Consultant

I worked for a large US based consulting firm. I was a project manager for a US government funded project overseas, and would occassionaly visit the project site. I discovered the team leader on that projet was very abusive to the local staff, had one woman in tears daily, refused to pay local staff overtime, constantly yelled at people for no reason, etc etc. The staff were all in shock when he arrived, as he had replaced someone else who was let go.

We had already received one complaint about him from our local partners. He tried the same with me and since I stood up to him and insisted that he follow our procedures, he began a campaign of retaliation that was unrelenting. Since he could not get me fired - (he was not my direct boss) - he used underhanded manipulative and truly vindictive means to retaliate- all the while refusing to cooperate with our procedures.

The final straw was when he blocked me from visiting the project site by telling the client to retract a travel approval for me, and I ended up getting lectured by the client. The whole thing is bizarre because the home office is supposed to manage the team leader, not the other way around.

Meanwhile I had no support from upper management who had hired the guy despite warnings from recruiters. In fact, they tried to bully me into dealing with the bully! This is in spite of the fact that numerous complaints about the guy were going to the client, without us even knowing about it... the letters slowly started trickling into us. He had had violent rage episodes and was refusing to make required payments. Yet he could charm people he needed to charm... a true sociopath. To get out of this situation, I quit.