Thanks SRS, Jim Dixon & Amos. I had saved the thread on my computer and did half the job of finding the name of it to post here but not the other half of actually linking it to Mudcat. Oh well, you knew what I meant. Thanks.

The sociopath I worked for fairly closely fitted jacqui c.'s description: he was so concerned at making his own career take off that he would do anything to anyone regardless of how it affected that person. He was a moral and emotional coward. I think he knew what effect he was having but it was of no consequence to him.

He was certainly a decision-making coward. He would delay and send people on wild goose chases for months just to stave off the point when he would actually have to make a decision that he might have to justify or defend. How he managed to get away with it when he was a senior manager in a major public organisation is beyond me. He spent most of his waking hours looking over his shoulder wondering whether anyone had twigged yet about how incompetent he was. He could also recruit a lot of other people to work with him by playing on their negative personal traits, especially either their fears or their innate desire to see the worst in people or to enjoy watching other people fall over.

The thing that still scares me is that a room full of 40 or so intelligent, basically nice people would put their heads down for nearly 2 years (in my case) and hope that as long as I was being victimised they would be safe. Only 2 people reached out to help me, for which I will be eternally grateful.

Helen