Torching Bridges
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Torching Bridges

August 31st, 2012 [ Tags: , , ]

I have never had the courage to tell of a boss like this. I’ve always tried my best to keep my options open. But there have been oh so many times when I’ve wanted to verbally destroy a higher up.

I’m curious, have any of you done this? Did it feel as awesome as I always imagine it would? Were there any horrible consequences?

43Comment



  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000593326352 M.f. Lawless

    I told off a boss of mine publicly when I was younger and worked in food service. It felt amazing to let loose on someone who was completely incompetent and made everything more difficult for no reason. Of course I was fired almost instantly since it was an argument in the middle of the store in the middle of the day, but it was completely worth it.

  • Anathamas

    I spent a year in the ROTC. At the end of the year the program had failed to teach anything related to the extra-curriculum which was supposed to be taught over the course of two semesters. When I questioned the Colonel (a real one, from the USAF who ran the program) about this he told me that it hadn’t been taught in years. I lost my shit. I spent the next 3 hours (read: about 90 seconds) chewing out this man for failing to hold the Corps to the standards he had agreed to. At the end I finished my long winded thing with a plead for permission to leave the room since my brain had caught up to what I was saying. I was allowed to leave.
    Three days later he approached me, and I thought I was about to be booted from the Corps. He offered me a promotion to a student-officer position which would have made me a shoe-in for a major scholarship to the Academy in Colorado. I declined and informed him that I’d just been accepted to transfer to a different school and program. Honestly the calm decline of the promotion felt a lot better than the actual outburst.

  • http://beesbuzz.biz/ fluffy

    I had a truly terrible boss once for whom I wanted to take a shit on his desk on my last day. I still regret not doing it.

  • Squeeks

    At my last job I took what felt like an hour of yelling from a much taller, much older male boss from about 6 inches away from my face without saying a word of disagreement. Then, as I was walking away to calmly go home for the day (he yelled at me to leave a half dozen times) I muttered some very inappropriate things to myself. He over heard me and asked what I’d just said. Since I was going up a set of stairs at the time, I was looking him in the eye when I turned around. When I saw he wasn’t towering over me any more, I looked him right in the eye and told him the truth. “I said f*&^ you, [name].” Needless to say, I was fired.

    My coworkers said it was the most awesome thing they ever saw.

  • N

    Well I’ve never done it, but right now with this current job I have, there is one particular manage that I work with that I want to fuckin’ scream at because he is such an asshole.

    Oh well, even if I don’t do it and move on from this job, he will still be there bossing around 16 year old boys while I will run my own business.

  • Chrysophase2003

    It must be very difficult to deal with physically imposing bosses. Standing at a little over 6’6″ and weighing in excess of 250 pounds, I have found myself lucky enough to be able to square my shoulders and look down at whatever idiot boss feels like he wishes to pick a fight. Often enough, they decide otherwise. But not always.

    But I have found a number of tactics which work well to get through to even the densest of incompetents not to mess with you.

    When first taking a job, research your boss. Find out where he lives and what relatives he has in the area. Then, during conversation, bring them up, saying you know where such and such a place is and do you go to that particular grocery store? It may or may not build a rapport with the boss, but it tells him that you are intimately familiar with where he and his loved ones live. It takes away his sense of security. It drives home the fact that his treatment of you on the job may have repercussions off the job. And no threats of any kind ever need to be made. It simply reminds him that mutual respect is imperative to keep the world running smoothly.

    Beyond that, workplace conduct is important. Never raise your voice, as the person who must shout all the time is making up for a lack of confidence and natural leadership ability. Speak calmly and let the other person have the first word, but never the last. Maintain a wide stance and upright posture. If confronted by your boss, and he’s irate, maintain a neutral expression and focus on the point between his eyebrows. Never back away. Blink once every five seconds if not less frequently. It presents a hollow, hunter’s expression into which the boss’s anger disappears, so that he gets no satisfaction and quickly finds himself unnerved. Once the tirade is complete, speak slowly, clearly, with your hands at your sides lightly balled, and make sure your voice is dropped by a half octave so it rumbles through him more deeply than normal. By the time you’re done defending yourself in no uncertain terms, your boss will feel like he’s just barely survived a close encounter with the devil.

