Is Your Workplace An Abusive Relationship?
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: December 19, 2025 12:00AM
Corboy note:
"Boss" is anyone who gives you orders.
When Workplaces Start to Feel Like Cults - Or Abusive Relationships
This article provides an excellent checklist.
[goodmenproject.com]
Dysfunctional/Abusive Bosses -- Warning Signs
(This article supplies 6 point bullet list - see how many you can check off!)
6 Red Flag Phrases Narcissists Use To Manipulate You During An Argument
[www.huffpost.com]
The earliest warning sign is when we feel relief because a boss is absent. The sooner you can pick up on this and plan your escape, the better off you are. Same is true of any intimate relationship as well.
* Employees overworked on the job or at home and sleep deprived
* Drinking/drug problems. Making jokes about needing to drink a lot. These can cause deterioration of behavior over time. One boss who drank a lot was a fine supervisor. Two years later this same person became an abusive bully.
Getting in a car with a boss or coworker who has diminished capacity from an addiction or out of control emotions or sleep deprivation may endanger your life.
* The boss overshares about themselves and their private lives. BEWARE - the person either has poor boundaries - or they're oversharing fake vulnerability to trick you to overshare information about yourself that they can use as psy ops to fuck with you later on.
Warning sign: you are reprimanded if you remain respectful but maintain your privacy.
* Boss seems too good to be true. Fun loving. Boosts everyone's mood. Brings in lavish food for holidays and birthdays. Wants to be everybody's friend.
You cannot know who an authority figure really is until after 6 to 18 months. We had a new boss who seemed to be a dreamboat. Puppy like energy. Funny, playful, cute and adorable etc.
Six months later, this dude had morphed into a pasty faced sourpuss, He'd gained so much weight he looked 30 years older. (Despite this, he still applied facial cosmetics in his office and spritzed on a men's cologne, Tease. Wish I were making this all up. C
*Beware getting dependent on a boss's infectious good moods. Getting hooked on people's charisma affects the same brain pathways as street drugs. Lots of us are a little depressed and charisma is energizing and appealing. This leadership dynamic probably helped our distant ancestors save their lives by grouping around charismatic leaders who helped foster social cohesion in adversity.
But...if (like many of us) you're stressed, a little depressed and tired, its easy to get 'hooked' on an authority figure's good moods.
Toxic charismatic bosses become controlling by withdrawing their good mood and by sulking - or worse. Try to find the sweet spot where you care about doing a good job but refuse to care about your bosses moods. They're being paid extra to take care of their shit on their own time.
Be cautious. Some of them want to colonize your mind. They want you fixated, hypervigilant of their moods.
That way, when they sulk or get crabby, you become eager to please them so they'll turn on the sunshine of their charm again.
Remedy: Enjoy the bosses sunny mood but do not get hooked on it. Keep part of yourself at a distance, as a spectator.
* They ask you to lie for them. They take you to lunch on company time, skipping work, like a kid being truant from school.
**They change on you in disorienting ways.
Example: You seem to have a stable relationship with the boss for X number of months. Suddenly, abruptly, they adopt a shaming tone of voice. They chide you for violating their boundary by doing something you've been doing for weeks and months with no input from them.
IMO, this is a test. They're poking at you to see how easily shocked you are, and whether you submit, take all the blame.
If you do this, they know you're manipulable and you will be pulled down into an a abusive relationship.
(This has to be shut down ASAP. Tell them they needed to tell you this earlier, minus the shaming tone of voice and that you cannot be expected to read minds.
If they don't back down, document it. Take this to their supervisor. Do it later, if you need a day or two to pull together. Shutting this down shows you are not a soft target for this skullduggery.
* Negotiating with them is difficult to impossible.
(I requested that the ambient music be turned down - a little. Boss replied, "We can't have it be library quiet'.
I was NOT asking that it be library quiet. Fucker was putting words in my mouth. I requested a gradual, not total cessation of volume. Boss turned it into an absolute. This is the same boss who shamed me for not reading his mind by disregarding his (unspoken) boundaries.)
* They love to claim the workplace is a family because they personalize everything.
A workplace is not a family.
It an environment regulated by workplace law.
Workplace laws prohibit abusive yelling, stealing belongings, stealing lunches, favoritism, bullying, sexism, racism, hate speech etc.
Family life would vastly improve for most of us if regulated by workplace law.
* They personalize everything. They hate being reminded that they are accountable to objective documented rules they cannot change.
