New Job!

Fantastic news! So pleased you have the opportunity to work somewhere where your skills and experience will be appreciated. Now you know you are leaving everything will be like water off a duck's back!  What a lovely start to the New Year this will be.

Given what I know about narcissists your attack dog may try to have a final go at you (one of mine did). Perhaps you can ask for the fact you are leaving to be kept confidential from her? Unless there's a reason that she has to know of course. 

Well done for keeping your head held high and finding a positive way out of an impossible situation. 

Thanks!  I don't care any more about her, to be honest.  It won't be able to be kept confidential.  Once one person knows, it will spread.  But that's okay.  She can't really do much more than she has.  And it's a victory for her, of sorts. x

Define victory?

What interests me is the social dynamic of how some people seem to be able to get away with being difficult but others can't.  I can't claim to understand how it works though.

That is almost certainly true. Everyone is bending over backwards trying not to upset her because it is clear to them just how difficult she will be if they do. Classic bullying behaviour! The mistake I made was letting my manager see how positive I felt about leaving. If I had pretended to slink away with my tail between my legs I probably would have escaped unscathed. She wanted me out as quickly as possible once she knew I had seen through her. It upsets me to know she is being allowed to bully other people in her new role. Your attack dog is throwing her weight around without even being a manager - a reminder that bullying can happen upwards in hierarchies too. 

I think you've hit the nail on the head.  That's exactly it.  She loves being the centre of attention.  She'll rubbish an opinion she disagrees with.  Like my SIL.  If she disagrees with you on anything, she does it in a way that says, basically, that what you believe is wrong.  At work, she's 'admired' by many for her bluntness.  Bluntness?  She's rude and arrogant.  She's even shouted at senior managers.  And she always gets her way.  Always.  She gets the long holidays.  She gets to come in later than everyone else.  I think they're just afraid of upsetting her.

Not mine sadly just a stock photo for once I did not have my phone with me and they were so high I probably could not have captured them. The light of the moon just caught them and made them visible. 

I wonder if in some ways it's more a sort of tribalism?  From what you've said, it sounds as if she perceives herself as some sort of "alpha" and she has a sort of "pack", and others, such as management are kept away from interfering with the way she wants to run her pack by aggression, intimidation etc.

It sounds as if when you first joined she was trying to ascertain whether you would fit into her pack in a suitably sycophantic/submissive role.  When it became clear that wasn't likely to happen and that you couldn't be kept at arms length and suitably "not troublesome" by her usual tactics, and that in some ways you threatened her perceived social status, then she put you in "enemy" mode and decided since you were a threat you had to be "dealt with?"

Yeah.  It's basically sociopathic behaviour.  It's probably a mixture of wiring and conditioning.  Like the woman who was my uncle's 'carer'.  She ripped him off - and me, as I stood to inherit.  It's hard for me to understand how someone can behave like that, but there it is.

I guess the best you can say is that different people want different things...

If that's what floats her boat and all that.

That's a prize-winner, that photo.  It's stunning.

Exactly.  It's quite sad, really.

Exactly.  It's quite sad, really.

What interests me is the social dynamic of how some people seem to be able to get away with being difficult but others can't.  I can't claim to understand how it works though.

That is almost certainly true. Everyone is bending over backwards trying not to upset her because it is clear to them just how difficult she will be if they do. Classic bullying behaviour! The mistake I made was letting my manager see how positive I felt about leaving. If I had pretended to slink away with my tail between my legs I probably would have escaped unscathed. She wanted me out as quickly as possible once she knew I had seen through her. It upsets me to know she is being allowed to bully other people in her new role. Your attack dog is throwing her weight around without even being a manager - a reminder that bullying can happen upwards in hierarchies too. 

I think you've hit the nail on the head.  That's exactly it.  She loves being the centre of attention.  She'll rubbish an opinion she disagrees with.  Like my SIL.  If she disagrees with you on anything, she does it in a way that says, basically, that what you believe is wrong.  At work, she's 'admired' by many for her bluntness.  Bluntness?  She's rude and arrogant.  She's even shouted at senior managers.  And she always gets her way.  Always.  She gets the long holidays.  She gets to come in later than everyone else.  I think they're just afraid of upsetting her.

I wonder if in some ways it's more a sort of tribalism?  From what you've said, it sounds as if she perceives herself as some sort of "alpha" and she has a sort of "pack", and others, such as management are kept away from interfering with the way she wants to run her pack by aggression, intimidation etc.

It sounds as if when you first joined she was trying to ascertain whether you would fit into her pack in a suitably sycophantic/submissive role.  When it became clear that wasn't likely to happen and that you couldn't be kept at arms length and suitably "not troublesome" by her usual tactics, and that in some ways you threatened her perceived social status, then she put you in "enemy" mode and decided since you were a threat you had to be "dealt with?"

Yeah.  It's basically sociopathic behaviour.  It's probably a mixture of wiring and conditioning.  Like the woman who was my uncle's 'carer'.  She ripped him off - and me, as I stood to inherit.  It's hard for me to understand how someone can behave like that, but there it is.

I guess the best you can say is that different people want different things...

If that's what floats her boat and all that.