The Doust Files - Albany Advertiser 8/5/2012

As we now know because people have been studying such things for a couple of decades, in any large office we can expect to find a number of disturbed humans per one hundred of the species.

Among the one hundred we might find at least one serious narcissist, a psychopath, a sociopath, a pathological liar, an incurable bully and a demented comedian.

Regular readers will no doubt pick the slot I might fill. Some types are hard to discover and I don’t have the space here to offer you full definitions.

I once worked in a large office in the middle of the Big Swirl, Perth, where the bully was the easiest to find and I baited him at every opportunity, but this was not enough, as he continued to intimidate friends of mine, mainly women.

One day, with my pulse racing, I confronted him as he sat behind his desk. When I say confront, I mean with pumped body and steel-tight mouth, and let him know in very clear and certain terms, that I would no longer tolerate his behaviour in my presence.

I never saw him again. He avoided me like the plague.

Hard to imagine, I know, but such folk as those on the above list still exist in large workplaces today and they often flourish because companies, corporations, institutions and departments encourage them, believing them to be crucial to their success.

This is dysfunctional thinking and always ends in tears.

Such behaviour should be confronted whenever it occurs and, as we know with all good bush fire control, sometimes you just have to lop the upper story or the fire spreads very quickly through the rest of the forest.