The dark room is not always a home. Sometimes it is an office. Sometimes the predator is your boss, your business partner, or the coworker who has everyone else fooled.
Workplace narcissists are especially dangerous because your livelihood depends on the relationship. You cannot "just leave" without risking your income, your career, and your professional reputation. The predator knows this. And they use your financial dependency as leverage.
How Workplace Predators Operate
They take credit for your work while blaming you for any failures. They are charming to leadership and cruel to subordinates. They create factions, playing team members against each other to maintain control. They make themselves appear indispensable while undermining anyone who threatens their position.
They gaslight you about your performance. You bring results; they reframe them as inadequate. You get praise from a client; they find a way to diminish it. Over time, you start believing you are not good enough, even though the evidence says otherwise.
Survival Strategies
Document everything in writing. Follow up verbal conversations with email summaries. "Per our conversation, you asked me to..." This creates a paper trail that protects you when the predator rewrites history.
Do not confront them publicly. A workplace narcissist who feels threatened will escalate. Manage up: build direct relationships with leadership so the narcissist cannot control the narrative about your work.
Build your exit strategy quietly. Update your resume. Strengthen your network outside the company. Have financial reserves that reduce your dependency on this specific job. When you are ready, execute your exit on your terms, not theirs.
The workplace escape protocol mirrors the Dark Room Escape Protocol. Recognition. Documentation. Preparation. Execution. Fortification. The full framework is in The Dark Room.