I was leafing through a book on psychopaths in the workplace recently, "Snakes in Suits", while sitting in my stress counsellor's office. I found myself gradually paying more and more attention. I was there because of the stress caused by a particularly poisonous individual in my department, and the behaviours being described in the book were, I began to realise, actually pretty damn familiar to me. I'm not equipped to diagnose psychopathy, obviously; it's just a slang term for me. Still, it made me think. In my field we have a saying that a good department has only one psychopath. Every department will have at least one poisonous creep whose impossible behaviour causes at least half the problems, and 90% of the unnecessary problems, of the department.
A good department will find a way to encyst itself around this person and limit the damage they cause, one way or another, by making sure they aren't in positions of power. Students are covertly warned off by other students, junior faculty are somehow kept out of their orbit, committees with real power to decide people's lives are somehow not enriched by this individual's presence.
In a bad department, the poisonous creep will somehow inveigle themselves into a position of power; or there will be more than one and they'll enable each other; and you can spot those departments by the number of people fleeing desperately in all directions to get away from them, taking other jobs, taking early retirement, leaving the field entirely - or if none of those options are available, coming in to campus as rarely as possible, working at home, getting out of town for 'research trips' whenever they can; anything to avoid contact.
But I wondered if I'm being pessimistic here. Does every department actually have at least one toxic bastard (by whatever definition)? Are they actually that common in academe? Are they, I don't know, more common in sciences or humanities? I would love to think that it's not in fact that common a problem.
We had a cadre of them in our department, who fed off each-other's insanity. We gradually talked a few back from the ledge, and one simply has retreated into a cocoon, insulating himself from perceived hostilities, and us from his condescending paranoia.
ReplyDeleteThat leaves just one, who is known not just within our own department but across campus as the one to whom rules should not apply (at least in her own mind). By speaking with a common voice that, no, she must abide by the rules that everybody else must, because she is not the unique exception to everything, she swirls about in her own mid-level-dudgeon, annoying those who must contain her but not having any harmful effects on others.
This is in the humanities, if someone is keeping statistics.
We got one of them. I hope to finesse my way into another dept before that biatch takes the chair, an ambition she has made NO secret of.
ReplyDeleteWe're in social sciences, FWIW.
ReplyDeleteThere doesn't seem to be one in the department I work in currently, or the one before that.
ReplyDeleteI should add that I'm extraordinarily lucky to have worked in two very collegial and friendly departments. There could be on that I haven't cottoned onto, yet, though.
ReplyDeleteWe got at least two. And yes, one of them makes no secret that he wants to be the next Chair of Department. I am looking for an escape tunnel...
ReplyDeleteThey often want to be chair, in my experience. It matters a great deal that the department should have a say in who gets to be chair. If the chair has to be ratified by the department, the toxic bastards are stymied; everyone who works with them, or at least the majority of those who work with them, know what they are. If the chair is decided from on high by administration, toxic bastards become chair all the time, because they're usually very good at sucking up to admin.
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ReplyDelete@Grumpy Academic:
ReplyDeleteFor most of my time at the place where I used to teach, I had to deal with 2 such nutters that I knew of. One was the department head and he made it known to all and sundry that he wanted to be dean. The other one was his deputy.
Both took a quick disliking to me and made my life miserable for several years by making me their whipping boy. They didn't care about the effects of what they did, whether it was on me, the department, or, for that matter, my teaching. Unfortunately, due to an internal re-organization, the last dean we had, who came across as being equally as imbalanced as both of them, gave his support.
Eventually, I started tunneling my way out, so to speak. (See, there actually is a reason for my ID!) About 10 years ago, I looked at my investment portfolio, decided I had enough to make it on my own, and then punched out for good.
My advice is to do the same as me because a psychopath can and will make your life a living hell and there's no stopping them. They don't believe they're doing anything wrong and that normal rules of conduct don't apply to them. The best thing is to leave under terms you dictate, though, perhaps, they may not necessarily be to your liking. That way, you can leave with honour and respect plus you took control of the situation away from them.
