5 Things I Learned from my Psychopath Boss
Let me get down to the basics — The Indian Media is studded with the best-in-class psychopaths, like rubies and emeralds on the crown of a naked emperor. While you’re reading between the lines, let me tell you about the pleasantness I’ve felt while working with the Koh-e-Noor and the Darya-e-Noor of bosses, with whom, a mere couple of years has often made me took a good look in the mirror and, and on better days, tell myself — “How you have grown, my love!” — but that only happens when I am not sitting in a lonely corner and licking my wounds. It has been quite a many years of passive-aggressiveness, spiritual and moral wreckage, manipulation and emotional damage for my heart, and with my recovery, I am listing out the five most important lessons that I learned from the men who arm-twisted and ‘almost’ broke me.
Whether I quit my job voluntarily or was I nudged into taking that decision is still a mystery to me. In all probability, the short answer is, (and I am ashamed of having been played by his tiny ego) I was gaslit by my boss. In the long run, it all worked out, really, because life moves on and I had to become a citizen of the big bad world, but psychopaths can make you shame-eat three Maharaja Macs and a bunch of fries right after a half-marathon and take you to the edge of bulimia right before you hit valentine’s day. They can break your body, steal your essence, topple your chakras over the paycheck and make you sound crazy when you say you want to quit. Hence, the mystery.
My association with psychopaths made me transition from a small-town-creative-and-curly to a flea in the undergrowth of the Big-City, and I have been amazed by every second of that transition. Because what is there not to love in scars? My boss was like chicken-pox, and I am just glad he won’t be able to strike again to take me through the following five stages of ‘Rolling-and-Action’.
1. They prey on what they envy — Psychopaths are in touch with their shortcomings more than any of us. They know exactly what they lack, that drives them to own what is not theirs by hook or by crook. Like a creep in candy-land, they take their favourite picks and their position of power facilitates their arbitrariness, but in real-life, not everything can be owned. Ideas can be sold and Individuals can be owned but these nouns and verbs cannot be interchanged if the sentence has to remain coherent (or legal).
2. There will be signs, and lots of ignorance — It is hard to crack a tough coconut. That is just the way nature built us. A preying psychopath attaches only on the ones who are ignorant of pain, like a leech, and by the time you start to feel you’re losing blood, it is too late. Experience teaches what the textbooks ignore, and in the Indian Media, there is a hell lot of experience to be had! Just be aware that there are too many leeches in that pond, and if you’re intelligent, you’d be able to use them to suck the snake-bites when you need. Just the rules of the game, baby.
3. They will have no shame, and no remorse — A man without a moral compass is a truly amazing creation, and if you are lucky, you will have a close encounter with his kind. After the damage is done, and you’re recovering from a spiritual stroke, the convoluted ways of the Psychopath will make you want to be a healer, a dealer, a neurobiologist, a therapist, a missing person, and perhaps even a dead person all at once. In the meanwhile, the psychopath will leave a trail of destruction in his wake, without even as much as a trace of taking responsibility. Forget trying to get an apology out of them, you’d be lucky to receive the smallest acknowledgements.
4. Their methods will be unfair — You might argue ‘What in life is fair?’ and I agree, Life is a shitstorm of unfairness, and perhaps there is no milder way to deal with it. Life keeps a deal on the table and it either ‘take it’ or ‘move on’ and let someone else who needs it more get a shot at it. A psychopath boss, however, will tip the scales of unfairness, deceitfully and slyly for the benefit of a favourite. There will be a pattern in their dealings, to their method of unfairness. And the cycle will keep repeating as long as the machinery is fed with fodder.
5. They will attract their creed — Situations are not all black and white, and as Rumi says “What you seek is seeking you.” It would be unfair to blame my psychopath boss for all the damage that I incurred. I crashed into the pillar he put because I believed every platform is nine-and-three-quarters, and yes hands down, that is entirely my fault. I was flocking with his kind because I had the same feathers, and I guess I still don them.
If you’re even vaguely familiar with the workings of a media team, you’d know that there is a distinct hierarchy of roles, which should have been specializations.
The Board of Management>Editor> Producer> Reporter>Cameraperson/Video Editor>Tecnicians
The milk of empathy flows at lower levels, amongst camera-persons, video editors, technicians, drivers, and set workers, from which the psychopaths, like cream, rise to the top to become editors and board members. There is a class gap that determines who has the first right over press kits that are given during press conferences; the language gap that determines who gets to call the shots; the morality gap that determines who gets to perform what role. The rich English speakers get cleaner towels; creamier soaps and coffees; classier cabins and trophies. They wear make-up and don’t respond to calls. Anomalies must exist too, but unfortunately, I had no sight when I had the eyes.
I guess the biggest lesson I learnt was this — empathy and psychopathy can’t co-exist. If it does, it must be hypocrisy.
Also, you have to learn to be ferocious to protect your innocence — as long as you keep your flame burning, psychopaths will come like flies.
And the rest will be nature’s glory.
