What are your thoughts/experiences with Cut-Throat Personality types?

I worked in a small law firm for a few months in the States. The main guy was ok and nice enough, but he had an associate there with him and she was the strangest, meanest bitch. She didn’t know me from a bar of soap, but she would say the meanest things and I had never done anything to her, or even spoken to her other than to say hello as she passed the front desk. It was a small town and I asked around about her. Apparently she had been working at the local prosecutors office and had some sort of break down or bust-up over something. Damaged beyond repair, I’d say.

Another person was a work colleague in New Zealand. I was a new hire from outside and she had been there for a while. I became her manager. What I didn’t know right away was that she had applied for the job I got and felt mightily slighted. Problem was, she was meant to ‘show me the ropes’ and she did show me some ropes; the type she would try to hang me with. She sabotaged me every chance she got, feeding me misinformation. In the end, I stopped asking her things, and she complained to the boss about it, saying that I wasn’t ‘letting her do her job.’ She stoled my keys and I had finally had enough. She wrote a letter to the boss making a formal complaint about me, I wrote one about her based on actual facts (her biggest complaint was how she ‘felt’ and she accused me having slammed a door in anger at the office.??) I found the keys in a locked drawer in her office. It was a drawer I had asked her to open in front of witnesses earlier in the day and she refused. I cleared it with HR to open it in her absence, with witnesses, and so I did, and there were my keys. All this while, she thinks that she is going to force me to leave and get my job… hmmmm…. I did end up leaving to take a much better paying position somewhere else, but she got the sack.

I’ve worked with a few people like that. It makes work a lot harder and frustrating. You end up having to spend half your time documenting every little thing and making sure at least one other person is aware of everything that happens.

And instead of getting ahead, the person usually ends up isolated because people don’t trust them.

Yes I know a lot of people like that. It would be nice if a cut throat person answered because I’d love to hear how they think. What they actually gain from it aside from money.

Well, we have almost entire ideologies and industries built around it. It seems almost necessary for some successes. The perfect example is the guys from Enron bragging and laughing about screwing people over and intentionally giving people crappy deals.

People essentially expect all used car dealers to be shady, as well as other salesman types. Even something as simple as selling shoes at Macys made people cut throat because we get commission. We had problems with people stealing the sales of others.

It’s just greed. I don’t know how much is inherent or learned.

I have less problems now that I have no friends.

I’ve worked with several people like that. They’re mean, often skirt the law, kiss the arses of everyone above them and sh*t on everyone below them, but lie like he dickens to cover their own arses at all costs and make it look like other people have caused problems. They make a cooperative work environment impossible and they often drive out some of the best and most talented people, because those people don’t want to put up with the charade and the abuse, so they go elsewhere. So far, what I’ve seen is these people don’t last too long, but instead of ending up un-employed or in jail, they get sent along to another unsuspecting company with a glowing review, simply so the first company can get rid of them with the least amount of public embarrassment or payouts in a lawsuit (which always stay confidential).

I’m not going too deep with this one. I’‘l just say that I’ve had plenty of experience with what you would classify as “cut-throats”, and I’ve learnt two things from this: one is that at least ½ of all people I’ve come across are cut-throat material to a reasonable degree (human nature?). and the other is that looks/behaviors/demeanors can be deceiving in a person.

I think Stone Cold Steve Austin had it right with his DTA (don’t trust anyone) propaganda. I should say my own philosophy is somewhat DTA, except when a person reasonably proves to to me that I can trust them.

Curious.. do you think not trusting others has made you into a full fledged cut-throat yourself, @Paradox25 ?? Or are you not that sort at all.

@Charles.. I’m not sure what you mean. You’ll have to provide more context.. Are you saying that you are no longer a cut-throat now that you’ve lost all your friends from being that way? Please clarify/elaborate..

@ninjacolin Read the last part of my paragraph, “except when a person reasonably proves to to me that I can trust them”. Nobody has ever called me a cut-throat, that I’m aware of anyways. Trust does have to be earned.