Bon Voyage Mick
In a surprisingly positive development, Mick has trundled off to greener pastures.
Been trundled off, rather...
To much greener pastures, far 'beyond the fields we know'.
He finally stabbed that one back too many; but more importantly, he tried to enlist the worst possible henchman when doing so.
If you can believe it... he tried to discredit, demean, and undermine the female head of a department that collaborates very closely with ours, on very significant issues...
to her husband...
who just happens to be ...
One of the chief assistants to our Department Head.
Of course, good ol' Mick had no idea they were married.
It was the usual scenario. Amplified. Mick had to solve a problem that required input from her staff - and she was kind enough to phone him herself and explain, in detail, exactly what he needed to do when requesting that input. SOPs. Standard formats for requesting this and that and the other. Stuff like that.
Just so you have the proper perspective, this is kind of like the Pope calling to ask where he should mail your airline tickets for your visit to Vatican City. Magnanimous doesn't come close. This is a very decent, wonderfully unpretentious lady, who does a very very important significant job. And she took the time herself to call a lost and bumbling rookie, to explain to him directly - and kindly - what he needed to provide her staff, in order for them to help him most efficiently.
Ah, but Mick doesn't do SOPs and follow standard formats. Stuff like that is for other people...
So off he ran to our Associate Head, to complain about what an incompetent, unreasonable, hidebound, unhelpful old pejorative derogatory-noun-for-women they had in charge over there.
It was glorious.
Who would ever have thought that the right of a woman to keep her maiden name would have such positive consequences for her husband's colleagues and subordinates, almost thirty years later?
But the most glorious part of all - from my vantage point - is this:
I told Mick they were married, not two weeks after he started here.
But that, of course, was something he "didn't need to know"; so he brushed that "irrelevant detail" aside.
I strongly suspect that he wasn't listening, at all, to anything I was saying at the time - except to determine when my sentences ended, so that he could loftily dismiss them. A Machiavellian schemer of his calibre normally pays close attention to all available information concerning the power structure - but, apparently, this particular Machiavellian schemer had no intentions of learning anything that I, or various others, sought to teach him; and it was the need to maintain that superior posture that was his ultimate downfall.
:-)
Schadenfreude is a sin; I will almost certainly repent of it - in due time. But right now, I just can't help myself.
IT WAS GLORIOUS.
Been trundled off, rather...
To much greener pastures, far 'beyond the fields we know'.
He finally stabbed that one back too many; but more importantly, he tried to enlist the worst possible henchman when doing so.
If you can believe it... he tried to discredit, demean, and undermine the female head of a department that collaborates very closely with ours, on very significant issues...
to her husband...
who just happens to be ...
One of the chief assistants to our Department Head.
Of course, good ol' Mick had no idea they were married.
It was the usual scenario. Amplified. Mick had to solve a problem that required input from her staff - and she was kind enough to phone him herself and explain, in detail, exactly what he needed to do when requesting that input. SOPs. Standard formats for requesting this and that and the other. Stuff like that.
Just so you have the proper perspective, this is kind of like the Pope calling to ask where he should mail your airline tickets for your visit to Vatican City. Magnanimous doesn't come close. This is a very decent, wonderfully unpretentious lady, who does a very very important significant job. And she took the time herself to call a lost and bumbling rookie, to explain to him directly - and kindly - what he needed to provide her staff, in order for them to help him most efficiently.
Ah, but Mick doesn't do SOPs and follow standard formats. Stuff like that is for other people...
So off he ran to our Associate Head, to complain about what an incompetent, unreasonable, hidebound, unhelpful old pejorative derogatory-noun-for-women they had in charge over there.
It was glorious.
Who would ever have thought that the right of a woman to keep her maiden name would have such positive consequences for her husband's colleagues and subordinates, almost thirty years later?
But the most glorious part of all - from my vantage point - is this:
I told Mick they were married, not two weeks after he started here.
But that, of course, was something he "didn't need to know"; so he brushed that "irrelevant detail" aside.
I strongly suspect that he wasn't listening, at all, to anything I was saying at the time - except to determine when my sentences ended, so that he could loftily dismiss them. A Machiavellian schemer of his calibre normally pays close attention to all available information concerning the power structure - but, apparently, this particular Machiavellian schemer had no intentions of learning anything that I, or various others, sought to teach him; and it was the need to maintain that superior posture that was his ultimate downfall.
:-)
Schadenfreude is a sin; I will almost certainly repent of it - in due time. But right now, I just can't help myself.
IT WAS GLORIOUS.
posted by Stormchild at 28.3.09
3 Comments:
This post isn't complete without a P.S., but it belongs here, as a comment, where it won't diminish the joy.
For the record, I'm well aware that it would have been a far, far better thing for my shop to have sent this lad packing much, much earlier.
I'm also aware that we were very lucky indeed, that he finally selected a target for his venom who had a committed, devoted protector.
Alas for the rest of us, who didn't, really.
But that's a topic for another post.
For now ... I won't gainsay this good fortune, however it chose to arrive. We should always be so lucky.
Maybe you can feel better about your self in thinking about Mick’s sitch this way:
The best chance a Machiavellian schemer has for breaking through unhealthy narcissism is a ‘corrective life experience’---a painful experience that threatens his arrogance and superiority and lets him know people aren’t nearly as malleable and stupid as he thinks. Mick is lucky. He got called on his bad behavior. (Is that finding gold in the horse pucky? LOL)
I had one other thought reading your entry and that’s about MY reactions to people who undermine others. Narcissistic people ‘plant seeds’ by playing on our insecurities about people who have higher status than our own. If they’re criticizing someone who has status (money or power) and we’re unaware of our jealousy or ‘need’ to take that person down a notch or two ourselves, we’ll engage in a conversation that could potentially come back to haunt us.
I am learning to ALWAYS question the ‘bearer of bad news’ (or the critic) and do a quick scan on my integrity. Sounds like Mick assumed the ‘good ol’ boys club’ would automatically grant him admission and alienate the *****.
I’d call that a ‘corrective life experience’. ha!
Hugs,
CZBZ
Hi CZ
Thanks for the words of support. This portrait of 'Mick' is a composite, but there was indeed a real person doing real things - real abusive things - and they're really gone.
And the Schadenfreude was also very real.
This person [and his/her contributing clones] is highly unlikely to derive any edification from the experience, unfortunately. Their 'unteachability' is what led to their downfall; a true, profound inability to listen or take in any information conveyed by a 'peer' or superior who wasn't 'superior enough'.
That old 'specialness' thing, very competitively expressed. It's fortunate for us that this particular sample was as arrogant as he/she was; the slick ones can hang around for years and cause no end of trouble.
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