Narcissism at work: good boundaries, good calls
I am realizing that my upbringing has predispose me to certain difficulties working with people. The recent counselling and research has significantly helped. However, I will always be more aware of certain issues, and especially notice narcissists and codependence when I see them.
There was an interesting, positive mile stone when I recently applied for a job. I actually applied to over 30 places, and after Christmas break got several callbacks on the same day. It was a good sort of problem, but still a problem. I had gotten already to go to work for one job, even shave my beard, and woke up at five in the morning to go. I open my inbox, and found another job offer at a significantly higher wage. After discussing it with my wife, I decided to take the higher paying job. I sent my employer a brief email, then excepted the other job. I wrote:
Good morning, Sam
Bad news. I got a call-back early this morning offering me a driving job at quite a bit more than Factory One can pay.
I would have liked to have worked for you, but I will have to take this job offer.
Thank you,
- Ishmael
My wife commented on the email, that she remarked I did not apologize. I know I had to consciously fight that urge. I thanked him for the position, told him I found a different job, and that was that. He responded in kind: brief and to the point. Thanks anyways, have a good day.
In the past, I would have obsessed about that letter. Maybe I would not have taken the better job, because I would have been so concerned about hurting Sam's feelings. Why? Because a codependent can’t handle having anyone disapprove of him. I can’t say it didn’t cross my mind. It even cause me some anxiety. However, I wrote a brief email, and that was that.
I had some more difficulties at work. There was a man named Joe, who I will say is likely a narcissist. The first couple days, there was a little work, and Joe was in a good mood. He asked me what I did in my previous line of work, it was very interested to hear about my pastoring. He opened up about his experience in Catholic school, and also being spanked well into his teens – both by his father and by his principal. It sounded pretty extreme. He shrugged and said, “I deserved it. ” he mentioned alcoholism and his family.
The next day, we met the other side of Joe. One of our customers was being difficult. They were being hyper picky about our material. They related these concerns on to the driver. Because I was training, I simply listened. The driver related concerns to Joe, who was producing the materials in the factory. He blamed everything on the driver. He began going into tirades. He would talk for three or five minutes at a time, not raising his voice, but lambasting the driver for everything from a dirty truck to load quality, etc. etc. Things that all drivers did were suddenly this one driver's fault, exclusively. If he try to defend himself, Joe would just raise the volume. And the driver would back down and just take it. I sense that the driver may have had some abuse in his past, and learned it was best to just shut up and take it. What was frustrating to me was that the mistake was clearly on the part of the customer. It was written in black-and-white what the product was supposed to be, and we were actually within spec. I discussed it briefly with the driver, went back and look at the paperwork, and the proof was right there. There was no problem. It was the customer being hyper specific.
I wrote it out in my notebook, and gave it to the driver. He showed it to Joe. “Put that nonsense away!" He said, “you just need to listen to me, and get those loads right…“ And another tirade began. The driver quietly put the notebook away and dropped it.
During all this, Joe took us up in the factory. “You see that red hose there? When I tell you, I might ask you to come up here and hit it with a red hammer.” He was pointing vaguely in the direction of a bunch of equipment. I did not see any bright red hoses. But there were a few pipes and tubes of a dull reddish color. The driver just made a non-committal sound and looked away. But I wanted to know! “You mean that one right there?” “No, that one right there!” His voice raised exponentially, as though it was the 10th time he had told me, and it was the most obvious thing in the world which pipe he met. This went on for a few seconds. The driver looked away, but I kept pushing it. Which pipe do you mean? Also, he changed his vocabulary a few times. First it was a tube, then a hose, then a pipe. what are you talking about? Finally, I took out my phone and took a picture. I zoomed in. That one right there?“ “Put that away he said gruffly,“ I did not. He looked at me grumpy, knowing he was defeated. “Yes, that one right there.“ “Idiot" said his facial expression. He shook his head and walked away. But I knew I had won.
When things cleared up, I took a moment in the bathroom to pray through a forgiveness prayer.
Father, Joe hurt me in how he spoke to me.
He made me feel insulted, blamed, and treated me like an idiot.
I will not try to make him feel the pain of his actions.
I will pay the emotional pain and consequences of his actions.
I choose to forgive him.