Unfortunately, I wasn't the only one to whom that sort of thing that happened to. A former staff association president at the institution told me that my situation occurred there quite often.
So much for the image of academic collegiality.
@Merely Academic:
ReplyDeleteIf there's an upwardly mobile psychopath in a department, everybody loses either way. If the nut case becomes dean or part of the upper administration, they can exact their revenge on whoever opposed them prior to their promotion. If they don't get their promotion, they'll do the same thing but the damage would likely be restricted to a smaller group as they wouldn't have as much influence.
That rejection, however, could mean that the person in question won't rise much higher in the organization, if at all. I know of someone to whom that happened.
I think the only real good solution is to write very strong letters of recommendation for the person's hiring by another institution.
ReplyDeleteMiraculously, amazingly, all our department psychopaths retired or took other jobs. You can now hear the choruses of angels singing up and down the hall if you listen carefully enough.
ReplyDeleteIf we have one, I haven't noticed, but one of the few advantages of not having service as part of my job description (I know, I know, but really, even if it's the better of two bad alternatives, I'd rather have a say) is that I can mostly avoid department politics. Our chair is elected by the (TT) faculty and ratified by a dean, a system which seems to result in the position being taken by hardworking people who keep the common good (as far as it can be defined in a department that is diverse in many ways, from academic specialty to employment status) in mind. However, there's not much competition for the position, which may suggest that the more, um, difficult-to-deal-with personalities have already advanced to higher administration (a hypothesis which I've encountered other evidence to support).
ReplyDeleteYES, YES, YES! We have one. We have one!!!! And we're in Humanities... And I know of three other departments on campus who also have one (because I'm friends with people in those departments), not all of which are in the Humanities. I'm so glad there's a book on this to validate the title of "snake."
ReplyDeleteis it psychopathic to do hardly any work at all and nap in your office? if so, then we have one. he's not a bad guy though, just seriously and offensively lazy.
ReplyDeleteI come from a PhD program that's riddled with them. I'm pretty sure they should hand out flack shields to students with their admission letters. They, in turn, would promote some normal grad students but many others with similar issues. I stayed far far away (which is a bad idea kids--don't get out of contact from your committee) because the department was so vile, which did me no favors when it came time to actually graduate.
ReplyDeleteMy MS program had one (long term graduate student), and the program I adjuncted at had one. Of course, since I admin-ed it up there a bit, I can safely say there were about 6 more scattered over other departments, plus about 15 serious gossips that made nearly as much trouble (not all in one group).
And here? Well, we've got one potentially crazy and one I'm... wary of. We'll see about that second one.
There's one in my department, too. He bullies graduate students, and his actions (and words) have caused at least one student (if not more) to leave.
ReplyDeleteI don't notice one in my department so I guess that means I'm the crazy math prof. But that's OK. I was OCD before today's discovery.
ReplyDeleteFrank, Frank, Frank...
ReplyDeleteMr. Treesloth is a burnout, not a psychopath. If you had someone prod him, maybe he would get things done.
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ReplyDeleteTalking to my friends in larger departments, I think it's not so much number per department as the ratio of toxic bastards to the test of us. Past a certain concentration - not sure what the tipping point is - they're impossible to manage. In a department under 10 people, you can't have more than one.
ReplyDeleteWe used to have two, in our physics department of nine. Acting as a team, particularly when one was Chair, they were most effective at terrorizing the staff and junior faculty. I was one of those junior faculty.
ReplyDeleteMercifully, both are now in the early retirement program. They no longer teach much, which is great for our students. It's great for us that they no longer get a vote in faculty meetings, so they rarely attend. They used to be major problems, but now they are minor nuisances.
But then, I forgot who said, "If your department doesn't have one, consider carefully: might it be -you-?" I hope I am not, because it looks like I am about to be drafted to be Chair, again!