    Worked every time for me.

  • Alessandro Maggiorotto

    so.. finding out where he lives and where his children go to school and then telling him so seems approprate behaviour in your line of work?
    dude.. not everybody works with the mafia, you know?
    if I did something like that in my country, I’d be out on the streets within minutes and would have to explain my conduct to the authorities.

  • Chrysophase2003

    My employers know where I live. What’s wrong with establishing a little reciprocity? It’s a valid part of workplace socialization.

  • JohnDoe

    Actually did it while doing holiday job abroad; kitchen hand in a large hotel, Aberdeen, Scotland.

    Payment for my job still was not on my bank account two weeks past the due date. Cash was running thin on me, the same as my patience.
    I spoke with HR daily about the matter; was sure that manager of the place knew of the situation.
    Getting same excuses everyday. When you’re about to starve within three days one sometimes does things he would not consider otherwise. Especially if one has read Fight Club like five times this same year. Or maybe it’s just that it was monday. I hate mondays.
    March into manager’s office, ‘hello sir, you said your door was always open’, he points to the phone he’s currently on and mouths ‘I’m busy’.
    ‘you’ll have other things to worry about if we don’t talk’, my hand lands on the phone and drops the call.
    Guy shifts angrily, starts to get up, he’s got all twitchy, angry face and I know he never encountered situation like that before. I allow him to start his sentence, don’t even remember what he said, cuz it was only one word. Maybe ‘boy’ or ‘whatever’ or even ‘what’.
    Doesn’t matter, because I interrupt.
    ‘My money is still not in my account. I spoke with HR everyday and hear same shit all the time. I don’t believe you. I know that you make payments on fridays, that’s why I waited till today. Guess what, still no cash. I already spoke with the Police and Press and Journal. Both seem interested. If I don’t get cash by tommorow noon, I’ll sue the everloving fuck out of you and tell the story in papers.’ Practiced the speech in my head over the weekend. It paid off. Did not shout, did not stutter, spoke in menacingly quiet, monotone voice.
    Manager seems like he’s about to piss in his pants, chalk white face, trembling hands, I begin to leave.
    I turn around while I’m at the door.
    ‘Do you understand the situation you’re in?’
    Guy nods.
    I quit his bureau, go to HR and with most pleasantly murderous smile tell to the lady in the desk: I quit.

    Cash was on my account next day, 11:42 am.

    One of the better feelings moment in my life. On the other hand, they really deserved it (heard some stories about the place, they screwed over some other people of their cash, especially if they weren’t from UK), I had a rough year, my cash was running so thin that all these skinny models looked fat next to it and I was really into Fight Club then.

    No negative consequences btw.

  • Penny Sautereau-Fife

    I did once. I wrote a videogame review column for a local paper, and was let go fter a strike because the budget supposedly had no room for a gaming column. A month later a new column magically started running every week, written by a man who said his readers were stupid if they lacked a console. So I called my old boss up and chewed him a new one.

  • Damn

    When you say the employers know here you live, its because its on the form when sign up for a job, right? Not Hey where the hell you live? BTW do you hove any family members I can stalk ? No right ? Because if they do ask those questions or just do it because their bored and lonely your potential boss is a complete and utter asshole like you. And you should ask them out on a date.

  • http://www.facebook.com/fbromley Frank Bromley

    wish i had with 2 of em treated me like shit for 2 years and the busness went into the shit after i left

  • http://twitter.com/punkwalrus Grig Punkie Larson

    I have always felt that the best revenge is success. The “worst fuck you exit” I ever left was a former tech job with such a volatile work environment, when I had 5 different bosses, 3 department name changes, and 3 different locations in an 8 month period. My last boss was a complete cunt.

    So, after him doing the whole “mafia protection scheme” bit like out of a bad sitcom, “I notice you have a wife and son… it would be a shame if you lost your job, huh…?” I started looking. When he dared say I was paid too much for my skills, I told him it would be easy to get a job for more money and less work. I even told him I was offered a job like that, but didn’t take it because it was far away. He sat upright, and looked at me like I had given him a stupid and desperate bluff. “Really?” he said. “Some company was STUPID enough to offer you a job with your skills, for MORE pay? Why didn’t you take it? Pfft… I totally would have taken such an opportunity in a heartbeat. It would be stupid to turn that kind of once in a lifetime mistake down.”