Please fill my heart with your spirit, peace, and love
Amen
I pray through how Joe made me feel, let that go, and moved on. But the driver did not have access to that, and had a much harder time. He became much more sullen, and even started making stupid mistakes. It is hard not to make stupid mistakes when someone like Joe is pointing out every little thing you do and don’t do wrong.
Later that day, Joe launched into a tirade that was more directed at myself. I believe it had to do with the trucks being too dirty. Since I had only been working a few days, clearly, this was not my fault. But his intensity was directed straight at me. My previous self would have wilted. I would have apologized numerous times. I would’ve looked away. I would have taken on a posture of submission. I stood and took it, consciously holding my back erect, refusing to divert my eyes or look away. I did not take on a posture of challenging him, but neither did I take a posture of submission. I just took it in a strong, but neutral way. As soon as he was done, I looked at a corner of the room, and said under my breath three times emphatically, “I did nothing wrong, I did nothing wrong, I did nothing wrong.” That settled it for me. I knew I had done nothing wrong, no matter what Joe had said. I refuse to take that shame on me.
Another time I brought some paperwork in and handed it to my boss. "Is this filled out correctly?” I asked him. Joe was sitting right there. I guess Joe was middle management, between myself and the boss. Joe made an emphatic movement, gesturing with his arms wide open and raising his eyebrows, “well, is it?! You are the driver! You should know if it is correct.“ I did not react. I was not talking to him. The boss made some corrections and handed it back. I thanked him. Then Joe began talking about how he would like the paperwork on his desk. Instead of at the end of the day. I said that would be fine. He started into one of his tirades. I cut him off fairly emphatically, making a dramatic gesture of my own (arms wide, exposing my chest, the classic, “You want a piece of me?” Move) “OK, well train me! What do you want me to do? Just tell me what you want me to do and I will do it.“ I had not been told when or where he wanted the papers. This was news to me. So I would not take any shame for not doing it differently.
And that refusal kept my head above the water. There was a lot of pressure on me for the first week, maybe two weeks working with Joe.
And then, the pressure lifted. I knew it lifted one day. I had to come into work to read my paystub‘s. I needed them for something. Joe was the only one there, and he was clearly busy with a plant malfunction. I asked him for the information, and he gave it to me.
“I can’t help you on the computer, because I am busy!“ He yelled after me as I left. It was gruff, but not mean. Later, I went home and called through the company directory and till I found somebody that could help me. I figured it out. But Joe called me back. He was genuinely concerned. “Did you find the information you were looking for?“ “Yes, thank you for helping me.“ It wasn’t quite true, but his comment did send me in the right direction. “OK, I didn’t know where you went! I turned around and you were just gone!“ (I did nothing wrong… You were busy, I was not punched in, I owe you no explanation…) “OK, well glad you got that sorted out. I’ll see you in a few days.“ His voice was cheerful. I could tell he was seeing me more as an equal. It wasn’t just the good times of a narcissist, that will then be replaced by the bad times. Over those weeks, I had steadfastly refused to take the blame for anything I had not done wrong. And when I did something wrong,  I took the blame, but not the shame. I worked very intentionally on keeping my posture erect, and looking him straight in the eyes. And I did my best to do my job extremely well. I think eventually I won his respect. But we will see when I work for him again on dayshift.
One day after working with Joe I came home and wrote on Facebook (in a private group,) “working for a narcissist is like working for someone who is always trying to build a case against you… Trying to prove that you are an idiot.“
This is what it was like working for the bad version of Joe. His long tirades were tied together a lot of disparate information. Something about the load, something about the truck, something about a driver once he had worked with years ago, and on and on. You might wonder, listening to it, how all the information related to one another. But it all came back to this: you are an idiot. The load is your fault. The truck is your fault. You’re just like that idiot I worked with 10 years ago…
I think that narcissists have an agenda to prove people are idiots so that they feel better about themselves. That is pretty straightforward. It is classic narcissist behavior. Lift people up, then put them down, then reject them.
And so survival with a narcissist is just to always stay awake, and never take shame. There are so many subtle ways that he would try to put me down. But as I just steadfastly refused to except it, he eventually gave up. Another thing I did consciously was I stopped talking about myself. There were a few days at the beginning when he was in a good mood, and we both talked a lot about our backgrounds. Him more than myself. But after I saw his colors, even on a good day, I simply would not talk details. One day he asked me, “so, what did you do on the weekend?” I responded, “I was not at work.” “Well I know that!” He responded, incredulous. But the moment has passed, it was a small joke, and it was enough to answer the question. I didn’t want to tell him more information about myself, and I didn’t have to. End of story. Because personal information can become personal ammunition. And I knew his true colors.
