Abusive behavior does not come without a price...

Imagine a collaborative relationship (of two or more parties) in which someone is invited to join the collaboration and offered (by the primary party or parties) funding for relevant working assets and training on the condition that their resulting increase in productivity and marketability will benefit the collaborative partnership accordingly. (It is hoped that increased revenues that accrue to the collaborative partnership will more than pay back the investment).

That seems like a reasonable investment with a reasonable motivation for and expectation associated with the investment in the new collaborative party, right?

Now let's consider a scenario in which such an arrangement further includes, as an essential part of the arrangement, a safe working environment (work space) from which the enhanced skills can be marketed and delivered. This arrangement presumes the necessity of such a safe working environment as a prerequisite to any reasonable expectation in monetizing the enhanced skills and products and services arising therefrom. The essential nature of the safe working environment is seen in the reality that monetizing the enhanced skills and products is not, as a practical matter, reasonable to expect without it. There is not, in such a scenario, an alternative work space from which the increased business revenues are reasonably pursued. The scenario depends on the work space provided, as part of the collaborative arrangement.

Now let us further consider a scenario in which one of the original parties to the collaborative arrangement chronically subjects the new party to unwarranted disruptive abuse in the subject work environment as follows:

1. Unwarranted Hostility: Unprovoked hostility in communication including disrespectful and demeaning tones, dismissiveness, unprovoked anger, unwarranted aggressiveness, and blame shifting.

2. Manipulative Communication: The abuser employs manipulative tactics, including provocative and passive-aggressive communication, to elicit specific responses from the victim.

3. Gaslighting: The abuser engages in gaslighting by distorting the victim's reality, making them doubt their perceptions, memories, and sanity. This often involves twisting the victim's words and actions to suit the abuser's narrative.

4. Baiting: The abuser deliberately baits the victim into conversations or situations where innocent responses are later weaponized to portray the victim in a negative light.

5. Character Assassination: Through selective misrepresentation and misconstrual of the victim's words and actions, the abuser engages in character assassination, painting the victim as problematic or unreasonable.

6. Invalidation: The abuser invalidates the victim's feelings, thoughts, and experiences by portraying them as irrational or unwarranted, further undermining the victim's sense of self-worth and agency.

7. Emotional and Social Abuse: This pattern of behavior constitutes emotional and social abuse, where the abuser exerts control and power over the victim through psychological manipulation, degradation, and misrepresentations to others in ways that illegitimately undermine the victim.

In such a scenario, it becomes necessary for the victim to abandon the work space for self-preservation (preservation of emotional well being and self-respect). As such is the case, the expectation of a return on the investment in the prospect of increased revenues is no longer reasonable by the remaining party(ies) because the prospects of any such return have been destroyed by those who created the need for the victim to abandon the work environment.

Naturally, those guilty of such abusive behavior are, as a general rule, people who lack both the ethics and the insight to take responsibility for their behavior. It generally follows, that they will misrepresent and falsely frame the scenario in conversations with others, to promote a false narrative that supports the notion of their own innocence along with false attribution of blame and responsibility to the victim.

See also: On False Framing...
See also: Unethical Collaboration
See also: Unwarranted Hostility

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