The 4 Types of Backstabbing Colleague
Workplace strategies for dodging their knives until you become their boss or they become yours
Colleagues are worse than clients, which — if you’ve spent more than a nanosecond in corporate America — is a bold statement. “Follow the money!” points everyone in the direction of endless workplace nightmares, made all the more awful by shady team members ostensibly there to help.
Backstabbing colleagues are actually worse than asshole bosses, ironic since shit rolls downhill. Hope springs eternal that professional colleagues act as a useful hedge and support mechanism, your team sandwiched between those who pay The Man, and those who pay you. No such luck.
Speaking from experience, and corroborated by anyone willing to honestly tell you about their painful work history, colleagues — especially those at or near your level of power in a hierarchy — are the worst people to work with, likely the worst people you’ll ever have the misfortune to meet and know.
That is unavoidably true, because we are conditioned like chimpanzees in a zoo cage to fight for finite resources. Rather than compete for worthy ape goals, such as ripe bananas or fertile mates, humans in offices instead duke it out to spread, as Richard Dawkins called them, our selfish memes.
Under the guise of cooperation, colleagues battle for attention and authority. Their weapons are a mix of deception, intimidation, cunning, and subterfuge. Their food chain ascent is blocked by you — yet they must collaborate until they crush and step over you, or you do it to them.
Over the years I’ve worked with 4 types of asshole boss, none of them as terrible as the mildest backstabbing colleague. Although each peer was horrible in their own way, I’ve been able to identify 4 types as a sort of public service, and homage to the worst experiences in my whole life:
Backstabbing Colleague #1: The Manipulative Schemer
Let’s start with the most dangerous type of backstabbing colleague, those who closely scrutinize every nuance of every interaction. Their obsession with detail isn’t to provide greater benefit to the team, but to identify moments of deep vulnerability that expose exploitable weaknesses.
Their obsessive attentiveness and unmatched perspicacity are also applied defensively to protect themselves from their own backstabbing colleagues. Akin to a thief convinced everyone steals, Manipulative Schemers assume all their peers are manipulatively scheming, too, which is of course true.
The other three types of backstabbing colleague aren’t as adroit, though, giving this creature an advantage. Challenges arise when their crass opportunism and blatant disregard for coworkers’ well-being become transparent. Trust annihilated, they find themselves increasingly isolated.
That activates their mad manipulative skills, the schemer turning into a charmer who woos, or a victim who empathizes. Making themselves likeable through inspirational leadership or syrupy commiseration, they disarm their naive teammates not to help, but ultimately to hinder.
How to recognize them
The ability to identify Manipulative Schemers is inversely proportional to their skills in manipulation and scheming. Assuming that all your colleagues are backstabbing is a reliable best practice, so treat your whole team accordingly, and watch for the telltale signs. They are out to get you.
Specifics include the feeling that you’re being relentlessly scrutinized, and that shit is being talked about you behind your back. The more they turn up the heat, the less they’ll admit things getting hot for you, and the more they’ll deny it if questioned, so take your team’s temperature frequently.
How to thwart them
Manipulative Schemers play chess with your career, forcing you to either: 1) improve your game; 2) ignore the game; or 3) try and flip the board over. Unless you’re also an MS type, the first is disadvantageous. So ignore them, or try to take them out if you have the clout. Along the way, be careful.
A popular approach to office jujitsu is to STFU, work hard, and fly under the radar. An MS will then use you as a tool for their own benefit, and usually leave you alone — until your diligence and effort get you promoted, in which case they’ll wreak revenge with visceral vengeance. Stay alert.
Backstabbing Colleague #2: The Chronic Victim
Let’s contrast the most dangerous type of backstabbing colleague with the most disarming, those who constantly whine and complain. Everything is always broken, everyone else is always to blame, and nothing is ever their fault. Don’t be fooled by their apparent unhappiness, they are using you.
Akin to a skilled poker player, Chronic Victims distract the competition with lots of noise, and falsely convey a sense of cluelessness. Dismissed as obviously incompetent and emotionally frail, this type is then in the perfect position to make their decisive move when you least expect it.
Aware that their apparent professional impotence can backfire into a demotion or getting fired, this type uses their dependencies to forge surprisingly effective peer relationships. Whether through pity, humor, or lack of being a perceived threat, Chronic Victims have powerful allies.
Shameless and unscrupulous, this type of backstabbing colleague flips from #loser to #winner at the drop of a hat. At the right moment, hidden skills manifest with amazing alacrity. Their team realizes too late that despite being genuinely incompetent, the Chronic Victim suddenly rules.
How to recognize them
A funny and true poker tip is to look for the loser sitting around the table — if you can’t find them, then that loser is you. Same rules apply for the Chronic Victim, the disarming yet dangerous type of backstabbing colleague who is easy to observe, even as their deceptions remain hidden.