Another thing that I noticed about Joe is that he had no interest in making me a better person in anyway. On a day with the red pipe, he took me way up top to show me some tasks that he wanted me to do. I asked him some questions, “what is the big picture here? Where is the material coming from? Where is it going?” He shot me right down. “Oh, oh, oh, you don’t need to be thinking about that, at this stage of the game! You’re already learning way too much (I was driving a truck… Not learning too much… I am studying a doctorate for crying out loud!) I wouldn’t want to hurt your head.” Later, I tried again. “What is going on here? What does this mean?” “That is not your concern right now.” Just focus on your job.”
Contrast this with Roland, who – on a slow night -- walked me all around the plant, showing me in minute meticulously every little thing, and what it meant, and the history of it, and talking excitedly about how soon I will be running the plant, and we have a more valuable position in the company. But I don’t think Joe wanted to teach me anything because he would’ve felt intimidated by me, if I learned what he knew too quickly.
This made me think, sadly, about my dad. One might say, “he was hard on his kids because he wanted them to learn.” Would that be true? Perhaps. However, it seems more like he was hard on us because he wanted to look good. He wanted to excel through us. But paradoxically, he did not want us to outshine him. And so if we did not learn something quick enough (say in the mechanic shop, for example, or else ploughing snow in the yard) then we were “idiots.” But years later, when I went to Bible school, and he sent me a Bible study he had done, and I put comments on it, interacting with what he said, not agreeing with everything… He responded that he was hurt. He let me know that he did not do that sort of Bible study ever again. Because I had hurt him so much. So he wanted me to study the Bible… But not better than him!
This is the paradoxical push and pull of having a narcissistic boss, or a narcissistic father. One day they want you to be your best (so they look good), the next day they want you to be an idiot (so they look good), and they are more than willing to tell you so, and drag up any proof they can find to prove that point.

I am not really looking forward to working more with Joe. I do seem to be learning a lot of insights, however, in working with him. So we will see where this goes.
There was an interesting, positive mile stone when I recently applied for a job. I actually applied to over 30 places, and after Christmas break got several callbacks on the same day. It was a good sort of problem, but still a problem. I had gotten already to go to work for one job, even shave my beard, and woke up at five in the morning to go. I open my inbox, and found another job offer at a significantly higher wage. After discussing it with my wife, I decided to take the higher paying job. I sent my employer a brief email, then excepted the other job. I wrote:
Good morning, Sam
Bad news. I got a call-back early this morning offering me a driving job at quite a bit more than Factory One can pay.
I would have liked to have worked for you, but I will have to take this job offer.
Thank you,
- Ishmael
My wife commented on the email, that she remarked I did not apologize. I know I had to consciously fight that urge. I thanked him for the position, told him I found a different job, and that was that. He responded in kind: brief and to the point. Thanks anyways, have a good day.
In the past, I would have obsessed about that letter. Maybe I would not have taken the better job, because I would have been so concerned about hurting Sam's feelings. Why? Because a codependent can’t handle having anyone disapprove of him. I can’t say it didn’t cross my mind. It even cause me some anxiety. However, I wrote a brief email, and that was that.
I had some more difficulties at work. There was a man named Joe, who I will say is likely a narcissist. The first couple days, there was a little work, and Joe was in a good mood. He asked me what I did in my previous line of work, it was very interested to hear about my pastoring. He opened up about his experience in Catholic school, and also being spanked well into his teens – both by his father and by his principal. It sounded pretty extreme. He shrugged and said, “I deserved it. ” he mentioned alcoholism and his family.
The next day, we met the other side of Joe. One of our customers was being difficult. They were being hyper picky about our material. They related these concerns on to the driver. Because I was training, I simply listened. The driver related concerns to Joe, who was producing the materials in the factory. He blamed everything on the driver. He began going into tirades. He would talk for three or five minutes at a time, not raising his voice, but lambasting the driver for everything from a dirty truck to load quality, etc. etc. Things that all drivers did were suddenly this one driver's fault, exclusively. If he try to defend himself, Joe would just raise the volume. And the driver would back down and just take it. I sense that the driver may have had some abuse in his past, and learned it was best to just shut up and take it. What was frustrating to me was that the mistake was clearly on the part of the customer. It was written in black-and-white what the product was supposed to be, and we were actually within spec. I discussed it briefly with the driver, went back and look at the paperwork, and the proof was right there. There was no problem. It was the customer being hyper specific.