    Two weeks later, that job offered me more money. So I gave my two weeks notice. Despite his belittling me, he seemed shocked and angry I dared give two weeks. “Why are you quitting?? I just gave you this HUGE project!”

    I said in a very convincing act of compassion, “Yeah, I know. But you kept hinting that if I lost my job, my wife and son would be screwed, so I figured with you going to India every few weeks, that was a hint our department might be in jeopardy of being outsourced. Then you said I’d be stupid not to take that job, and so when they offered me more money, I figured I’d take your advice. It was nice working here. The coffee was always very tasty and plentiful.”

    He was so mad, he avoided me for the rest of my time there. He said, “I will make you WORK HARDER THAN YTOU EVER HAVE IN YOUR LAST TWO WEEKS!!!” then gave me no work, fumed, and on the day he had to say goodbye and escort me out of the building, he called in sick, and his boss (who always liked me, she was one of the 5 I had in those 8 months) had to escort me out. She was very sad to see me go. Later, several people quit because I they saw me as some kind of canary in a coal mine. “If Grig left, shit… I better get out of here!”

    Best. Revenge. Ever.

  • Guest

    I also have to add that some people see quitting in some glorious fashion like Sally Fields playing Norma Rae with a sign that says “UNION” or something. I have known some people to quit in a fury of anger, and it’s always embarrassing, and everyone avoids eye contact and looks the other way.

  • http://ypcomic.com Jamie Noguchi

    The calm telling off must have made him shit his pants! This is a great story and I’m so glad you got your moneys.

  • http://twitter.com/punkwalrus Grig Punkie Larson

    I also wanted to add that quitting in an angered manner is never very satisfying. It seems good on paper, but other people just avoid eye contact and look the other way; it makes you look like a child having a tantrum. In fact, when I was in management, it was one of our training points if we had to fire someone or they quit, how to handle it if they had an outburst. You are calm, apologetic, and help them gather their things. Not everyone will look like Sally Fields holding up a sign that says “UNION” as Norma Rae. “Fuck me? No. NO FUCK YOU!!! Ha ha! Take that, mean person. I bet you’ll change how you feel now because you’re like an 80s movie where the cheerleader dates the nerd because he’s better at sex than the jock!”

  • http://ypcomic.com Jamie Noguchi

    The revenge of success definitely tastes the sweetest! This is a great story, Grig!

  • http://ypcomic.com Jamie Noguchi

    Totally shady. It must have felt good to tell him off.

  • toeorchestra

    oh my god. hah!!

  • http://ypcomic.com Jamie Noguchi

    Hah! That is pretty damn awesome. I’m surprised you didn’t punch his face in. It’s such a power play for a boss to violate your personal space like that. They absolutely DO NOT have the right to do that.

  • http://ypcomic.com Jamie Noguchi

    That’s pretty interesting. I suspect they’re looking for independent thinkers in the higher ranks. You probably impressed him greatly for standing up for yourself. Awesome!

  • http://ypcomic.com Jamie Noguchi

    That’s freaking awesome! I can’t stand it when bosses constantly get in your way.

  • http://blog.punman.net/ punman

    Slightly creepy and very informative at the same time.

  • http://blog.punman.net/ punman

    Not quite an “I quit, fuck you” story, but…

    I was working for a small (nameless) consulting company in a large city that is not LA or NYC and lies somewhere between them in location. The company was on the rocks, the owner(s) had sold their house(s) for cash to keep the company afloat. One week they came in and said “paychecks are gonna be late, we have to pay the people on assignments first” despite the fact that none of the under-qualified sales people were being shorted checks for failing to place me and the other three guys on the bench into any sort of profitable work.

    So, alrighty. It’s two weeks before Christmas, I haven’t been paid for 4 weeks by this point, and I get called into the owner’s office. “Hey, yeah … we really just can’t afford to pay you any more. Nothing personal, but you might as well stay home, and kinda should start looking for a different job.” I don’t really have anything against the owner, he just failed at his business. However, the “CFO” of this tiny company should have been worrying about paying me the 4 weeks back pay and now last check (totaling now 6 weeks unpaid) and I told him so.

