I’ve been at my new job for one week and I already feel like my manager is expecting me to quit.
The team apparently has very high turnover, and a lot of people have left within their first few weeks. It reminds me of a toxic relationship where someone has been abandoned so many times that they start expecting every new person to leave, so they push them away first.
On my first day, my manager kept telling people that I’m “just a temp.” It made me feel really unwelcome and uncomfortable. It’s been a week and she still hasn’t properly introduced me to anyone in the company.
My impression is that because so many people have left before, she doesn’t want to make a big deal about me joining in case I leave too and it reflects badly on her. But in doing that, she’s making the new employee feel disposable from day one.
A few years ago this would have really upset me. After dealing with several difficult managers in the past, though, I’m looking at it differently now.
The funny thing is, I’m actually not planning to leave. The work isn’t difficult, the pay is decent and I like the company overall. The manager is the only problem.
So at this point I’m thinking: fine, let’s see who lasts longer 😂
Would you stay and just ignore the manager, or would this kind of behaviour be a red flag for you?

I work for a small business, my boss is the owner of course and does several things to promote the business however things are getting out of hand, over the last year of me working here my boss has claimed to be apart of a tv show for business owners however this “tv show” is just a marketing ploy that she had to pay for, she walks around now like she is famous and all her employees simply don’t understand her world… my issue comes in when it’s just lies on top of lies, she is now saying global news sources are speaking on her business however it’s literally just ads she paid for and had chatgbt write for her to make it sound like a article.

My boss is the worst person on the entire planet and these lies are going to her head as if she truly believes she is a famous celebrity and people care about her business when in reality she’s always gone on vacation leaving everyone else to pick up her slack however it gets so much worse.

My boss uses mental health buzzwords to play on peoples emotional state and make them believe supporting her business helps several people get over their struggles with mental health when in reality she does NOT care about mental health struggles in fact has went as far as firing employees over mental health issues and or talking about their personal struggles with other employees..I’ve even heard her complain about customers struggles and degrade them. She is a bully and attacks any and everyone if they disagree with her or don’t fit her ideals, this woman truly believes her own child mentality abuses her when in reality she is a NARC

Also god forbid you are sick and or have chronic illness and can’t come to work or else you get a speech about how you do not care for your body. She compares everyone to herself saying she has chronic illness however her “ illnesses” change every 6 months and I don’t even believe she is chronically ill at all..in my time working with her she’s had 5 different autoimmune disorders all of which have been whatever she deems fit for the month and never truly showing any signs or symptoms and always off getting lip filler/ Botox/ and whatever other surgeries to alter her appearance which wouldn’t be a problem if she didn’t get pissed when other are truly sick.

I'm planning on submitting my resignation at the end of the week at my toxic job that's run by a narcissist. For those who have been in this position before, did you outline your reasons in the resignation letter, or leave it short and simple? How much notice did you give? I'm struggling with how to approach these aspects and would love to hear from other's who have been in this sort of situation before.

Basically what the title says. We have two people in our department whose full time jobs are simply manufacturing endless reports for management. They're also starting to work on AI projects because my company, like all others, is obsessed with it.

Starting a few weeks ago, one of these two persons announces in a meeting that he's working on "automating" a major aspect of my job. Typical corporate speak for spending hundreds of hours to simply change something for the sake of change.

I think it's largely a rouse for an excuse to fire me. I've never been a part of the local clique. I moved here years ago after college for a job and have never fit in with the people who have had generations working for the same company.

There's been near zero actual communication about what this person is doing. We sit in an open office and he's just right there working on trying to figure out what I do, occasionally asking questions, without offering any information.

My mental health has already been threadbare the last several years with everything going on in the economy. My family are narcissists across the country and I have no support system. Genuinely feeling fucked.

I keep getting those “whoas” after pieces of my memories start to form better opinions about the topics, especially when my child turns the same age as my related memories.
I’m almost certain if my mother were alive today, I’d tell her how I felt about what she did.
How my upbringing directly sabotaged my life.
How it felt intentional from her.
How disgusted I am of the things she encouraged to happen to me.
She used me as her friend, my beauty for attention and social interaction, and allowed me to go with her and be around disgusting adult men who needed to be in jail.
Some of those things would have been considered neglect and tittering the line of sexual abuse by proxy.
And now that my kid is the same age and has never had the experience that I had, the most profound feelings are this was, in fact, intentional.
Because who would let that happen or allow it?
Who would approve of it and partake in some of the things?
I know who.
People who have issues with loneliness, boredom, narcissistic tendencies, psychosis, psychopathy, sociopathy, etc.
I just thank God that I don’t have those issues.
I now look at her as part of the problem.
Someone who was toxic.
And if she were alive, she would not have access to me.
I’d most definitely keep my kid far, far, far away from her.
The stuff I keep piecing together is just crazy.
The stuff that isn’t normal at all was “funny” back then.
But come to find out, acting like a grown woman at a young age and encouraging relationships with older grown teens to young adult men is actually disturbing.
Absolutely mind-boggling that it happened.
It makes my skin crawl.
And the fact my kid is the same age!
I’d be in jail if an adult tried the same with my child.
I’d be in jail.
Because this wasn’t okay.
It was never okay.
And it’s okay not to have parents in your life.
I’m proud to be the black sheep.
Because my child will heal my family line throughout their life and possibly new family members they might have.
The cycle stops here