I wrote it out in my notebook, and gave it to the driver. He showed it to Joe. “Put that nonsense away!" He said, “you just need to listen to me, and get those loads right…“ And another tirade began. The driver quietly put the notebook away and dropped it.
During all this, Joe took us up in the factory. “You see that red hose there? When I tell you, I might ask you to come up here and hit it with a red hammer.” He was pointing vaguely in the direction of a bunch of equipment. I did not see any bright red hoses. But there were a few pipes and tubes of a dull reddish color. The driver just made a non-committal sound and looked away. But I wanted to know! “You mean that one right there?” “No, that one right there!” His voice raised exponentially, as though it was the 10th time he had told me, and it was the most obvious thing in the world which pipe he met. This went on for a few seconds. The driver looked away, but I kept pushing it. Which pipe do you mean? Also, he changed his vocabulary a few times. First it was a tube, then a hose, then a pipe. what are you talking about? Finally, I took out my phone and took a picture. I zoomed in. That one right there?“ “Put that away he said gruffly,“ I did not. He looked at me grumpy, knowing he was defeated. “Yes, that one right there.“ “Idiot" said his facial expression. He shook his head and walked away. But I knew I had won.
When things cleared up, I took a moment in the bathroom to pray through a forgiveness prayer.
Father, Joe hurt me in how he spoke to me.
He made me feel insulted, blamed, and treated me like an idiot.
I will not try to make him feel the pain of his actions.
I will pay the emotional pain and consequences of his actions.
I choose to forgive him.
Please fill my heart with your spirit, peace, and love
Amen
I pray through how Joe made me feel, let that go, and moved on. But the driver did not have access to that, and had a much harder time. He became much more sullen, and even started making stupid mistakes. It is hard not to make stupid mistakes when someone like Joe is pointing out every little thing you do and don’t do wrong.
Later that day, Joe launched into a tirade that was more directed at myself. I believe it had to do with the trucks being too dirty. Since I had only been working a few days, clearly, this was not my fault. But his intensity was directed straight at me. My previous self would have wilted. I would have apologized numerous times. I would’ve looked away. I would have taken on a posture of submission. I stood and took it, consciously holding my back erect, refusing to divert my eyes or look away. I did not take on a posture of challenging him, but neither did I take a posture of submission. I just took it in a strong, but neutral way. As soon as he was done, I looked at a corner of the room, and said under my breath three times emphatically, “I did nothing wrong, I did nothing wrong, I did nothing wrong.” That settled it for me. I knew I had done nothing wrong, no matter what Joe had said. I refuse to take that shame on me.
Another time I brought some paperwork in and handed it to my boss. "Is this filled out correctly?” I asked him. Joe was sitting right there. I guess Joe was middle management, between myself and the boss. Joe made an emphatic movement, gesturing with his arms wide open and raising his eyebrows, “well, is it?! You are the driver! You should know if it is correct.“ I did not react. I was not talking to him. The boss made some corrections and handed it back. I thanked him. Then Joe began talking about how he would like the paperwork on his desk. Instead of at the end of the day. I said that would be fine. He started into one of his tirades. I cut him off fairly emphatically, making a dramatic gesture of my own (arms wide, exposing my chest, the classic, “You want a piece of me?” Move) “OK, well train me! What do you want me to do? Just tell me what you want me to do and I will do it.“ I had not been told when or where he wanted the papers. This was news to me. So I would not take any shame for not doing it differently.
And that refusal kept my head above the water. There was a lot of pressure on me for the first week, maybe two weeks working with Joe.
And then, the pressure lifted. I knew it lifted one day. I had to come into work to read my paystub‘s. I needed them for something. Joe was the only one there, and he was clearly busy with a plant malfunction. I asked him for the information, and he gave it to me.