    “Uh, we’ll catch up to you when we can. We sold our houses, we aren’t making our car payments, we are really in the hole.”

    “I don’t care, you owe me the money for the work I did. Whatever, I’ll be in touch.” So I went home, and filed for unemployment the next day. Found out that they hadn’t been paying the unemployment insurance, so the state gave me a hard time getting benefits. Now I was mad.

    I called the CFO and told him what happened, and that I really would appreciate a check for the full amount of back pay, and, on the advice of the unemployment office, I was going to contact the state department of labor and begin legal action. They’ll start seizing assets, freeze the company bank accounts, so now NO one gets paid, have a nice day, you guys are really going out of business, and possibly to jail, so pay up right the fuck now.

    I have never heard someone start begging over the phone before! “Oh, no … please don’t do that, you really don’t want to do that.” And then he started wheedling, “ahhh, you know … it’ll just drag out, you won’t get your money anytime soon.” And then he started apologizing: “Look, I’m really sorry about the whole situation, but this isn’t really the right way to do things.”

    So I told him, “need a check. Tonight. Start making payments or I start making phone calls.”

    “Alright, I’ll meet you in the parking lot of the grocery store tonight.”

    God, those were sketchy meetings, but after a few months I had all my money. Threatening someone with legal action when you KNOW they’re screwed, and you’re in the right, is very satisfying.

  • Chrysophase2003

    I thought it was just a singular incident, but because what I’ve said has led to erroneous and incredibly insulting assumptions, it seems I’m resigned to explaining the concept of behavioral compartmentalization. I doubt someone who resorts to personal attacks on an anonymous forum for lack of the ability to form a coherent argument will understand what I have to present, but I still have hope for other readers.

    Every person out there goes through life wearing a series of masks. Each mask is tailored to the situation in which they find themselves. Each is a version of themselves best fitting the role they must play. All of us do it. We play father, son, husband, friend, boss, stranger, and many others. Each is a set series of personality traits based on the context in which we find ourselves. In this way, our behavior is compartmentalized.

    A person can wear the boss mask and act in a civil fashion, but for our purposes we’re looking at worst case scenarios, where significant authority and company policy has led a man wearing his boss mask to think of himself as a tyrannical king in his own small kingdom. In this mindset, the boss ceases to see employees as real people. He doesn’t acknowledge their existence until they come in the door and once they leave again.

    In order to establish an effective working relationship with such a boss, one must find a way to get him to switch to a mask in which he employs a greater sense of wariness and/or mutual respect. There are a number of ways to do this. One that requires least effort is simply to find out where he lives and the location of a nearby public venue such as a grocery store.

    Then, when in a passing encounter in his office, pretend to notice a photo of his family. Point at the wife. “Hey! She looks real familiar. I’ve seen her before. Where was it? Hmm. Oh yeah. (Insert name of grocery store where she’s likely to have been) a couple months ago.”

    The boss wonders why you would remember something from so long ago, catching him mildly off guard.

    “I was collecting my change and a couple bills fell out of my pocket. I would’ve walked right out without noticing if she hadn’t ran after me to give them back. Most people would’ve just kept the cash for themselves. Real good person.”

    The boss mutters some minor words of gratitude for the compliment.

    “So, (name of neighborhood near grocery store), huh? Nice neighborhood. I’ve got a buddy down on (street name a couple down from boss’s place). (Make up friend name). Know him?”

    The boss either waffles or speaks in the negative.

    “I’m down on (different neighborhood) myself. Thinking of moving out to (other adjacent neighborhood) if I can get the credit.”

    Boss becomes disinterested.

    “Well, back to work. Give my thanks to your wife for me again.”

    And that’s it. There are plenty of other ways to do this, but the goal here is to get a boss to recognize both you and he as existing outside of the workplace. It subconsciously will cause him to switch masks when next dealing with you. Often this new mask is one employed with passing strangers or casual acquaintances, in which more manners are expected because of the loose or unformed dynamics of the relationship. No threats. Nothing underhanded. Nothing unethical. Just taking a king out of the kingdom.

    This is simply applied behavioral therapy.

