The need to bully people perceived as different, vulnerable, or in some way needy seems to run strong in some folks. Rather than protect and defend, they need to attack and challenge, destabilize. They being so perfect and all.

Starting in December our two workplace scapegoats / whipping boys will leave. One is being laid off, the other is having his work location reassigned due to cutbacks and reorganization (he's an excellent worker).

I was thinking on the way to work today, "I wonder who will be the new target, now that these two are on their way to other adventures?"

"Who else in our workplace is different, to serve as a lightning rod for their controlling/righteous ways, the object of their scorn (they are so perfect, you know)?"

To my amusement (talk about timing!), after a few minutes of settling in behind my desk, my office techn comes to me and says, "You'll have to be in the rotation to clean the kitchen now." (Of course, NO ONE can clean it to her standards (it would have to be a sterile field to suit her), and that would become the source of oppositional attitudes, a basis for holier-than-thou.)

The easy answer was, of course, "Thanks anyway, but I'll just stop using the kitchen. I won't put anything in the refrigerator and I won't use the microwave. No problem." I have an insulated lunch bag and there's a microwave downstairs. Go pick on somebody else.

I like things clean, but I am not a fanatic about it. I have no intention of being in the line of fire and I have better things to do than to squabble with the clerical staff, what remains of it. I abhor control freaks and I've had it up to here with narcissists.