They want you to forget that they and you are accountable to company policy as stated in the handbook and workplace law. They make it seem they are doing you a favor to approve your vacation or PTO rather than something you have earned and are applying for with sufficient advance notice.
Repeat, they personalize everything.
* They overshare. They want you to overshare about yourself. (DONT DO IT - they're data mining you so they can exploit your vulnerabilities later on)
(Beware coworkers who overshare their personal lives, too. Had a coworker who - swear to God - told me that as a little kid, she held in her pee for as long as she could. That's for your physician or shrink - not the workplace!)
Major Warning Sign
* They allow employees to break the rules (or worse) to make you complicit in their own evasion of rules and regulations. This is bribery of sorts - plus corruption of workplace culture. If at all possible, try to get out of there before you're subtly affected.
To be human is to be influenc-able.
* They foster an us vs them mentality -- claim they protect you against The Company. They claim they're lenient easygoing supervisors and imply you'll fail if you try to get a job elsewhere.
* They talk about spirituality (or workplace philosophy) a lot
* They brag about how special they are as a boss, brag about their special talents. They go into long speeches (the same long speeches). They use the speeches to keep you from getting back to work - and then you are in the shit for not getting your work done.
* They lapse into nauseating self pity.
Edited 19 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2025 02:03AM by corboy.
"Boss" is anyone who gives you orders.
When Workplaces Start to Feel Like Cults - Or Abusive Relationships
This article provides an excellent checklist.
[goodmenproject.com]
Dysfunctional/Abusive Bosses -- Warning Signs
(This article supplies 6 point bullet list - see how many you can check off!)
6 Red Flag Phrases Narcissists Use To Manipulate You During An Argument
[www.huffpost.com]
The earliest warning sign is when we feel relief because a boss is absent. The sooner you can pick up on this and plan your escape, the better off you are. Same is true of any intimate relationship as well.
* Employees overworked on the job or at home and sleep deprived
* Drinking/drug problems. Making jokes about needing to drink a lot. These can cause deterioration of behavior over time. One boss who drank a lot was a fine supervisor. Two years later this same person became an abusive bully.
Getting in a car with a boss or coworker who has diminished capacity from an addiction or out of control emotions or sleep deprivation may endanger your life.
* The boss overshares about themselves and their private lives. BEWARE - the person either has poor boundaries - or they're oversharing fake vulnerability to trick you to overshare information about yourself that they can use as psy ops to fuck with you later on.
Warning sign: you are reprimanded if you remain respectful but maintain your privacy.
* Boss seems too good to be true. Fun loving. Boosts everyone's mood. Brings in lavish food for holidays and birthdays. Wants to be everybody's friend.
You cannot know who an authority figure really is until after 6 to 18 months. We had a new boss who seemed to be a dreamboat. Puppy like energy. Funny, playful, cute and adorable etc.
Six months later, this dude had morphed into a pasty faced sourpuss, He'd gained so much weight he looked 30 years older. (Despite this, he still applied facial cosmetics in his office and spritzed on a men's cologne, Tease. Wish I were making this all up. C
*Beware getting dependent on a boss's infectious good moods. Getting hooked on people's charisma affects the same brain pathways as street drugs. Lots of us are a little depressed and charisma is energizing and appealing. This leadership dynamic probably helped our distant ancestors save their lives by grouping around charismatic leaders who helped foster social cohesion in adversity.
But...if (like many of us) you're stressed, a little depressed and tired, its easy to get 'hooked' on an authority figure's good moods.
Toxic charismatic bosses become controlling by withdrawing their good mood and by sulking - or worse. Try to find the sweet spot where you care about doing a good job but refuse to care about your bosses moods. They're being paid extra to take care of their shit on their own time.
Be cautious. Some of them want to colonize your mind. They want you fixated, hypervigilant of their moods.
That way, when they sulk or get crabby, you become eager to please them so they'll turn on the sunshine of their charm again.
Remedy: Enjoy the bosses sunny mood but do not get hooked on it. Keep part of yourself at a distance, as a spectator.
* They ask you to lie for them. They take you to lunch on company time, skipping work, like a kid being truant from school.
**They change on you in disorienting ways.
Example: You seem to have a stable relationship with the boss for X number of months. Suddenly, abruptly, they adopt a shaming tone of voice. They chide you for violating their boundary by doing something you've been doing for weeks and months with no input from them.
IMO, this is a test. They're poking at you to see how easily shocked you are, and whether you submit, take all the blame.