  • Alessandro Maggiorotto

    sorry but no.. if you want to speak about masks.. what kind of mask is a guy who basically stalks his colleagues/boss’s family wearing?.. usually the people wearing that sort of mask end up on a register.
    behavioural therapy is all nice and dandy but doesn’t apply here.. it does NOT excuse or explain making up anecdotes and talking utter crap to drive home the point to your boss that you’re a big menacing guy who knows where his loved ones live so he better take notice of that.
    whether you’d act on the information or not, is not the ethical/moral faux pas here either.. if you had encountered him or his loved ones by chance because you lived in the same area or simply bumped into them, then .. no problem with all that you say.. it’s a perfectly normal thing to happen.the act of scouting out your boss’s digs and basically overstepping a number of boundaries is a different kettle of fish entirely.. it shows malicious intent (or at the very least a very unsavoury frame of mind). if I ever had wind of an employee of mine having gone to the lenght of “checking out” where I live or who with, where my loved ones hang out and such, without me inviting him to my home, I would think very hard whether I shouldn’t start looking for someone who can do his job just as well and who won’t show up on my doorstep if he happens to be drunk or disgruntled about having received an unwanted task.there are weirdos enough out there for me not to want one working for me.
    put simply this doesn’t fall under acceptable business practices (you’re not investigating a potential partner for a merger that involves large capitals and high financial risks.. you’re peeping in your shop/office/workshop manager’s private life).. nor under acceptable “covering your bases” or.. any other form of acceptable estabilishing of roles. I am a decent person and would be a decent boss (I am, but my work situation is not comparable.. I lead a team of people who all work independently and far away from myself).. and I would expect someone working for me to be equally decent. Scouting out my private life and dropping hints, however “smoothly” done would send a lot of bells ringing in my head.. it isn’t decent, it’s potentially dangerous (after all, who am I to be sure that the guy I just hired isn’t a nutjob?) and it shows a frame of mind I want nothing to do with.
    so yeah.. I bet there are people who would be intimidated into treating you better than the would otherwise.. but you’ll find that plenty more people would find this attitude rather a reason to fire you quicker than they otherwise would.

  • Chrysophase2003

    So this is an issue of moral outrage to you as opposed to contesting the efficacy of behavioral modification in a work environment?

  • http://ypcomic.com Jamie Noguchi

    Oh my shit, that’s a horror story! Absolutely insane.

  • JackTheObserverDee

    This is sort of a… post-firing revenge more than anything.

    Earlier this year, I was working on an album as assistant engineer. Now for the record, I’m not a music guy, I’m a dialogue guy. I handle voice over and ADR, not hardcore punk, but this guy – who was at the time a friend of mine – basically begged me, and I figured branching out wouldn’t be a bad idea.

    Now this guy didn’t really know what he was doing. Took him maybe a month of once-a-week all nighters just to get the bass line down for one track. He kept experimenting and micromanaging. I didn’t say anything, if he wanted to spend the money wasting his time in the studio, that was his choice.

    This went on for about eight weeks, and we hadn’t actually completed one song yet. But okay, whatever. Anyway, over some monday holiday or another (I get them confused easily) he told me he was skipping his studio session for that week since he was going to spend the holiday weekend with his family. So I cleared up the schedule. At around the same time, one of my bosses dropped on me an emergency project: a short film needed full post production audio in a rather short amount of time. So I booked that same studio time that my friend usually took so that I could fully mix the final product. And me and a few friends I brought on (one for SFX/Foley, one for music) did it and mixed it in studio and it sounded great.

    So a couple of weeks later, I realize that I hadn’t seen my “friend” with the punk band around lately. He was still taking up that studio, he just wasn’t telling me. At the time I thought it was just because I was working on other projects, but then a mutual friend of ours pulled me aside and told me that this guy had apparently decided I’d actively sabotaged his studio time and took it for myself – nevermind that it wasn’t his studio and that he told me that he wasn’t even going to be there that weekend. I was flabbergasted. So I got in touch with him, and he came back at me with this long text message about how he didn’t want anyone working on his project that wasn’t 100% committed to it. He obviously didn’t understand that it’s a big facility and I get a number of projects per month, I can’t make a once-a-week session my top priority under any circumstances.

