From: @QfAKigt-4opx
I mean, why would adults act this way, for what purpose?
You are making an assumption when you ask this question. There is no purpose, other than some insane behavior centered on the manager's ego.
Narcissism is a personality disorder. It's a form of insanity. A lot of these managers are narcissists, and I mean that they are the walking insane. They have collected in TK's org for some reason... acquisition after acquisition or the upper level management is comfortable with them.
Narcissists are obsessed with themselves, lack any kind of empathy for anyone, and are intensely insecure. They are often obsessed with developing a loyal team of followers, these have to be people who will do anything they say without question, because their fragile egos can't handle any questions at all.
Typically, narcissists are good at charming and manipulating people. They do this to create their loyal followers and direct them to attack anyone who might damage the narcissists ego.
Narcissists are also typically incompetent and this increases the need for them to be surrounded by people who will never question anything they say.
Narcissists tend to attack other people, particularly competent people that they feel threatened by. They behave in a juvenile manner, like junior high kids, building their loyal little cliques and having fun attacking other people.
Narcissists never grow up. They never become responsible for their own actions. They blame other people constantly and they can make up intricate stories to tell people, all to avoid any bad view of themselves. They often don't see the effect of their behavior on others. However, there are some narcissists who are also sociopaths and are sadistic in their behavior and intentionally hurt people. Personally, I think several managers that I knew are in this category. They really, really enjoy destroying people.
This behavior has become normal in this area at Oracle, but this is not a normal environment at all.
Think of Donald Trump. He is an adult, at least in age. But he behaves like a child. He is obsessed with every tiny slight that might occur, and sometimes he creates the slight in his own mind when nothing was intended or actually happened. Donald lashes out and blames everyone else for everything. He can't deal with the idea that he might need to correct something in himself. He has created a loyal group of followers and they help to shield him from reality so that he can cope. He's basically nuts and recently a group of psychologists/psychiatrists wrote a paper stating that he is seriously ill.
Personality disorders are on the rise. Some people believe that this is related to the explosion of autism and I am one in that camp. I have family members diagnosed with autism and aspergers syndrome and the behavior patterns are very much the same. Lack of empathy, lack of understanding of other people. I think that narcissists are basically aspergers/autistic individuals who have been brought up with parents who cannot allow the possibility of any mistake. Teaching their children that they must appear perfect or the world will end.
The management in TK's org is obsessed with their egos. They reward or punish managers based on the number of reports they have on the org chart. They sometimes put people into groups where they don't belong simply because the manager needs to be rewarded with more people. I guess the narcissists stick in this area because the rest of the management is the same. Everyone thinks that there is nothing more important than the manager's ego.
This is all c-ap, of course. There is actual work that has to be done. Donald Trump doesn't know that and neither do these guys. It's just fun and games time for them with the people/objects around them.
Developers can't even have a conversation with their manager where they can bring up an issue or correct a problem and there are people, good people, who are being sabotaged because they did something the manager didn't like. Often that happens without the person even knowing what they did. Narcissists assume things a lot, like they will assume that "you know what you did", they just KNOW you do, when you don't. Then they flip out and start arranging their followers to attack and isolate you.
It's a very, very sick and disturbing place to work. So, you question what the purpose is? That's completely irrelevant. There is no real purpose other than to soothe their egos.
Watch Donald Trump and you will get it. He doesn't do anything for real. He doesn't know how anything he does affects anyone and he doesn't care. He is completely without empathy for anyone. People are just objects to be used and manipulated all just to give his ego a boost for a short time. These type of people also never think ahead, that's a symptom of autism. They don't think ahead, because they can't physically do it. They only know "right now". Donald never thinks ahead. He does one stupid thing after another, all just for the moment, just to attack the next perceived attacker.
There are lot of books out there on narcissism and also a lot of books on tricks played on people in the workplace. This is a growing problem in companies and you will find a lot of people online who are complaining about elaborate tricks played on them.
I guess I probably wouldn't have believed it either, until it actually happened to me and I could really see who a couple of seriously sadistic managers really were. It takes a little time, but keep watching Donald Trump.