Toxic Workplaces

Beware of the Crocodile, who pretends to be a paragon of goodness and purity. This saintly exterior is a front for the Crocodile's drive for power, attention and sensual appetite. – Unknown. "And as the bad guys dispose of their dead bodies in the mangroves for the Crocodile to ravish and spew out their indigestion, the Crabs patiently wait to devour the leftover so keep out of the mangroves," warns Giselle's inner voice. Giselle's hands are sweating, and her heart is pumping faster than usual. She clicks the red button on her phone. She draws in a deep breath and exhales noisily. "I would rather be home with my dog," Mumbles Giselle. Thinking of her dog cheers her somewhat as she imagines stroking her dog, Jack's soft coat and giving Jack the cuddles that he so loves. The more Giselle reflects on the good feelings she gets from sharing the love and drawing in Jack's unconditional loving energy, the more it makes her smile. "That's right, Jack's no judgement, and judgement-free power is the energy that I need right now, and yet I have to return to the mangroves for a meeting with the dragon narcissist whose name is Delilah. I reckon Delilah blows venomous gas through her nostrils, and her breath smells like acetone," mumbles Giselle as she wipes the tears from her eyes and hangs on to the stair railings to steady herself. "What was I thinking to attract yet another intimidation experience in the workplace?" Giselle quietly asks herself, "I love the excitement of adventure in my life, but choosing another workplace with narcissistic behaviour is a bit too much of an adventure for me right now. As much as I try, I just can't connect with Delilah, and then the other staff become afraid of connecting with me because they fear her wrath. "Every day, Delilah tells me that I am not to befriend any of the staff whilst I am at work or out of work hours," Giselle mutters. "An even more significant value to me is connection because I like connecting with people even more than adventure, but what do I have to do for people in these places to like me so I can connect with them? It doesn't matter what I do. I'm always wrong. It seems to me that the more she tells me I'm wrong, the more the others in my workplace perceive me as incompetent," mumbles Giselle as she walks towards her car. Feelings of being wrong are energetically building within her, and Giselle realises it is time to speak with a professional Counsellor. "It doesn't matter what I do. Delilah always tells me it's wrong. I try hard to please Delilah, and I do what I believe she wants of me," Giselle rubs her forehead and squints and then continues ranting to her Counsellor, "Delilah delegates jobs to me where she watches and waits, and then when the time is right, she attacks and tells me that I'm doing it wrong and it has to be correct, according to her. Delilah just gives me the job with a partial description of the expected outcome, and then I hear her on the phone giving tasks to her Crabs that she carefully talks them through. She makes every effort to explain each and every detail carefully. When I ask for more information, she tells me that I should just know. I can draw on my successes in my previous experience, but that is someone else's right, not Delilah's right. That's when I remember the stories that I have heard about the mangroves where I have a vision of crocodiles and Crabs sitting in the mangroves waiting expectantly. I imagine the story where the crocodiles and Crabs clear the mangroves of any evidence for the bad guys and the Delilahs in this world who get away with dumping their baggage. I can hear my imagined bad guys threatening and intimidating those around them and then tossing those around them into the mangroves to disable them from telling anyone of the pain and gaps created in their lives," Giselle stops talking to sip her water and then continues, "In my opinion, Delilah is one of those people who swiftly scale the corporate ladder. It seems that she projects her feelings of inadequacy onto the level of staff one rung below her, which includes me. I know that my colleagues and I feel disempowered, and our productivity is falling because we're confused, and we all fear her venom. She is driving us towards her creation of a dysfunctional workspace. On the other hand, Delilah charms her supervisors, who congratulate her for a job well done. How does that work?" Giselle asks her Counsellor, who is still in the listening mode because Giselle's Counsellor can't get a word in edgeways. Giselle continues, "You know right now, Delilah seems to have lost sight of the big picture and the outcomes that she once aspired to. It's like she's confused because she's lost her way. She doesn't seem to know where she's going and how she will get there." Giselle's Counsellor continues to take notes and then observes Giselle in her Silence. After the Silence, Giselle sits upright. She lifts her eyes to focus on the light fitting on the wall that sits just above her direct line of sight. Sitting quietly with her eyes raised, Giselles creates space to sort through her thoughts. When she is ready, Giselle begins speaking again, "I think that Delilah, my dragon narcissist's feet are stuck in the mud, and each movement seems to suck her down even more. She spends her time concentrating on specific details and delegates the rest. I try hard to do the right thing, and I search for solutions based on what has worked in my past workplaces, but every time firing from her nostrils, she shoots me down and each time I burn and scar."