    Anyways, I decided to hell with that guy. After he rabbleroused around with a few other clients and employees, even to the point of trying to shop to our firm his amateur movie (which had basically unsalvagable production sound; we’d have to ADR the entire thing), I decided to put the kibosh on him as a client. I told a lot of my fellow engineers to simply not work with the guy, he’s unstable. And it’s true, this is just what he did to me, but he fired several of the people I work with because… argleflargeblargle. I have no idea. He just decided he can’t work with some of us and that was that. No one wants to drop a paying client, but I didn’t have a choice, he was wasting our time and making our people feel like crap. So he hasn’t recorded anything with us since July or so.

    So yeah, sort of a quiet revenge, but if you’re going to treat some of the finest audio personnel I’ve ever had the privilege of working with like that, I’ll be the bad guy and put you on your ass.

  • SmilingAhab

    My old boss at the organic food store I used to work at was a Cuban who hated the Irish for some reason. I was talking about how I supported Irish separatism, even if I deplored the IRA’s militant tactics, and the old world Catholic Church (If only I’d known they’d replace John Paul II, God save him, with “the Enforcer”). He came down on that like a hammer and asked me to leave. It was a small store, so I though a prank wouldn’t hurt – I edited gingers into our store calendar we post for customers and all our advertising material kept on the company’s database.

    Long story short, he knew a LOT of people, and now I can’t work in the independent organic industry on the East Coast (Whole Paycheck/Trader Joe’s might not care). Also the Cuban mafia might want me, they were reported scoping out my old haunts by an old friend of mine.

    Always know who your enemy’s friends are.

  • SmilingAhab

    Well, that’s what you have to do in the USA to survive a lot of bosses. It’s basically all-against-all here.

  • SmilingAhab

    Sounds more like a deep disquiet that we have to tinge our every interaction with a drop of sociopathy these days just to retain our dignity in the face of authority figures. It’s a sentiment I can sympathize with.

  • WayneZombie

    I almost did that. Back in the early 90′s I was a network administrator for a state agency. One Thursday afternoon, my two-week vacation started on Monday, my boss called an all-hands meeting and announced that ‘when Wayne comes back from vacation, he’s no longer going to be the network admin, he’s going to write Cobol code with Mike and Bob is going to take over as net admin.’

    I came within a hair’s breadth of saying ‘Fuck you, Larry’, and walking out. Larry didn’t bother discussing it with me before the meeting. I can write Cobol, no problem there, but there was no way Bob could take over my duties as net admin, because I also: installed and repaired PCs, software installation, training, database programming, user support, etc. Bob didn’t have the skill set. So I went on vacation and realized there was no way that this change would stick. I came back, resumed my duties as net admin, and never wrote a line of code with Mike and never heard a word from Larry.

    When I left, some women in Finance (whom the network supported) actually cried. And from my department? I got a card that basically said ‘don’t let the door hit you in the butt on your way out.’

    Absolutely no regrets leaving that place.

  • LampLighter

    I’m with SmilingAhab on this one. As someone who is in the process of starting a business, the thought of any employee doing that kind of “research” to “keep me in my place” as a boss is DEEPLY unsettling.

    You also specify that it’s “when first taking a job”… so you’re assuming BEFORE YOU EVEN TAKE THE JOB that I will be a horrible boss, and that you will need to THREATEN ME AND MY FAMILY (explicitly or implicitly) in order to get the treatment you think you deserve. That’s pretty sociopathic there, bud.

    Now, I’ve been abused by my employers before. I’ve had horrible bosses who treated me like garbage. I’ve gone home from work each day feeling like a wrung-out dishtowel. I NEVER felt it was appropriate to bring my employer’s family into the picture – because threatening the safety of home, children, pets, etc. is a monstrous thing to do. It’s not reciprocity, and it’s not gaining even ground – it’s just wrong. If you have a problem with your boss, there are FAR more appropriate ways to handle it.

    Chrysophase, I would never hire someone like you. Even over the internet, you make me feel unsafe and give me the friggin’ willies.

  • Chrysophase2003

    Perhaps I am a sociopath. I’d never considered it. Most of the people I’ve enjoyed contact with I have gotten along extremely well with, employing one mask after the next as per usual based on the context of the social situation. Since my own perspective is the only one I have to go by, I just assumed that it was the same for everyone else.

