

How to deal with Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD)? - bigd

Our boss is definitely affected. This work environment sucks, and I can&#x27;t describe how much. But can&#x27;t leave before july. How would you survive?
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systemtrigger
"The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the
way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity — even under
the most difficult circumstances — to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may
remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-
preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an
animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the
opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may
afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not."

\-- Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning (1946)

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bigd
It seems that on the web, the common opinon is GET OUT. Which is clearly the
way to go. But I cannot believe that with an NPD incidence >1% there's no one
else trapped in a similar situation. Do anyone mind sharing tricks for
survival? and stories?

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dfraser992
When I first moved to London, I came across a small "talent agency" that had a
sign in the window about needing a part time IT person for some grand idea
(nothing more than that). As I have an interest in the artistic stuff, like
screenplays and writing, I thought it seemed like an interesting opportunity.
The interview was ... a bit off. The owner of this agency didn't know anything
about IT, and was cagy about his idea, but it was part time work and I needed
the money. And the little he told me about the idea was interesting.

It turned out to be a good idea, really. I think it would have made some
waves, had the guy and his partner (in all senses of the word) had not been a)
totally clueless about IT and b) raging sociopathic narcissists. The owner,
over time, revealed himself to be a narcissist by constantly comparing himself
to Bill Gates, proclaiming he was going to take over the world (in so many
words), etc - the self congratulatory self talk narcissists indulge in - all
the while being paranoid about the things I needed to do to set up a web host
account, fix a problem with the sort of network we had, and constantly
belittling the "interns" from Europe, who in exchange for doing a bunch of
manual screen scraping and other junk, got a "stipend" of a hundred or so a
week - in exchange for the opportunity to "learn English". The Wikipedia entry
summarizes this guy's characteristics really well. And the stuff he let slip
about being beaten by his father and he didn't see anything wrong with that...
was enlightening.

I finally investigated the UK labor laws and this guy was exploiting all of
us. But in my defense, it was really a good idea for a B2B website involving a
eBay type of setup for promoting and selling TV shows in the European market.
but great ideas are worthless if the people involved are useless.

I diagnosed these two (ok, Wikipedia and some textbooks I have) as having a
particular type of relationship that narcissists and their SO have - I can't
find the reference right now, but it is one that psychologists don't know too
much about because the people don't ever seek treatment - each person's
disorder is mirrored by the other's and so they feed off and support each
other. The complex involves some form of psychological S & M...

So if your boss fits all the criteria on the Wikipedia article - i.e. he's not
just a jerk and his behavioral tics are really outside of the upper range of
normal, then get out. How I defused my leaving was (this guy had a meltdown
when one of the interns decided to take a vacation to go home - he got fired
instead and was sworn at, etc) by leveraging the narcissist's need for
validation as a wonderful, kind, and generous person - I said I was having
issues with depression due to being in London (I moved from the US, so culture
shock), the shift in daylight hours, etc and needed to go home for a bit. He
wasn't too thrilled as I was the key in his plans for world domination, but
how could he yell at me - then I'd totally fuck off. There wasn't really any
sort of contract as the project hadn't really got that far, so I was covered
on that front.

It was a lesson in spotting disordered people, and figuring out how to take
advantage of their issues (for strictly my own safety, of course). So play up
on his need to be validated, and don't make any promises you'd find hard to
break. And get a lawyer if it's in any way possibly needed. Try not to
antagonize this person when you do leave.