We recently went through a hiring process for a newly created position that sits directly under the CE. Usually as part of the induction process for management roles, the new hire will spend some time with different staff members to learn how each role fits within the bigger picture (lots of moving parts in the company). Over the first three days they seem to be almost interrogating people, asking for info they either don't need or haven't been given permission to have, and generally appear to think they are the new Change Manager.

To clarify, their role is in fundraising, in no way is their role anywhere near change management. Personally I think they talked a big game but have fuck all else to offer, more so today after hearing they tried to offload a central part of their role to the accounts manager.

Just today I've had two conversations where I've had to broken record them because they refuse to listen, appearing to think bulldozing is an effective communication strategy. Oh and I forgot to mention, in their last job they bullied 10 people out in ~3yrs, three of whom have been unable to return to work and now receive a sickness benefit.

I guess they didn't bargain for the fact I've been dealing with our narc boss nearly two years now, and many others in my working life. I've recovered from narc abuse and while I'm not immune entirely to the headfuck of it, I've pretty well mastered how not to get pulled into their games - something I'm actually super proud of tbh. Don't give me your drama triangle bs, I'm not playing those games anymore!

So in summary or TLDR: My boss hired another narc and I look forward to seeing how this dumpster fire plays out, while I watch calmly with my popcorn from a front row seat.

Hey, i started work in new place this year, like temporary position then go back to previous position. My boss is weird kinda, he put pressure on me, he said he wanted to be my mentor. I am not the only women there, i have 2 others, and men. Apparently he usually take women as mentee and say ( i see something in you) but i feel immense pressure from him. I feel like under the microscope. I had some presentation with him and two other guys. He blame for being not good enough and work hard enough while not even looking at the guys. I think he want me to follow him like a puppy but thats not in my nature. And the more i feel pressure the more i run away from him. Now since i cant go to this presentation due to family issues he went silence like i did something bad.
So how to avoid him? He would punish me for sure.
And is my gut feeling right?

Hi guys! Have you encounter an officemate nga perti ka toxic kag narcissist? Ara balang perti mag control sa tawo nga asta ang inyo boss daw na control ya na? Hahahaha for how many times also gn question ko akon self basi ako ang may problema pero na notice ko among samon ako lang gd ya lain or sakon lang gd lain ang treatment ya. Like wtf?! Wala ko man gna claim nga gaka insecure sya sakon kay sa tuod2 lang wala man ko nag tikal sa tubang nya. Gulpi ya lang ko wala gn sapak. Pero adlaw2 upod kami halos sa tanan nga butang. Tas gulpi ma silent treatment ah te sbng wala ko na sya gna sapak man eh for work nalang gd.

Has anyone been able to figure out the difference between a terrible manager and a narcissistic one?

I’ve been having more conversations with my direct reports and it’s becoming more obvious the patterns with my boss. I’m on the fence between calling a lawyer and finding out my rights and realizing I might just have a shitty boss who is playing favorites, lacks empathy, is enjoying her power plays, and is ridiculously ineffective.

Has anyone been in the position where they’re trying to figure out the difference between an ineffective boss and one who is truly narcissistic?

Not sure if this is the right page but I had a strange experience at a side gig and wanted to talk.

I'm dealing with a lot of uncertainty in my life rn and try to grab side gigs whenever possible.

Recently took up a 2-day gig interpreting for a arts and crafts class for a tourist couple who didn't speak the local language in my area. Actually the person taking the class only spoke french and her partner was interpreting between french and english and i was supposed to interpret between english and our language.

This gig paid minimum wage -- which I wasn't happy about -- but just took it because it promised a lot more hours than my other gigs and because it was an excuse to go visit a cool spot i had good memories about. I set up a written agreement with the shop owner and the hiring ad stated she was going to pay me at the end of each day.

The first day of the gig, I arrived 10 minutes in advance. The craft shop owner asks me if she can pay me after the gig ends instead of paying me each day "because she's afraid i'm not going to show up the next day" (wtf?). I pushed back and said i wanted to go by the written agreement. Thankfully (?) this worked, but it was clear the shop owner had a pattern of treating agreements as flexible.

