Have you ever worked with or worse for, the office prick? This is the guy who never does any real work himself, but like a buzzard, hovers around until it’s time to move in for the kill. You know the type, the sycophant who spends most of the day telling the boss how funny or clever he or she is and the rest taking credit for or stealing other people’s work; the kind that kisses up and kicks down.

He is the office Iago, without the smarts. Yet in his way he is expert at whispering half-truths into willing ears, at playing the politico. He is the master of the throw-away comment that digs the knife into the back of those who stand in his way. And like Iago, he relies on a boss who half-believes the flattery, is susceptible to conspiracy theories or perhaps just doesn’t care enough to look closer. Slowly but surely he gains the confidence of the one in charge, maybe the underbosses and without competence or merit, slithers his way up the company ladder. With each advance he becomes smarmier to his fellow workers, more smug in his responses to their inquiries, more artful at manipulating those higher in the pecking order.

Many of those around see him for who he is but say nothing. They are concerned with doing the job for which they are paid and trusting that if they do it well enough, someone will notice and reward them accordingly. If not, they have enough integrity to give their best in return for their compensation.

To scale his way ever higher, the prick counts on the complicity of the honest person. He knows that most have more shame or pride or sincerity than he and are unlikely to reveal the decay at the core of his being. The more he gets away with his maneuvering the more confident he becomes, the more insufferable.

Because he isn’t the brightest person in the place, just the shiftiest, he often reaches a point where his plotting will carry him no further. He gets stuck in a spot where he has enough power to frustrate those whom he pretends to command but not enough to slake his thirst for more. Like a quisling version of the Peter Principle he has reached the level of his highest suckholedness. So there he remains, floating through the day in a bubble of self-importance that others would like to take a pin to, deluded into believing that his colleagues think he is as important as he takes himself.

And sometimes, by the strangest of turns, the path to increased influence suddenly opens; someone retires or a new powerbroker comes along with orders to make changes. This is the opportunity the weasel has been waiting for all these many months. Now he gets to ingratiate himself to the outsider, to one who is not wise to his slippery ways or who may be just as duplicitous or whose ego may require a courtier. He is the conniving Sherriff of Nottingham to the grubby Prince John, the obsequious Dick Cheney to the naïve George Bush II.

He has secured a position far beyond his capacity and his first task is to stab those whose butts he had been French-kissing the week before. No more need of them, he focuses solely on pleasing the power du jour. Increasingly obnoxious, oblivious to the fact that he is in a position that would, under normal circumstances, require someone of talent, someone of intelligence, someone of account, he delves deeper into intrigue, offering his worthless opinion of people twice his value, knowing just enough to fool but not nearly enough to lead.

He burrows ever lower, throwing dirt on all traces of self-respect, sacrificing the limited virtue with which he began, to the constant seeking of favor from his Lord Protector. He is the willing fawner, the lackey sent to eavesdrop on those, whom if life were fair, would be his superior in rank, as they are most certainly in person. He is the pathetic minion, whose attempts at adulation are without limit and whose arrogance and lack of empathy are empowered by undeserved entitlement. When the prince has a cold, he is there with his tissue, when the royal boots are dirty; he is there with his tongue.

It’s better actually when he plays the role of overcoat over the muddy puddle because it keeps him out of your life. Every time you see him coming, when he has managed to temporarily cease his groveling, or been told to go his stool for awhile, you are torn among nausea, anger and fear. It’s nothing he has that makes him important; it’s what he has over you, the capacity to take away your livelihood, to hurt those who need you, even if that is just you. So you bite your tongue and play along as a big knot takes hold of your gut. You take one for the team, those who may not come to the office, but who would suffer the consequences of a showdown with this meager man.

You hope for the day when it occurs to someone who can do something, that he is no more than a selfish parasite, one who arrived at his position most undeservedly and has done nothing to grow into it or justify his continuing presence. But this is the real world and such people do prosper and they can live with themselves. What you view with contempt, they treat as accomplishment.

Perhaps you are comforted with the thought that in another and better world, he will get his comeuppance, he will be measured and found short. But believe as you will, there is no guarantee that day will ever arrive. There comes a time, even if that moment be strategically bided, when you will be better served by paraphrasing Shylock’s, “I am not bound to please thee with my answers ” into “Go fuck yourself, you kiss-ass little prick.”

Copyright © 2009 Paul Heno