If you do this, they know you're manipulable and you will be pulled down into an a abusive relationship.
(This has to be shut down ASAP. Tell them they needed to tell you this earlier, minus the shaming tone of voice and that you cannot be expected to read minds.
If they don't back down, document it. Take this to their supervisor. Do it later, if you need a day or two to pull together. Shutting this down shows you are not a soft target for this skullduggery.
* Negotiating with them is difficult to impossible.
(I requested that the ambient music be turned down - a little. Boss replied, "We can't have it be library quiet'.
I was NOT asking that it be library quiet. Fucker was putting words in my mouth. I requested a gradual, not total cessation of volume. Boss turned it into an absolute. This is the same boss who shamed me for not reading his mind by disregarding his (unspoken) boundaries.)
* They love to claim the workplace is a family because they personalize everything.
A workplace is not a family.
It an environment regulated by workplace law.
Workplace laws prohibit abusive yelling, stealing belongings, stealing lunches, favoritism, bullying, sexism, racism, hate speech etc.
Family life would vastly improve for most of us if regulated by workplace law.
* They personalize everything. They hate being reminded that they are accountable to objective documented rules they cannot change.
They want you to forget that they and you are accountable to company policy as stated in the handbook and workplace law. They make it seem they are doing you a favor to approve your vacation or PTO rather than something you have earned and are applying for with sufficient advance notice.
Repeat, they personalize everything.
* They overshare. They want you to overshare about yourself. (DONT DO IT - they're data mining you so they can exploit your vulnerabilities later on)
(Beware coworkers who overshare their personal lives, too. Had a coworker who - swear to God - told me that as a little kid, she held in her pee for as long as she could. That's for your physician or shrink - not the workplace!)
Major Warning Sign
* They allow employees to break the rules (or worse) to make you complicit in their own evasion of rules and regulations. This is bribery of sorts - plus corruption of workplace culture. If at all possible, try to get out of there before you're subtly affected.
To be human is to be influenc-able.
* They foster an us vs them mentality -- claim they protect you against The Company. They claim they're lenient easygoing supervisors and imply you'll fail if you try to get a job elsewhere.
* They talk about spirituality (or workplace philosophy) a lot
* They brag about how special they are as a boss, brag about their special talents. They go into long speeches (the same long speeches). They use the speeches to keep you from getting back to work - and then you are in the shit for not getting your work done.
* They lapse into nauseating self pity.
Edited 19 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2025 02:03AM by corboy.
Ingredients and Risk Factors For Abusive Workplaces
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: December 19, 2025 12:57AM
(Corboy has worked six years in an alleged non profit that must remain nameless. The clinical experience was priceless)
Risk Factors For Workplace Abuse
* Non profits depend on public image and fundraising. Too often this breeds a Family Secrets/Don't Rock the Boat dynamic. Those who excel at PR and fundraising tend to have narcissistic features - not always not all the time, but often enough -- especially charismatic non profit leaders who socialize with the powerful, the rich, the famous. Too often these persons are tyrants behind closed doors. Inconvenient truths that threaten scandal Anything that potentially threatens their public reputation and loss of donations/public funds is too often denied and hidden.
Risk Factors for Workplace Abuse
* Unspoken Unofficial Caste system/Plantation System
* Your subsection of the workplace is out of public view. A physically isolated workplace brings risk of abuse due to absence of outside, reputable witnesses.
*Your department is treated like the bad neighborhood or 'skid row' of your workplace.- managers visit the other sections regularly but avoid your section. Your section, you, your employees and coworkers are regarded as the misfits washouts and fuck ups who couldn't do well in the other sections. Your reports of abuse or invalidated, ignored, blown off. (A coworker of ours was desperately ill. The manager refused to send him home. I had to find someone outside the department who intervened. This coworker turned out to be dangerously ill - he was dying from kidney failure and needed dialysis.)
* Workplaces that supply employment and health coverage to large numbers of persons who cannot easily find employment elsewhere (language barrier, disabling health condition, history of former incarceration). If you cannot easily find work elsewhere and you are your family's sole source of health care coverage via your abusive job, you will be afraid to speak up. Abusive bosses - and coworkers - can entrench themselves for years in this type of environment
* Religious and social justice non profits are trustful and receptive to stories of personal redemption and conversion. What makes these entities so valuable for sincere persons rebuilding their lives makes these same organizations tragically exploitable by con artists with slick stories and lots of charm.