Being a loser is their paradoxical strength. They aren’t faking it when they throw up their arms in utter dismay, unable to do their job because of smoke and mirrors excuses that call them out. Keep in mind that anyone else would hide their flaws — they are being strategic by revealing them.
How to thwart them
For other types of backstabbing colleagues, their strengths become their weaknesses. For this type, their weaknesses are their weaknesses — your chance to gain an edge. At the very least keep tabs on their failures, which are frequent, vast, and damaging. If possible, let them crash and burn.
Friendships with company apex predators is another point of vulnerability for the Chronic Victim, but exercise caution. They have the Big Cheese’ ear, so you can expose a rat — while also careful not to call into question the character of a powerful person who’s chosen to befriend a useless turd.
Backstabbing Colleague #3: The Condescending Dirtbag
The first two backstabbing colleague types fall on opposite ends of the power range, so you’ll usually find them above you or below you, respectively, on the org chart. The next two types are particularly annoying and threatening, because they tend to compete directly against you.
Enter the Condescending Dirtbag, the know-it-all colleague constantly trying to get under your skin. Their false sense of self-confidence is directly proportional to their true incompetence, the former used to obfuscate the latter, while making you feel inferior and unworthy.
Avoid outsmarting their stupidity, since the CD is still smarter than the Clueless Blowhard, who tends to be louder and dumber. In contrast, the CD loves to smell their own farts, which they think is like a bouquet of roses. They will try to trigger you into doing something even dumber than them.
Devoid of decency, the CD is also utterly lacking in tact, which can lead to their undoing if inadvertently directed against someone higher up on the ladder. The opposite of the Chronic Victim, the Condescending Dirtbag tends to piss off the Boss, and will hopefully get fired before you do.
How to recognize them
CDs initially come across as helpful and empowering colleagues, but their ruse is shallow and doesn’t last. Watch for the flip, which happens at that point in the project when their competence or self-control is exhausted, whichever comes first. From that point on they act like Clueless Blowhards.
Note that Condescending Dirtbags can be subtle in their condescension, while still being total dirtbags. Ask yourself: Why is this colleague whom I expect to be backstabbing me instead being so helpful and supportive? The answer: they’re killing you with kindness, until your own career is dead.
How to thwart them
Every interaction with a Condescending Dirtbag is like an impossible coin flip: “Heads I win,” they say, “and tails you lose.” Their game rigged, don’t play — and since their ego is the frailest of all the backstabbing colleague types, work your own manipulative scheming magic to crush them.
Backstabbing Colleague #4: The Clueless Blowhard
The bottom of the backstabbing colleague ecosystem is this type, which has the worse characteristics of them all, and is typically the least successful. Their uncanny ability to be manipulative, scheming, condescending, vile, stupid, and loud is their unique superpower, wielding its own shock & awe.
Under exceptional circumstances and when well-orchestrated, such an amalgamation of loathsome qualities can propel such a creature to the pinnacle of power, Donald J. Trump our generation’s prime example. The embodiment of Everything Shitty, they become a projection of our hate.
The vast majority of Clueless Blowhards are far less fortunate, forced to play the role of making everyone else look good, and becoming tools for their backstabbing colleagues’ Squid Games. Impressionable because they’re clueless, and impactful because they’re noisy, the CB is fair game.
Despite their disadvantages, even the lowliest of CBs have been known to pull a fast one. Since the squeaky wheel tends to get greased, their reckless bravado gets noticed, and is sometimes interpreted as enthusiasm, even ability. So don’t be surprised if a Clueless Blowhard becomes your boss.
How to recognize them
This type of backstabbing colleague is easiest to spot — you can’t miss them. The louder and more brash they are, the stupider and more incompetent. As noted above, though, these obvious negative qualities don’t necessarily lessen their immient threat to you. Life is a circus — the office is a jungle.
Clueless Blowhards are also identifiable in how they attract and repel certain types of backstabbing colleague. For example, a CB can be seen having lunch with a Chronic Victim, both blabbering on about nonsense, while you’ll rarely if ever see one socializing with a Manipulative Schemer.
How to thwart them
Another funny and true lesson is from the classic story of two guys in the woods who come across a bear, one guy putting on running shoes. “You know those won’t enable you to outrun the bear,” says the other. “I don’t need to outrun the bear,” says the runner, “I just need to outrun you.”
Since the Clueless Blowhard combines all the worst qualities of the Chronic Victim and Condescending Dirtbag, let the Manipulative Schemer take them out. Your professional life becomes much less stressful if you stand back, and allow your backstabbing colleagues to backstab each other.
Backstabbing Colleagues: Almost as Bad as Romantic Partners
I hope you found these profile descriptions and workplace strategies as helpful as they were cathartic for me. Given their popularity, I’ll continue to add to this illuminating series with The 4 Types of Impossible Client, and expand into the realm of romance with The 4 Types of Terrible Lover.
For now, if you enjoyed this analysis, try…
