Oh, my first job. My first boss was on booze and antianxiety meds, a bad combo, terribly terribly addicting. He bullied his staff all the time, put them in double binds, applied double standards to them - moved the goalposts constantly, said things and then claimed he hadn't, told people to do X and then criticized them for not doing Y, and lived in absolute terror of his own higher management.
I hated his behavior then; now I pity him.
My second boss was a sad case - no longer drinking but not really sober, still had terrible problems with stinking thinking and was so awfully insecure that you could not talk to her about anything either, unless you agreed with everything she said, and I mean everything. Since her judgement was not sound, it was simply impossible to agree with everything - and she would become immediately offended and vindictive at the slightest hint of independent thought. She took it personally, and felt challenged. I learned eventually to pity her too.
I worked for a running addict not long after that - guy didn't do any drugs, he ran and did marathons instead. He also had the inability to hear anything but 100% agreement on anything all the time. I worked with him for a number of years, and he got steadily worse over that time, more and more touchy and paranoid, it was terrible to watch him turning against people he'd known for years who were loyal to him.
All of these people were surprisingly functional in their jobs, at least in terms that management cared about - and at the same time terribly dysfunctional in them as well. They never had to clean up their own messes, so they had no consequences for their bad ideas and strategies. The people who worked for them - the ones who were aware, anyway - didn't want to be forced to make messes when they knew they would be messes and they would be blamed and then have to clean them up.
So they had two types of staff: the ones who knew and cared about the job who were always getting fussed at for being 'noncooperative' and the ones who were cynical manipulators, went along with the bosses' most awful ideas, and made sure they were in another job before the mess had to be cleaned up.
I wonder why anyone ever thinks that "the private sector" knows how to do anything better than any other sector! Nobody ever realized how much trouble these people were in - ever. When I was vulnerable to them, I was furious at them, but now, years later, I wish that I had understood more and that others had too. [more edit: its easy to take that position now that there isn't anything these particular people can do to hurt me. Not so easy when they had power over me.]
Edit in: bean, it's an addictive society we live in. Nonrecovering addicts make good consumers, they're never satisfied. I don't think it's possible to live in this society without being a bit overly dependent on something... until you become aware. Thank God for AA, ACOA, AlAnon, NA, and other places where people can wake up and find another way.
