Posted on
July 16, 2010 in
I get to deal with a whole lot of crazy at work. The following rules are applicable to lots of flavors of crazy, but I've had a heavy dose of borderline personalities lately. So here are my ten rules for dealing with borderline personalities and other crazy people:
- If you don't have to deal with a crazy person, don't.
- You can't outsmart crazy. [Thanks to Lisa J] You also can't fix crazy. (You could outcrazy it, but that makes you crazy too.)
- When you get in a contest of wills with a crazy person, you've already lost.
- The crazy person doesn't have as much to lose as you.
- Your desired outcome is to get away from the crazy person.
- You have no idea what the crazy person's desired outcome is.
- The crazy person sees anything you have done as justification for what she's about to do.
- Anything nice you do for the crazy person, she will use as ammunition later.
- The crazy person sees any outcome as vindication.
- When you start caring what the crazy person thinks, you're joining her in her craziness.