Recently I have become aware of an executive who oversaw the most toxic work environment I had the pleasure of experiencing first hand failing upwards and jumping from one organization to another in increasingly senior roles. I am talking about the most duplicitous person imaginable, who put on an extremely friendly face in public but behind closed doors would gaslight you initially and then eventually threaten to ruin your career if you ever made too much noise about the kind of toxic environment him and his deputies were running.
I understand that failing upwards is a natural phenomenon in the corporate world but beyond that, I have to say that I have been feeling a weird mix of anger, confusion and guilt over the news of his continued climb up the corporate ladder.
I feel anger because a shitty and borderline psychopath like him does not deserve any professional success by any objective measure. I feel confusion because seeing so many people congratulate him on his promotions on LinkedIn makes me question my own experience and that of my coworkers while we were working under him.
But lastly I feel guilt because I let him successfully bully and blackmail me into not making more noise about the kind of shitty environment he had created. I know HR is useless but I feel like I should have left some paper trail of my compalints against him somewhere. God knows how many more people had to suffer under him since my time with his team. I know from my own experience that I fell into depression during that time period and I found out later that at least one former coworker of mine was even suffering from suicidal ideation. This fucker most likely ruined people's lives on his climb up the corporate ladder and it is a bitter pill to swallow that ultimately I didn't and couldn't do anything to stop it.