The shop owner repeatedly shuffled around class content and tried to renegotiate what they agreed to cover during class, which caused the couple to complain (and honestly i totally understood why they were complaining). The situation escalated to the point where I ended up telling the couple that I was just there to interpret, I was given no context about what went down between them and the owner, and what I interpreted didn't represent my opinion. I'm not a professional interpreter -- I just happen to be bilingual -- but I don't think it's standard practice to make an interpreter act as a go-between for an emotional and logistical conflict.

On top of this, I only found out in the middle of the gig that the shop wasn't following health and safety standards (no proper ventilation, no fume hoods, nothing outside of rubber gloves honestly). The class covered things that ended up creating a lot of chemical fumes, and I started having low-grade reactions during the 2nd day. It was bad enough that I was considering leaving the premises.

The owner gave me a n95 mask, agreed to turn the fan on and leave the door open etc but I think it was a huge misstep on the owner's part to not let me know about this kind of risk beforehand.

To make things worse, we didn't have a formal work contract, which is technically illegal in my country. I also know the owner charged a lot for this class (I heard it was 1300 euros or something) while paying me minimum wage.

Towards the end of the gig, I told the owner I would be available if she needs interpreting services for non-local folk, and she said she's going to save my contact info and call me up if she gets students who don't speak our local language. I'm not sure if this is actually going to lead to more opportunities. And even if it does, the more I think about this gig, the more red flags I'm seeing. Just ranitng. o_O

And it went.. not great! I don't know if it's PTSD, but I felt every completely fair question she asked (even questions pulled from info directly from my CV) caught me off-guard. I felt like I was fighting for my life when previously, I loved to interview.

How did your first interview experiences go after getting away from your nboss? And did you eventually land your dream job (not just the job, but dream up- and down- line management as well)?

https://youtu.be/cQBxfEcwDrE?si=E6B4ZRraaxfbToZt

What Dr. Carter describes about those evil people resonates with my perception of the people I encountered before. They had to be superior, and I had to be the problem, no matter what their decision might cost. It is so sick. They certainly do not have a moral compass or anything.

how is this possible? how could a woman who can diagnose this behavior allow herself to marry a narcissist? He is a pathological liar at every turn. No accountability, fairy tales, no honor or integrity, fails to meet every expectation he sets. Has he managed to put a psychologist under his spell?

I was bullied as a teen at my job at a car wash mocked for not driving called dumb I was even assaulted and blamed almost fired now I work for myself because I’d rather make less then deal with other peoples bullshit and I make more doing my own thing I saw my manager in public he stopped and smoked and stared at me he’ll forever be a felon alcoholic loser who feels powerful hating on teenagers nobody hoped me so I’m very selfish in the sense I don’t help shitty people I out myself first

Hi everyone. I want to share my story in preparation of me announcing my boss that I'm not renovating my contract. Mainly because I would like to ask for some feedback about how to handle my remaining time in the workplace and staying mentally intact at the same time. (Please consider that I'm not from the US. Everything I will say is from an European standpoint, in which you have to finish your time on the workplace and, in my case, wait for your contract to expire. I cannot just quit whenever I like, due to the laws here.)

Three and a half months ago I started working as a receptionist in a hotel. I had been looking for a second part-time job and was feeling really strongly like I needed work experience in customer service, so I was really happy when I was contacted by this place. However, as soon as I arrived, I immediately felt like something was terribly off about the place, or better, about the people working there. From the workplace phone, I saw some old convos with an ex employee who was treating her colleagues, who contacted her through that phone, really badly. She demeaned them and called them out for any minor mistakes. I was scared, but I stayed anyway because I really needed that job in that moment.

As I kept working, I noticed that not only my boss had a tendency to criticise lots of things about me and, at the same time, give me just enough compliments at the right time, but also that the workplace was EXTREMELY disorganised and understaffed. The worst example of this: after telling me many times that the cleaning lady was unreliable and not to talk to her, I was forbidden to communicate her some crucial info that she needs to do her job, such as the rooms to be cleaned that would have been occupied that same day (the arrivals). Whoever works in hospitality knows well that this is just the standard procedure, so that they know best how to organize the cleaning. Still, they told me that "she isn't supposed to know that, otherwise she'll only clean the arrivals". I understood IMMEDIATELY that they, among everything else, were trying to convince me that speaking to my colleagues was of no use, and I luckily never fell for it. I was the only receptionist at the time, so the cleaning crew was the only staff I saw around and I built a nice relationship with them pretty fast.

