, and had to pay for her own and her husbands addiction. So no matter how much money she had, she always needed more. As soon as she took over, a wave of thefts began in the building, way more than usual. Phones, jewelry, and anything of value started to disappear from the units. She also rented some out, had them pay her in cash while reporting the units as empty. This brought in even more money which went in her arms or right up her nose.
The second building manager was taken out when she told the owner that he had raped a female tenant and her teen-aged daughter. I also spoke to them, and none of it was true, but he was fired as well. Now you have to remember, none of us suspected this "holy woman" at the time, and these rumors seemed to materialize out of thin air. We knew somebody had to be behind it, and people asked me if it might be her. I'd known her for years, and I'm thinking: "That nice Christian woman? I'd be surprised if she was behind it." Little did we know...
The mystery caller
Eventually I became the manager of my building, and was the only honest man to hold the position. On the first day I was hired, someone called me with a warning. This mystery caller somehow knew about my character and said: "You're an honest man, and she is plotting to get you fired like the other managers."
We were at the start of a major renovation of the building, and a no-nonsense city inspection. The caller went on to explain that her plan was to have me do all of the hard work moving tenants and furniture around, maintain and cleaning the entire building, then passing the inspection. Once passed, I'd be terminated on false charges, and she could walk in to a spotless building after I'd done all the work to pass the inspection.
Was this a crank call? Who knew? But I did speak with her the next day, and with a hurt look on her face, she assured me it wasn't true. It was all a lie...
After ten months of back-breaking work, the city announced that I'd passed. There would be another month of smaller inspections and visits from the fire department and the insurance company, but the big one was over. Note: For the first (and only) time in my buildings history, not one tenant had anything stolen from their units. No cellphones, no watches or wedding rings, nothing. In fact, I'd found $350 under a dresser of a resident who'd had a seizure. I returned it to him and told him he was lucky I was the manager and had never drank or done drugs, as the others would have pocketed it. That's the kind of person I am.
A few weeks later as we were all basking in the glow of the positive remarks from the city, the owner called me into his office. He said that he'd spent $93,000 renovating the building (he'd neglected maintenance for over 15 years), and he wanted me to go to my building and "get back" that money for him. "How?" I asked: "I want you to inspect their units every day, find some little thing wrong, and then charge them $25 per infraction."
Knowing he was a greedy guy who was already wealthy, I'd taken the job on the condition that I would not engage in any shady behavior, and turned him down flat. Many of my people were elderly, on a fixed income, and were already spending in some cases, over half of their monthly income on rent.
It was his fault he'd neglected the buildings for so many years in order to buy vacation homes, cars and boats. We had a deal that he would give me 30-days notice if he was going to replace me, and he said if I didn't do it, he'd find someone who would. I told him I wanted to make it to Heaven, and I wasn't going to get there by stealing from the poor. "Are you giving me that 30-days notice? He said no, and it was because we still had another month of minor inspections left where he could still lose the buildings license. He wanted me to get them through all that, as her two buildings had failed their inspections, and I had to go over there to help her pass. So he knew she wouldn't get the job done, but I would.
A month later he called me in to tell me he had pancreatic cancer and had thirty days to live. I'd just passed the fire code checklist from the city, and had the insurance company guy coming to inspect the building, and he would be the last.
The payoff
The owner told me that he'd heard a rumor that I was an ex-con and had spent time in prison! I started laughing thinking he was punking me, looking around to see if his son was hiding somewhere about to pop up squealing with delight. Turns out he wasn't. I've never been arrested, charged with a crime, or spent even one minute in jail in my entire life! I'm like" "Wait a minute, you're serious?" Guess where he heard it from? Her. The same person who spread the untrue rumors about the other two managers. I was the last independent manager left. With me gone, she'd run all of the properties by herself, and maximize the theft potential. As they paid her more for running multiple buildings.
At this point, I remembered that call I got ten months prior which warned me about her. It was so obvious to see what she'd done, I had to give her credit, it was an ingenious plan, and it worked. But I wasn't about to give up so easily...
I asked him when was I supposedly in prison? he said that she told him that I'd just gotten out the prior year. So I had him pull my file which showed I'd been living in the building for eight years at that point... Can't be in two places at once now can we?
Which prison did I do time in? Lets contact the fine institution, they should have a record of me, right? If in fact I was there... After doing time in the hoosegow, wouldn't I be reporting to a parole officer? Let's call the state probation and parole office right now shall we, and see if I'm on their list. None of that was possible of course, because not a word of it was true.
He was shocked, and immediately realized she'd lied to him. She had no idea how long I'd lived there and thought I'd only moved in within the last year. Presented with that fact, I told him to fire her instead, as if she lied about me, she'd done the same with the other managers.
Tapping the desk, he thought about it, then said he couldn't back down from terminating me as it would make him look weak to the other employees because he'd already told everyone he was going to do it. "You're the only manager I've ever fired that didn't deserve it." And that was that.
Here's a man who's about to meet his maker, with death staring him in the face, and one of his last acts is to knowingly terminate an innocent man. I let him know I would go and clean out my office, but he told me to wait, as I was still the manager for 24 more hours, because he needed me to walk the insurance guy in to pass the final inspection. The nerve of this guy. He wanted me to take all the responsibility, and didn't trust her not to bungle that. I only agreed to do so as I wanted to break the news to the guys myself. I also wanted to give them time to move any valuables out of their units as I knew she'd steal whatever she could.
Next: Part 2 – The Aftermath