How your Passive-Aggressive Boss is Trying to Kill You

The Crumble Series begins with a serial killer Robert Caldwell holding a married couple captive in their leaky basement.  In justification Caldwell claims “I don’t fix leaks.  I fix people.”  With the violence that ensues anyone observing Robert Caldwell can see that he is deranged.  However, in his mind his actions are justified by the need to “fix people.”  When violence is straightforward people don’t have any problem identifying it for what it is—barbarism.  However, when the need to “fix people” comes in the form of passive aggressive criticism people don’t readily associate it as an act of violence. 

When the need to “fix people” comes in the form of passive aggressive criticism people don’t readily associate it as an act of violence

In past times of tribal warlords and conquests, men would raid villages, plunder, and take captive whoever they chose to keep alive to make them slaves.  The principle of violence was very simple; whoever was the strongest was in charge.  As society seemingly progressed unwritten codes of civility governed how people interacted with each other, but the human desire to dominate never went away.  Instead of surrounding a town with a horde of barbarians to cut off their water supply to starve them into submission, the desire to dominate takes the form of workplace incivility.  That one passive aggressive supervisor constantly criticizes a particular employee just to make the job unnecessarily difficult. 

The unfair scrutiny is an act of dominance where the supervisor is fully aware that the employee has to submit to the harassment or be forced out of a job.  Without wages from a job a person is subjected to poverty unable to support themselves, pay for a place to live, or buy food.  They are essentially starved into submission, similar to barbarians cutting off access to the river from a village.  Yet, the extra steps between a passive aggressive act of dominance on the job and poverty offsets the responsibility of the one instigating the aggression.  Since workplace incivility does not cause poverty by direct action the passive aggressive behavior is not viewed as an act of violence even though the intent behind the behavior remains the same. 

Incivility is a mask for the barbaric desire to dominate and control other people. 

Explicit violence comes with the risk of punishment from law enforcement.  Implicit violence through passive aggressive behavior goes virtually undetected.  Incivility is a mask for the barbaric desire to dominate and control other people.  When a “Karen” demands to speak to a manager she intends to get the target of her ire fired and subsequently impoverished.  Her tears are the knife used to flay the flesh of her enemies.  In the office, when a supervisor uses his position to talk down to employees he his flaunting the hordes of barbarians in his army who will burn the village down at a moment’s notice if anyone refuses to submit to forced labor. 

In the Crumble series the serial killer Robert Caldwell proclaims that the binds of God are worn and society is crumbling.  Although Caldwell has a twisted view of the Bible, one thing he can see clearly is the barbarism in society.  He recognizes that people in society are not much different from him.  Caldwell is simply upfront about his desire to harm other people.  As law enforcement tries to catch this serial killer they find a mirror into their own lives and the desire for control under the mask of incivility. 

Have you experienced passive violence through workplace incivilities?  Leave a comment below about the masked Robert Caldwell in your life.  Crumble Part 1 – YouTube

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