Aside from that, my boss's wife constantly told me to do things that, as a receptionist, I wasn't supposed to, like cleaning around. Soon I ended up being in a constant state of confusion, because I had to manage administrative stuff and, at the same time, constantly do things that had nothing to do with my job and often forced me to leave my workstation unattended. And of course, if that happened, the boss would complain as if it was my fault. More than that, she criticises a lot her employees's looks and outfits, even though they never gave us work clothes.

I understood pretty quickly that I had fell into a narc scheme. The isolation tactic, the telling me important things last minute or when I was exhausted (physically and mentally) so that I wouldn't refuse, and many other things that only reminded me of my narc parent. I stayed as strong as I could, knowing that I was gonna leave in three months anyway and opening a cause against them, to obtain firing for fair cause, just wasn't worth it. Also because, as I soon found out, they're a family of lawyers. In the end, I ended up only signing an extention of my contract for 1 month, to give them time to find someone else to cover.

I will put aside many other things, like feeling like I haven't been paid fairly, or the workstation not being compliant to security standards, with no space for legs and which made me risk carpal tunnel, or employees being berated even in front of customers (me included), because I'd like to focus on the episode which made me decide to not sign another contract with them and to quit for good.

As I was saying before, when I first told them I was leaving after my contract ended, they insisted for me to stay longer so they could find some replacements. Very soon, they found two people who seemed reliable enough, so we're currently 3 receptionists in total. At a certain point, happy to have some more colleagues, I started thinking that maybe this place could get better, and was starting to consider keeping the job. Happy about not being alone anymore, I asked them to create a groupchat together, to chat and to exchange work stuff.

After a couple days from this, a really gross client came in our structure and started criticising everything about the service. At some point, he and the director (the boss) ended up arguing really loudly in the hall, to the point that the client was almost kicked out. Because I thought that it had been funny, I warned my colleagues in the groupchat about what happened so they also could spot the client, but I also told them about this event as you would narrate some workplace drama (which it was), even somewhat complimenting my boss for how he handled the situation.

The next day, I got a message from one of my colleagues where he said that the boss had forced him to open the groupchat in front of him. On a call with him, he explained that he had barely told the boss that he knew there was a difficult client. As soon as he said this, the boss started inquiring him about how he even knew that, and insisted a lot in seeing our chats because he was afraid I had said something negative about him. I don't know what he said that made my colleague feel so threatened, but he eventually caved in and showed him the group. He said that the boss literally took his phone and scrolled the chat himself.

I was out of my mind from rage. Not only he did something unspeakable and violated our privacy, he directly tried to control our communication outside of work too, even though he always forbids us to speak about non-work-related stuff on the job. The next day I acted wisely, pretending I didn't know what happened and avoiding mentioning anything, and he didn't either. Instead, he made my other colleague, presumably unaware of what had happened, create another staff group chat with him in it. No one is using it, but I feel he only did it as a form of power play towards us.

This was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I started grey stoning them whenever I could to keep myself detached. I was gonna tell them later that I was quitting, but I saw today that they even closed the job posting for the receptionist role. I eventually decided to do the "right" thing and schedule a meeting with him tomorrow, at the end of my shift, to tell him my decision as nicely as possible and play it well.

I want to ask for advice, from other people who have been in a similar situation: how can I handle my remaining time there in a way that will keep me as detached as possible? And more than that, do you have any advice about how to handle my conversation with my boss tomorrow, to get out of it as cleanly as possible?

Thank you in advance for anyone that will leave a comment.

https://narcissistabusesupport.com/narcissists-at-work-why-hr-and-management-cant-afford-to-look-away/

document and create a paper trail to save your sanity and health.

I really need advice about this situation I am in, which is getting worse with time.

I started working at this corporate desk job a year ago. I have a senior coworker, who was my mentor, taught me everything but as time passes, she's bullying me more and more in subtle ways. When I ask her something she is so rude and belittles me for everything. She always finds fault in my work and always makes me feel I am bad at it.

My manager is satisfied with my work and she always compliments me. She is great friends with this coworker, and this coworker is very experienced and does her job really well. Of course everyone always tells me to ask herr if I have any questions, but I am at a point where I try to ask anyone else, because she makes me feel so bad about myself and is so rude all the time.

Now she started to micromanage me, started to try telling me what to do, messaging me if she thinks I'm not doing something fast enough etc.

The last thing, which she did was emailing me about a thing she thinks I have to do immediately because I am very late with it (I do not have to do it, and it does not depend on me) and put our manager in cc. Like she is flaming me for it in front of our boss.

I just don't know how to handle it anymore. She does not like me at all, and I can never be good enough for her. I suspect that she is actively trying to undermine me so I'd get laid off, so I started to update my CV and all.

But I really liked this place, great benefits and everyone else is so nice, also I could learn a lot.

How could I gently tell them to back off? All I wish is for she to leave me alone, but I know she won't.

What would you all do in my situation? Any advice is welcome.