    Maybe that’s why I’ve always tried so hard to avoid making personal judgments about others. Morality, as I see it, is an us versus them issue designed to justify one’s actions and thoughts while vilifying those who disagree with said actions and thoughts. Take for example Allessandro’s constant use of the terms decent and acceptable in reference to himself. He does not define the terms, only implying that I am neither because the doctrine by which I live my life is not the same as his. I am to him, and apparently to you, hideously OTHER. Immoral. Someone to be shunned.

    Why? Because I’m telling the truth? Because I see morality to be a society-wide self-serving case of hypocrisy? The bad guys in a movie are bad guys because they commit violent acts. But the good guys commit violent acts too. Why are they good? Should not their actions define them? No. Morality says it is the justification for the action which defines good or bad. Good guys are allowed to commit violent acts against bad guys, yet another us versus them mentality that’s a throwback from internecine tribal warfare.

    In this way, we do not engage in actions based upon our sense of morality, our morality allows us to engage in the same actions as immoral people, but with justification.

    It’s hypocritical. How many people have invited their bosses to a barbeque? Or given them tickets to a concert? Or gone golfing with them? Morality should dictate that if these actions were carried out with disingenuous intent, like if you should happen to dislike the person, then these too should be immoral. But “buttering up” the boss is quite common in terms of attempting behavioral modification.

    These are my true thoughts on the matter. Honesty which I rarely employ. And for that I am scorned. Perhaps I am a sociopath. I know how morality works. I’ve certainly seen people’s actions and thoughts dictated by it often enough. But I happen to see it as flawed. It leads to poor decisions and narrow-minded ways of thinking. Case in point, you feeling unsafe. Why? I was there long before you knew it. As were lots of people who are genuinely dangerous, unlike someone who spins his wheels online like me. A sense of security is an illusion we enjoy so we don’t have to contemplate the reality that none of us are truly safe.

    That’s just academic I suppose. What you should be asking yourself now is how do you know you’ve never encountered “someone like me” before? I don’t have a sign hanging around my neck. I know how to socialize and what’s expected of a given situation. In fact, I’m the life of any party. I just happen to disagree with the points of view of many of my peers and go along with them because to do otherwise invariably leads to judgment and denunciation. Going with the flow is easy, but not in my opinion right.

  • http://www.facebook.com/esteban.herrera.965 Esteban Herrera

    sociopathic tendencies, sure. don’t see anything wrong with that though. Sociopaths are explicitly non violent. Also, Chryso is also in possesion of the ability to differentiate between right and wrong, therefore, not a sociopath. If anything, chryso strikes me as Hyper rational. Think Dr Brennan from the TV show Bones. And if you’re a good boss, you’ll probably love him as an employee.

  • Chrysophase2003

    Thank you for that. The validation is most welcome. I love that show, by the way. It might explain why my own academic pursuits bore the people around me terribly, while it’s all very exciting to me.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000365883252 John David Choat

    I had a temp job which was keeping me from starving at one point. I sold Christmas trees for about six or seven weeks. Since I was married and we were pretty broke, I had insisted to the Owner/Manager of this string of tiny Xmas tree lots that I wanted the commission money up front. Se, they paid a crappy hourly wage and then there was a % of the total lot sales on top of that, which wasn’t bad but he wanted to wait until the lots closed up to pay out. I could not do that and offered to quit but he relented and I got paid the extra amount (it was a pretty long argument). I later found out that A) He never paid the bonus money to anyone else working there (30 plus temps) and B) He had been spending the money on Coke and C) It caused him to have a fatal heart attack later that year.

  • http://ypcomic.com Jamie Noguchi

    Holy fuck!

  • LampLighter

    I have met someone like you before. He raped me and called it love. He was incapable of recognizing the level of manipulation and abuse he had to use to attain that “love.”

    By your logic, it would be unfair of me to “vilify” him, because he had justification for his actions. The pain and mess I’ve gone through as a result of those actions is just… what, collateral damage?

    Look, we can turn this into an abstract debate on morality, justification, and logic vs. emotion. You’re still ignoring the part where your actions, regardless of intent or justification, are to lie to and implicitly threaten an employer in order to get what you want. That’s not the type of person I, as an employer, would want working at my business because I, as an employer, do not value being lied to and threatened.