“I can’t help you on the computer, because I am busy!“ He yelled after me as I left. It was gruff, but not mean. Later, I went home and called through the company directory and till I found somebody that could help me. I figured it out. But Joe called me back. He was genuinely concerned. “Did you find the information you were looking for?“ “Yes, thank you for helping me.“ It wasn’t quite true, but his comment did send me in the right direction. “OK, I didn’t know where you went! I turned around and you were just gone!“ (I did nothing wrong… You were busy, I was not punched in, I owe you no explanation…) “OK, well glad you got that sorted out. I’ll see you in a few days.“ His voice was cheerful. I could tell he was seeing me more as an equal. It wasn’t just the good times of a narcissist, that will then be replaced by the bad times. Over those weeks, I had steadfastly refused to take the blame for anything I had not done wrong. And when I did something wrong,  I took the blame, but not the shame. I worked very intentionally on keeping my posture erect, and looking him straight in the eyes. And I did my best to do my job extremely well. I think eventually I won his respect. But we will see when I work for him again on dayshift.
One day after working with Joe I came home and wrote on Facebook (in a private group,) “working for a narcissist is like working for someone who is always trying to build a case against you… Trying to prove that you are an idiot.“
This is what it was like working for the bad version of Joe. His long tirades were tied together a lot of disparate information. Something about the load, something about the truck, something about a driver once he had worked with years ago, and on and on. You might wonder, listening to it, how all the information related to one another. But it all came back to this: you are an idiot. The load is your fault. The truck is your fault. You’re just like that idiot I worked with 10 years ago…
I think that narcissists have an agenda to prove people are idiots so that they feel better about themselves. That is pretty straightforward. It is classic narcissist behavior. Lift people up, then put them down, then reject them.
And so survival with a narcissist is just to always stay awake, and never take shame. There are so many subtle ways that he would try to put me down. But as I just steadfastly refused to except it, he eventually gave up. Another thing I did consciously was I stopped talking about myself. There were a few days at the beginning when he was in a good mood, and we both talked a lot about our backgrounds. Him more than myself. But after I saw his colors, even on a good day, I simply would not talk details. One day he asked me, “so, what did you do on the weekend?” I responded, “I was not at work.” “Well I know that!” He responded, incredulous. But the moment has passed, it was a small joke, and it was enough to answer the question. I didn’t want to tell him more information about myself, and I didn’t have to. End of story. Because personal information can become personal ammunition. And I knew his true colors.
Another thing that I noticed about Joe is that he had no interest in making me a better person in anyway. On a day with the red pipe, he took me way up top to show me some tasks that he wanted me to do. I asked him some questions, “what is the big picture here? Where is the material coming from? Where is it going?” He shot me right down. “Oh, oh, oh, you don’t need to be thinking about that, at this stage of the game! You’re already learning way too much (I was driving a truck… Not learning too much… I am studying a doctorate for crying out loud!) I wouldn’t want to hurt your head.” Later, I tried again. “What is going on here? What does this mean?” “That is not your concern right now.” Just focus on your job.”
Contrast this with Roland, who – on a slow night -- walked me all around the plant, showing me in minute meticulously every little thing, and what it meant, and the history of it, and talking excitedly about how soon I will be running the plant, and we have a more valuable position in the company. But I don’t think Joe wanted to teach me anything because he would’ve felt intimidated by me, if I learned what he knew too quickly.
This made me think, sadly, about my dad. One might say, “he was hard on his kids because he wanted them to learn.” Would that be true? Perhaps. However, it seems more like he was hard on us because he wanted to look good. He wanted to excel through us. But paradoxically, he did not want us to outshine him. And so if we did not learn something quick enough (say in the mechanic shop, for example, or else ploughing snow in the yard) then we were “idiots.” But years later, when I went to Bible school, and he sent me a Bible study he had done, and I put comments on it, interacting with what he said, not agreeing with everything… He responded that he was hurt. He let me know that he did not do that sort of Bible study ever again. Because I had hurt him so much. So he wanted me to study the Bible… But not better than him!
This is the paradoxical push and pull of having a narcissistic boss, or a narcissistic father. One day they want you to be your best (so they look good), the next day they want you to be an idiot (so they look good), and they are more than willing to tell you so, and drag up any proof they can find to prove that point.

I am not really looking forward to working more with Joe. I do seem to be learning a lot of insights, however, in working with him. So we will see where this goes.
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