Scapegoat | How to avoid being taken advantage of in the office

The workplace can work like a well-oiled machine if everyone pulls their own weight and dedicates their efforts to advancing the collective, instead of simply benefitting themselves.

That’s the idea, but it’s not how things generally work out. In a vacuum of self-furtherment, all it takes is one worker to abuse this, and the whole system crumbles.

For example, thousands of incompetent workers have managed to wrangle their way into management positions by essentially abusing the good nature of others. Instead of writing a report, they may ask someone else to write it, and then pass it off as their own. Or maybe they’ve done something wrong and choose to pass the buck onto someone else. These are heinous crimes against the ‘gentlemanly’ unwritten harmony of the workplace, yet question some your colleagues, and you’ll find that most of them have witnessed, or even personally experienced such tactics.

Much like jackals in the wild, it takes just one scent of naivety or trusting nature on an employee for them to become the main target of this corporate cull. Identifying this process, the calling cards of a workplace predator and how to avoid becoming a victim isn’t only vital to protect yourself, it’s also essential for being able to identify it when it’s happening to others and being able to call it out.