While I was living with my exN I was working in a place where there were about twenty employees as part of a much larger organization. We were supposed to be the resource team for all the other staff.Our supervisor was an N but I knew nothing of this kind of person or what they could do.
When she hired me she actually hugged me and said she was so happy to have found someone to work in my job. I work with people with severe physical and mental disabilities and design programs for them so that they can be integrated into jobs or school. I have a lot of experience doing this and a lot of education. While during my first year I worked in remote areas and made friends with an itinerant psychologist who was older than me and mentored me in difficult new job. This woman was very gifted in working with parents, teachers, children no matter what culture they came from. I was proud to be her friend and colleague. Although she did not tell me about what was going on with Administration, I realized that she was persona non grata. No one sat beside her at staff meetings and the boss seemed to stiffen up whenever my friend spoke. Whatever she contributed, no matter how clear and brilliant, was made wrong. I thought this was really weird so I made sure to sit with her in these staff situations. There were many undercurrents and because I have studied group dynamics and body language I realized this group was seriously unhealthy.
Then things began to happen to me and I became like my friend. Out of the loup. Excluded from important decision making, not given an office along with the other resouce staff in the posh main office and given so much work to do that I was beyond swamped. I was really hurt by the exclusion I felt from other staff members and I felt so off kilter because I could not grasp the agenda that was going on and of which I did not have a clue. One concrete thing that happened was that I was told to send in all my reports immediately for evaluation. They came back with dozens of requests for corrections. (I am a good report writer and have never had trouble with this in twenty years.) I corrected the changes and they came back again. This is not good and I had other work to do. Then these reports were given to one of the lesser administrators and I had to do more corrections. The two supervisers had different perspectives and goals in writing these reports so I had to sort of shift priorities once more and do the reports. This happpened TWICE. I felt so undermined. I work at a very challenging job with parents who are extremely stressed about their kids with disabilities, overworked teacher who dont want to or cant understand how to accomodate kids who are challenged.
Then I received a call at the start of the year for eight files and my supervisor wanted them in two days. It was the start of the year, offices had changed and there was a deluge of things that had to be dealt with other than those files. I spent three days trying to find the files on my computer but I could not access my computer. No tech person was available so I tried everything. Finally, I begged a tech person to come. She spent a morning trying to figure out what was going on with my computer. I am not a techy so if she would not do it, I certainly could not. The techy, A, said that she was going to get to the bottom of this. And she did. She said that my supervisor had changed my password the day before she asked for me to get the files. A. said that this is really strange and I better watch my back. She also said," You aren't the first". This went on for years and nearly drove me insane.
She got the different places I went to to distrust me and check up on ridiculous things.
Later, years later, I found out that this woman always targeted a couple of people a year. She destroyed them. My friend from the beginning was involved in a lawsuit and was gagged from speaking about it so she did not tell me enough to help me. There was another woman who was targeted and she said it took five years off her life. She was told by the district and the lawyer not to speak either. I find this sickening. They could have thrown me a lifeline.
Both these women were lovely, strong, humorous, brilliant and competent. So the targets were not chosen because they were poor at their jobs; they weren't incompetent. They were chosen because they were a threat to my boss. This boss was sleeping with her superviser and I think the guy got off on all this.
The staff were so scared that they would be the next target that they just sucked up to the supervisor more intensively.
So this narcissism in the workplace really exists and it is lethal. Trying to explain what is happening makes the victim look like a paranoid incompetant who is just doing a sour grapes routine.
In my case I could not quit my job as I was supporting my N partner. It was coming at me from two fronts. Two years ago the supervisor died but the culture of the workplace barely changed because the staff were entrenched in the old order. It was heartbreaking for me. I worked really hard as a single mom to get my education and to create a career. I cared passionately about my work. What that woman did to me with the help of her minions was appauling.
Last year one of the women who went through it validated what had happened to me and said it happened to her too. That helped. She did not want to talk much about it. She was still scared.
I would like to hear what people have to say about what I wrote
Sea storm
