Sociopaths and Suicides

Two weekends ago I was in London and had the opportunity to
catchup with a very good friend of mine. 
He works with a well-known American internet company and inevitably the
conversation got around to office politics. 
As anyone who works in large listed companies knows, the office politics
could be soul destroying.

It’s hard to ignore the recent spate of banker suicides.  Counting New York, London and Hong Kong, I
think the most recent count is about 12. 
Ignoring the suspicious circumstances behind one or two of the suicides
in particular, they have spurred discussions on stress in the workplace.  I watched Wall Street 1 and 2 on the flight
back to Singapore and it made me think that it’s not about the money.  Money is simply a way of keeping score.  It’s about power.  Positions of power are attractive to sociopaths.  Martha Stout, psychologist and clinical
instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, tells us in her book The
Sociopath Next Door
that one out of every 25 human beings has
no conscience, no sense of right or wrong, no empathy, no ability to understand
emotion–no soul.  Worse, while they can
mimic emotion, they see other humans as mere pawns or saps, to be used for
their benefit or amusement, or both. 
These sociopaths are drawn to positions of power like moths to a flame.       


In the first Wall Street, Gecko says that he likes money men
that are young, hungry and without emotion. 
I smiled when he said that because we have all worked with people like
that.  People who would do any and
everything to get ahead.  They say that
they have no emotion but I honestly think that they delude themselves.  They are driven by a single emotion and that
is fear.  I’ve seen it in so many forms,
so many times.

My friends working in financial services in particular, give
me story after story.  Their office
politics sees verbal abuse being the norm, daily stress that takes some staff to
the edge of mental breakdowns, and moments when verbal wars get physical.  For those of us who are not sociopaths, that
type of environment is anything but healthy. Fatca Law Singapore

My final words to my friend working at the American internet
company? Work hard.  Learn what you can
and then get out before the stress pushes you over the edge…

Table of Contents: Sociopaths and Suicides

Related Posts