It depends. Mostly on how seriously the sociopath takes the threat from the bosses (following the dictionaries and the scientific literature I use the words sociopath and psychopath as being synonymous). Might clean up his act immediately. Or might get more devious.
I once was running an evening shift at a presentation center without having hiring and firing powers. A sociopathic employee came to realize this and simply stopped doing his fair share of work and paid my requests no mind. Upon being upbraided by our boss, he instantaneously became my best friend and started working hard again.
But that wasn’t a harassment situation. Sociopaths who go in for harassment and puppet master manipulations seem to really love doing so.
Hopefully in this situation, the bosses won’t give him/her more than one chance. If they were truly aware of the individual’s character they should have fired him immediately, leopards don’t change their spots.
The Path Whisperer 
@serialbuster – intrigued by the idea of a silent partner. I’ve experienced the malign Flying Monkey and the Fan Club, but what’s a silent partner?
@pathwhisperer What happens is that the P, being a P, can’t take it on board. We’re objects to be manipulated. They’re superior. The P sticks to the boss like a leech and pours charm into his or her ears whilst mirroring them. Foregone conclusion – the boss gives them another chance, and another, and another … The P also manages down expectations so that his behaviour starts to seem ‘normal’ to the boss and the surrounding group. It’s just ‘him being him’. He also tries different angles of harassment, and tries to get more and more subtle with the harassment. Meanwhile, he gets his fanclub onside. He also goes on a charm offensive to get the whole group onside. And he begins a smear campaign against the person he’s harassing.
The boss, meanwhile, will never have heard of the term ‘psychopath’. Not as applied to seemingly ordinary people. With no points of reference and massive Cognitive Dissonance to the concept of people having no conscience AND being seeminly so nice the boss will just keep trying, and trying, and trying … to get him back on track …
Been there.
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By “silent partner” I was just referring to co-workers who are in a position to see what is happening and do something about it but instead enable the sociopath by doing nothing and/or even covering for the sociopath.
You explained that so well. Strangely, I had never considered how adept the psychopath is at “adapting” others to his/her behavior, in the context of a workplace environment, but of course it only makes sense.
I’ve noticed many psychopaths are very outgoing and rely heavily on their charm, and I think a lot of people are finally catching on to the con artists’ superficial charms. However, those that are able to pass as kind and considerate, hardworking, etc, are the most difficult to detect and prove, even while they are committing the most atrocious acts against their victims whether co-workers, family members, or unsuspecting strangers.
– buster
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Thanks for the cogent and concise description of office hell.
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Seriously!
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The thing is though, that when dealing with psychopaths/sociopaths/narcissists, they aren’t typically “told by bosses to stop harassment”. For example, two people I worked with (not in my department), a large woman and a small man, got into a verbal altercation on the sales floor one day. It was obvious to me that the woman had been “silently” harassing the man (picking at him when no one else was around, bumping him with her elbow whenever walking past him, that sort of thing), until the man finally “blew” (so to speak – as far as I could tell he told her to go to hell). Well, she then started telling anyone who would listen how the man was “abusive” and she shouldn’t have to put up with “abuse” from her co-workers while at work, blah, blah, blah.
They both were young, like mid-twenties. I sometimes talked to the man while we were taking our lunch break, while the woman often snuck away from her duties to gab with a couple of the ladies in my department. She was very brutish, neither attractive nor charming (qualities which many women appreciate in other women, especially sociopath women who secretly wish to squash all attractive women, lol), and the women in my department that she was sucking up to had a great deal of manipulative control over the boss. However, the boss was a man so he wasn’t about to “choose” an unattractive woman “over” a young man, so neither the man nor the women were significantly disciplined.
The point though, is that a sensitive young man was dealing with ongoing abuse on a daily basis within his workplace while at the same time being labeled as the abuser. And that’s the sort of thing that happens all the time, and much worse as I’m sure you’re aware.
– buster
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I find that sociopaths tend to “take over” workplaces. A “puppet master” in one department, enabled by a “silent partner” and aided by one or more “harassers”. Bosses must find something beneficial about the arrangement. It’s almost like the sociopaths are doing their jobs for them, by keeping their co-workers oppressed, or maybe the bosses simply find it entertaining. It’s hard to say.
I can’t work like that. I have to work from home. I mean, I can put up with a lot when I have to but I have to draw the line at abuse.
– buster
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Yes, some are really devious, even to the point of silently directing the boss and essentially taking over the boss’s job, without the boss even being aware of it. Their manipulative abilities can be incredible. Or on the other hand a boss could be a co-sociopath.
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