
Ask HN: How to deal with a manipulative coworker? - b0rsuk
I have an allergy to manipulative and insincere people, and he makes my hair raise. I get an impression he&#x27;s aiming for a team leader, too. See if you can spot a pattern:<p>- makes hurtful jokes and says you have no sense of humor if challenged,<p>- his &quot;I don&#x27;t know&quot; is sounds like &quot;blah, blah, blah, oh, you need to look up more in documentation&quot;,<p>- mostly talks about topics not related to job or even IT,<p>- spends lots of time talking about behavior and motivations of employees at the foreign client,<p>- said he tries to instill conditional reflexes in his girlfriend,<p>- asks quite a few personal questions, but says very little about himself,<p>- pretty often says he&#x27;s busy when you ask him for help,<p>- once he manipulated me into helping him with cURL and POST requests, using words like &quot;ah, but I thought you knew that&quot;,<p>- conspiracy theories are his hobby,<p>- when his pal was repeatedly calling me a dick etc, I told him I could wiretap it and take it to the boss, or he could stop. The evil coworker called <i>me</i> a black-mailer.<p>- spends a lot of time talking about money, or working directly with the client<p>- gives tips like &quot;it&#x27;s cool to go to a ZOO when it&#x27;s closing,they don&#x27;t check if everyone has left&quot;,<p>- sometimes when you explain something to another coworker, he&#x27;s making jokes and fun of you to distract people,<p>- cracks many jokes and is quite charming, but his jokes are much sharp towards me,<p>- when boss is not at the office, the coworker enjoys taking charge in our weekly videoconference (just going through Jira tickets),<p>- clearly fascinated with ways of manipulating people, he talks about stuff like Pavlov&#x27;s experiments, negotiation techniques, serving negotiation partners sweet and good food to make them sleepy and off-guard, etc...,<p>- never loses control, you get an impression he would make a good spy
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extempore
Since apparently nobody else wants to tell you: your very high levels of
passive-aggressiveness and silent grudge nurturing lead me to estimate it
around 70% likely that you are the problem. How do you think he would describe
you, if given the opportunity to respond? You should think about it.

~~~
b0rsuk
Care to elaborate how exactly I'm passive-aggressive ? People have been
telling me I'm blunt and direct. That's what I attract girls with. When I try
to correct that guy's manipulations, he turns it into a joke, says I'm
argumentative, makes a personal attack, and keeps badmouthing me behind my
back.

As for how he would describe me, I can tell you. He described me as sensitive,
eager to please others, and a blackmailer (when I told his openly racist pal
I'd record him repeatedly calling me a dick and take it to the boss). He
criticizes my choice of tools (Bash, Vim) for being ancient without pointing
out anything he can do better with a modern editor - quite the opposite, I see
him struggling finding something that would be very easy to grep. What he says
and what he does simply doesn't add up which is the definition of
manipulation.

He gives another coworker advice on Javascript and one framework, but he
didn't know what type 'var x;' is. Anyone who played with Javascript for more
than a week should know beyond doubt it's _undefined_. Or out of the blue he
says one of Python's advantages is high development speed and he hasn't
considered that (but he was kind enough to blast it for being slow in the
past...no, he only had brief contact with C++).

And it's only the 1 guy I have problems with. Boss likes me, the young and
trusting programmer likes me, the racist pal has some respect for me because I
work out and we can talk about exercise.

------
abc_lisper
I have left a job because of a coworker like this, and ended up at one with a
manager like this. Left that and found another job with a coworker like this.
The point is people like this are pervasive, want to win at any cost and have
no sense of fairness. The thing that keeps them in their place is power, if
possible. Confidence matters a lot too. Don’t seek validation from him, just
don’t care about his opinion of you, and make sure he knows it. Don’t be rude,
or give him any leverage, just look at him like he is your friends obnoxious
kid.

------
pssflops
At the very least, hold a personal meeting with your H.R. department and let
them know you feel uncomfortable working with this person. Perhaps they might
serve the company better in the mail room instead of being outright let go?

~~~
b0rsuk
It's a very small (5 people) outsourcing programming company working for a
grown up foreign startup (30 people, now setting up a beachhead in another
country). There is no HR, my boss does the job interview himself, and he
believes HR are crooks.

I just don't think I can prove he is a malicious manipulator, much less a
psycho. It would become my word vs his word. Unlike his pal, who used to
liberally sling racial slurs, he watches his words. If his remarks are
consistently demeaning towards me, you'd still need to listen to perhaps hours
of wiretapping to pick up a pattern.

~~~
zeeed
I see a lot of name calling, he certainly knows how to push your buttons.

Take a step back, distance yourself from him, focus on doing the right thing
and others will follow. Learn to ignore him and learn about your buttons so
they can’t be pushed so easily.

------
dazc
Fight fire with fire. I have found these types of people tend to gravitate
towards those who are unlikely to challenge their behaviour.

------
speedplane
The cynical answer is to get him on your side. Figure out how he is motivated
and manipulate the manipulator. That doesn’t mean calling him a jerk back, it
means showing him that you have control of his success.

~~~
b0rsuk
I think he would beat me with experience. And I have an idea what he wants -
he wants to become a team leader, and perhaps replace my current boss as the
head of our outsourcing company (several times he openly wondered how it would
be to work directly with our client, to be treated better and earn more, and -
apparently - half-seriously offered his pal to start a company).

~~~
speedplane
Knowing what he wants is only step 1. You also have to know what he needs to
get there and his own limitations to do so. He has to impress someone to get
to where he wants, and he can’t do that simply by being a jerk, he’ll need to
show results. You’ll need to figure out what those results are, and how you
figure into them.

------
mkempe
If this person is not leaving, you should leave asap. For your own sanity and
safety. I've never seen sociopaths get better, I've only seen them hunt and
hurt other people.

~~~
LinuxBender
Perhaps first document everything, daily, with timestamps and no emotion.
Provide the documents to HR. If they side with the sociopath, then leave the
company and document it on glassdoor so that others are less likely to go
there.

~~~
mkempe
I used to think the same. In my experience, documenting and reporting to HR
does not solve the problem. You're more likely to be further hurt and
disappointed.

~~~
LinuxBender
That is entirely possible. Each person will have to decide based on the
environment they are in if this is advantageous or not. If you are swimming
with sharks, perhaps skip directly to glassdoor and finding new opportunities.

