I think a student is lying, help!

VeryHappy
Tue, 15 Jan 2013 10:56:09 +0000

For the first 10 years, I worked in publishing, as a editor. There, people could be a little – well, a lot – strange. But except for two people, they were generally not psychopaths.

For the last 30 or so years, I’ve worked in Fortune 500s and consulting firms, handling employee benefits. I have encountered many wackos (that’s a technical term we in human resources use):

My boss who was only at work 60% of the time – literally; I started keeping track – because she had panic attacks every time she took the bus through one of the tunnels from NJ to NY, and who was seriously threatened by me. She announced to me once, after I provided my opinion on something, “We do know something about this, you know.”

The consultant who was senior to me and started yelling at me and being sarcastic every chance he got. Once when we were to meet in NYC for a client meeting, he called me on my cell phone right after I got off the train in Grand Central (one-hour trip) to tell me he couldn’t make it and he canceled the meeting. He started taking my work away and giving it to his live-in GF, who was also a consultant at the same firm. When I complained, I was fired.

The woman who was my peer at another consulting firm who (in the days before voicemail) stole the pink message slips from my slot by the receptionist. She would call back prospects who had gotten in touch with me, and tell them I wasn’t available but she could work on their projects.

(In case you don’t know, in consulting it matters how much work you bring in, and how many hours you bill to a client project.)

And most recently, the woman who was so obvously threatened by me: After a meeting of 8 or 10 people, she asked me to stay behind and then closed the door. She then ripped me a new one by telling me that I was undermining her authority and that my behavior was unacceptable. No one I asked who had been at the meeting knew what she was talking about. A month or so later, she made extremely crude bathroom comments to me, in front of one of my staff members. She did it not once, but twice The second time was, in my book, over the line, and I complained to HR. She lied about it – swore she never said what she did say – and thankfully I had a witness! For that, I asked for and received a nice severance package – I did NOT want to continue working for her. Unfortunately, she’s still at that company, but I think it’s just a matter of time.

I’m only giving the highlights of some of my situations. Obviously one needs to interact with these people day after day to realize the extent of their illness.

ETA: Hey, maybe it’s me!