They were once nice guys. We worked together, shoulder to shoulder. They were funny, warm, intelligent, great companions and coworkers. They had good people skills, understanding that they must unto others as they would have others do unto them.

In addition, they had the attributes to rise up the corporate ladder, accumulating power, control, influence, in the process.

But, having approaced and finally achieved high positions, they changed. They seem to have lost their ability to empathize with the lesser beings in the corporation, and seem, to a man, bound and determined to ignore information that does conform to what they already believe.

Their one aim in life seems to be to hold onto the power they have and to accumulate more influence and money and position. To do that, they have to make themselves over into imitations of the powerful at the very top. Losing themselves in the process.

And now they excuse faults in themselves that once they were sensitive to, but continue quick to condemn in others. Not that they are evil, but that the power, the position, has changed them and not for the better.

They used to be my friends.