Workplace narcissism: My boss doesn't love me...

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One of the problems with my blog is that the first four months of it are just my journal: it’s missing things because in some places, I wrote elsewhere, and I have been so busy writing new content, I haven’t had time to go back and fix that.

One of the rather large things that is missing is the concept of true love. My dad, I realize, does not love me. At least, he does not love me perfectly.

When I realized this, it absolutely rocked my world and propelled me forwards in this journey. it rocked me so much that I actually wrote a short book about it. However, I sent this book to some friends, and they said it was probably too controversial/hard on my dad. So I’m not sure where I’m headed with that book. 

Anyway, my path of discovery was like this:

I was at a conference were they were talking about the love of God. They mentioned that our idea of God is often shaped by our own fathers. We took a quiz, and that quiz showed us deficiencies in our “God-image.” One gaping hole in my image was, “God comes to save me.” God, I believed, does not save. Why did I believe this? Because my father did not save. 

He would put us in all sorts of dangerous and uncomfortable situations. Why? Two reasons: 1) because he was going there (hunting, motorbiking, working in his shop, etc.) and he wanted us to come along, whether we wanted to or not, whether we could keep up or not (and we’d better keep up…) or 2) because he wanted us to be amazing, so that he could brag about us to friends. Because he was always pushing us, and putting us in adult situations, we would often fall, fail, get into trouble, and need help. And often, he would just let us fall. “It’s part of the learning experience.” Well, sometimes that was true. But sometimes…often…he just didn’t care. At least that’s what I think is true, these many years later. (See post “Falling down the stairs”)

I realized that God actually does care about me, and he actually does have a plan to save me. God does not put me into dangerous positions for His benefit, but He does put me in hard places for my growth. When He does, this is because He is making me a better person in some way. He does all this because He loves me.

As I dug deeper into this concept, I had a look at 1 Corinthians 13. This is the chapter in the Bible where love is defined. And…that is really significant. For two reasons: 1) because love is the basis of all human interactions, 2) because love is what essentially defines the Christian GOd. For this reason, I wrote in my journal:

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God is patient. 
God is kind. 
God is not jealous. 
God is not boastful 
God is not proud 
God is not rude. 
God does not demand his own way. 
God is not irritable, and he keeps no record of being wronged. He does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. God never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage?search=1%20Corinthians%2013:4-7&version=NLT

Then, I applied this chapter to being a good person

A good man is patient and kind. He is not jealous, boastful, proud, or rude. 
A good man does not demand his own way. 
He is not irritable, and he keeps no record of being wronged. A good man does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. A good man never gives up on you, never loses faithful you, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

An evil person is impatient, unkind, jealous, boastful, proud, rude. He demands his own way. 
He is irritable, and he keeps a long record of being wronged. He is unjust and does not want the truth to get out. An evil person will give up on you, lose faith in you, destroy your hope, and disappear in hard times. 

An evil persons life is filled with immorality, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. He is always dividing people into factions. He is always envying people. People like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Galatians 5:19-21 

But a life filled with the Holy Spirit is characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

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There is so much there! And seeing it laid out like that really changed my perspective. It was becoming harder and harder to deny. As much as I hated to admit it, my dad’s life was clearly characterized by the attributes of an “evil person,” rather than a loving, spirit-filled person. That’s sad. But it’s the sad parts of reality we need to face the most.

The one part of this list that I found the most rich was, “love bears all things.” What does it mean, to be a truly good, decent, loving person? As a father? As a boss? Fundamentally, one’s life would be characterized by love. And love bears all things. What does that mean? Several things:

  1. A loving father or boss will not put you into a situation you cannot handle. If you get in over your head, they will rescue you without shaming you. If you are harmed because of their negligence, they will apologize profusely (rather than hiding their shame and blaming you for it)
  2. A loving father or boss will sacrifice their time and energy to serve you. But an unloving father or boss will only serve you so long as it serves them. (See post, “as long as going same direction”) 

This is what is confusing. You may feel like you are being loved: but it is only because at this moment, you are walking in the same direction. Like hunting. My dad loved to hunt. And he would take us along. But he wanted to cover territory, and we were kids. We had to keep up. My memories of hunting were jogging after my dad, legs aching, unable to stop or he would glower at me for being weak. What I really wanted him to do was come canoeing with me. But he wasn’t really interested in that. He wanted to take us motorbiking, but at the age of six, I was terrified by the noise and the vibrations hurt my feet, making me cry. He growled at me and made me stay. I began to enjoy it. One day my foot got caught in the back spokes of his motorbike. I have the scar to this day. One day I crashed the bike, and could have died. I was too young. What I really wanted was for my dad to get down on my level and play with me. But he wasn’t really interested in that.

Now, let’s talk about Joe. Joe does not love me. So long as I am doing a good job (indirectly making him look good, and making his day go well), then he is pleasant, kind towards me…cheerful even. But when I need something, and it inconveniences him? Forget it. Then I am a nuisance, and he lets me know. 

Love bears all things: but Joe doesn’t like it when I am a burden. He does not love me. Because he is a narcissist, and I need to remember that. When things are going good: they’re not really good. Beneath it all, he’s still a narcissist, and he’s only happy because things are going his way, not because he is a good person.

Some memories to illustrate:

On one of my first days working, I was being trained by an older driver (I forget what pseudonym I gave him….he was the one bullied by Joe in a previous post). We needed to get our truck filled up with washing water. Joe was working on something, leaned into another truck. We walked into the shop, and stood there waiting. Joe — his large rear hanging out of the truck towards us — ignored us for a solid ten minutes. Ten minutes is a long time for two straight guys to stare at a fat man’s behind. I leaned over the the driver, “Does he know we’re here?” “Oh yeah…” He responded. It was just a power play. 

Then Joe came out of the truck…but not to get us water. He walked through us — and when we didn’t move, he made an aggressive motion with his hands/head, as though he would knock us down like bowling balls…as though we were a great annoyance to him — and he went behind us to get his tools. Finally, after working on the truck again, he (with great protestations and curses in our direction) went to get us water. Making it very clear that we owed him now. We were such a pain. 


Never mind that he was just doing his job. But his job included serving other people. And he did not like doing that, because that would include some form of human decency (or love), and a narcissist loves only himself. 

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