    Also, @facebook-100000984917276:disqus: I really enjoy Bones. However, Dr. Brennan is aware that she is hyper-logical, and that this makes her different from others. She constantly endeavors to understand the way others around her relate to the world, and asks for feedback from trusted friends as she navigates unfamiliar interactions. At no point does she say, “Well, it’s ok for me to behave in a way that’s hurtful to others, because I have logical reasons for it. I shouldn’t have to change who I am.”

    If I’m a good boss, I’d carefully and consistently avoid employees like Chryso, because if a person feels they are justified in causing (or threatening) harm to another person, for any reason, they are a liability and a risk I cannot afford to take.

    Also: Sociopaths are explicitly non-violent? Tell that to Charles Manson.

  • Chrysophase2003

    It is unfortunate that you were victimized, but please do not attempt to appeal to my sense of pathos. If I am a sociopath as you suggest, I do not have one. If I am not a sociopath, then it just obscures the conversation by bringing personal hurts into the matter. For the record, I would never seek to violate a person’s free will. I am not physically, nor am I mentally, abusive toward anyone I deal with in daily life. So we end up being right back where we started: You object to my disingenuous nature, while I say it does no harm, violates no free will, and would’ve gone completely unnoticed had not I said something. Because my views are not yours, you inherently think it’s ok to make a personal judgment of me. I wonder how you would react if I treated you in the same manner?

  • LampLighter

    Soo, here’s the thing.

    Usually, if a person says Thing X and someone else says “Not cool. In fact, that’s kinda creepy, dude,” that person goes “Oh, I didn’t intend it to be – here’s what I meant,” or possibly “Oh, is it? I didn’t know.”

    The fact that you immediately jump into “Here are the reasons I do what I do, and if you don’t like it you’re being unfairrrr and judging meeee” means that 1) you know your behavior is bullshit and have developed defenses and justifications for it, and 2) you feel like it is something you are ENTITLED to do.

    Which is, in fact, exactly how a rapist thinks. Am I calling you a rapist? Of course not. I don’t know jack about you. Am I saying that your *actions* as I’ve seen them modeled are the same as a rapist’s? Yes, yes I am. Because they are.

    If that upsets you, maybe you have some introspection to do. I suggest you start here: http://captainawkward.com/2012/08/07/322-323-my-friend-group-has-a-case-of-the-creepy-dude-how-do-we-clear-that-up/

    BTW, this is the last time I am commenting or even looking at this thread. Have fun being a Creepy Dude.

  • Chrysophase2003

    Taking your ball and going home? Sound strategy. It’s a good thing I talk for the enjoyment out of it as opposed to any need to be right or get my opponent to acknowledge their loss, else I might not care to take the last word.

    There are two things at work here. 1, you’re transferring your anger and hurt for the man who raped you onto me, in so doing trying to obtain validation that you were wronged and vindication in being able to attack and possibly force me to say that I am wrong for my behavior. Showing me that link, which I must admit was entertaining, is proof of that. My posts have never had anything to do with sexuality, but you keep steering the conversation back to it because of your inability to see me for me, what with your attacker standing in the way. Don’t encourage introspection in others when you’ve failed to do it yourself.

    2, you enjoy overgeneralization, assuming that any form of deviant behavior indicates a person lacks all boundaries and cannot tell right from wrong. My boundaries are simply placed differently. I may not be moral, but I am ethical. If you’re not familiar with the difference, please look it up.

    As to your analysis, you seem to have missed a vital point. Let us go back and say we were living in the 1950s. Let’s say you were a young, unmarried, white woman. Let us say that It became known you were attracted to a man who was black. Is your behavior bullshit and you have developed defenses and justifications for it when you must face public outcry? Or, are you just aware of the mores, morals, and taboos of the time and know you’ll catch hell from the civil majority for simply being yourself?

    Entitlement doesn’t enter into it. Nor is being defensive when I’m attacked an indication of guilt. I am and will always be myself, just as you are and will always be yourself, which I suppose has made my cause pointless from the start in getting you to open your eyes. Still, it was good to take the mask off for a while.

    I guess I’ll have to put it back on and fit in with the crowd now. Too bad. I enjoyed this all very much. I hope to talk with you again someday.