* Persons who are altruistic and with unhealed co-dependence often work in these same organizations. They lack the all important boundaries and BS meter needed to detect con artists and exclude them. They are exploitable unless they get good training and or get burned and quickly learn street smarts without incurring too much harm in the process.
* Security guards/door keepers who control access to desperately needed resources (shelter housing on a freezing winter night) can easily molest clients needing shelter. Drug dealers and pimps can easily bribe security guards and doorkeepers.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/2025 02:48AM by corboy.
Risk Factors For Workplace Abuse
* Non profits depend on public image and fundraising. Too often this breeds a Family Secrets/Don't Rock the Boat dynamic. Those who excel at PR and fundraising tend to have narcissistic features - not always not all the time, but often enough -- especially charismatic non profit leaders who socialize with the powerful, the rich, the famous. Too often these persons are tyrants behind closed doors. Inconvenient truths that threaten scandal Anything that potentially threatens their public reputation and loss of donations/public funds is too often denied and hidden.
Risk Factors for Workplace Abuse
* Unspoken Unofficial Caste system/Plantation System
* Your subsection of the workplace is out of public view. A physically isolated workplace brings risk of abuse due to absence of outside, reputable witnesses.
*Your department is treated like the bad neighborhood or 'skid row' of your workplace.- managers visit the other sections regularly but avoid your section. Your section, you, your employees and coworkers are regarded as the misfits washouts and fuck ups who couldn't do well in the other sections. Your reports of abuse or invalidated, ignored, blown off. (A coworker of ours was desperately ill. The manager refused to send him home. I had to find someone outside the department who intervened. This coworker turned out to be dangerously ill - he was dying from kidney failure and needed dialysis.)
* Workplaces that supply employment and health coverage to large numbers of persons who cannot easily find employment elsewhere (language barrier, disabling health condition, history of former incarceration). If you cannot easily find work elsewhere and you are your family's sole source of health care coverage via your abusive job, you will be afraid to speak up. Abusive bosses - and coworkers - can entrench themselves for years in this type of environment
* Religious and social justice non profits are trustful and receptive to stories of personal redemption and conversion. What makes these entities so valuable for sincere persons rebuilding their lives makes these same organizations tragically exploitable by con artists with slick stories and lots of charm.
* Persons who are altruistic and with unhealed co-dependence often work in these same organizations. They lack the all important boundaries and BS meter needed to detect con artists and exclude them. They are exploitable unless they get good training and or get burned and quickly learn street smarts without incurring too much harm in the process.
* Security guards/door keepers who control access to desperately needed resources (shelter housing on a freezing winter night) can easily molest clients needing shelter. Drug dealers and pimps can easily bribe security guards and doorkeepers.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/2025 02:48AM by corboy.
Re: Is Your Workplace An Abusive Relationship?
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: December 30, 2025 01:45AM
6 Red Flag Phrases Narcissists Use To Manipulate You During An Argument
Pay attention to these if you're in a conflict.
Jillian Wilson
Dec 27, 2025, 07:00 AM EST
[www.huffpost.com]
Here is an abridged version of the article. Please read the article and its additional insights. This can readily be applied to many abusive workplace settings. Corboy
Pay attention to these if you're in a conflict.
Jillian Wilson
Dec 27, 2025, 07:00 AM EST
[www.huffpost.com]
Here is an abridged version of the article. Please read the article and its additional insights. This can readily be applied to many abusive workplace settings. Corboy
Quote
1. “You’re overreacting.”
2. “I’m not angry, you’re angry.”
3. “I can’t believe you’re attacking me, I always get blamed.”
4. “If you loved me, you would do this."
5. “You should have known I was upset.”
“While many people with personality disorders and relational trauma may believe that others should read their mind, this is especially prominent in people with NPD,” said Grosso.
Also, you may hear someone with narcissistic personality disorder say, “You should have known I was angry,” fully expecting you to anticipate their emotions and understand what they’re feeling without any kind of communication.
“A phrase like this may lead the other person to feel hypervigilant, like they’re walking on eggshells,” Grosso explained."
Additionally, feelings of fear, guilt and obligation may bubble up, too, which takes power away from the wronged individual, she noted.
6. Long-winded expressions that don’t touch on the point.
A bonus red flag: There’s often little or no negotiation or compromise.
Additionally, negotiation isn’t a goal because this person just wants to get their way, Cwynar noted. “So, if they’re having a disagreement with you, it’s about them being able to control the narrative, control the situation,” Cwynar said, not to get to a solution or compromise.
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