F.Y.M.

In the brilliant, if admittedly low-budget/low-brow, 1994 film Fear of a Black Hat, writer/director/actor Rusty Cundieff, portraying rapper "Ice Cold", puts forth a concept that I find quite pertinent in a frustrating environment. I shall let him explain (NSFW):

As I've mentioned previously, out here, we have a set amount of b.s. we can handle.  When our Patience Wells fill up, they erupt into B.S. Volcanoes.  The problem is not that this happens.  It happens to all of us so we learn to deal with it.

The problem is that there are people out here who thrive on antagonism and purposely try to get people to go Vesuvial. 

I am currently there, being 8 days from vacation.  I have hit my B.S. Volcano.  I am also dealing with a person who is pushing me well into FYM territory.  I'm being pushed so far, in fact, that I might even be at Jules on "Brain Detail": (Super-Duper NSFW)

Unfortunately, I cannot explain myself thusly. 

I have long made note that when people are depressed or in mental pain they will often purposely self-destruct.  They may not be able to control feeling good.  They may not be able to control that they feel bad, but they can control how they feel bad.  Just to be able to direct themselves, even in a bad way is better than helplessness, uncontrolled misery, or despair.  See also, people who cut themselves.

As I've come here though that has come to light in another way.  We have very strange people who work out in Afghanistan. Yes, I know that I am saying this.  There are people that are stranger than me.  Think about that.

Anyway, some of these strange people, because of their quirks/eccentricities/flat-out-behavioral-disorders are unpopular.  It's not a situation where everyone goes "let's pick on that person" like in grade school, just that the screwed up people can tell no one likes them.  What some of them do, when they see that they can't get people to like them, is that they decide to go the route of deciding how people will dislike them by being raging jerks, stirring controversy, being antagonistic, and harassing and just being wildly unpleasant in general.

The issue is you can get away from people like that in a normal environment. Here, you can't escape. Because you can't escape and you can't make them leave, these people get emboldened, particularly if they are in positions of importance.  They press and press and press and take glee in harassing, filling up their need for acceptance with perverse feelings of power instead.

The problem is, they become myopic and lose sight of the big picture, that, ultimately, while they can get away with such poor behavior for a much longer period of time than in a normal environment, eventually, they will be pulled back to reality and spanked.

The people currently driving me bonkers forgot that they are not, in fact, tyrants, and that the laws of the United States concerning hostile work environment and personal litigation still apply.  It's great that they're in positions of authority over here; that doesn't exempt them from the time-honored maxim of "Don't @$#! with a lawyer."

F.Y.M.