If you ever deal with a sociopath, just learn to accept that nothing you can do will defeat them and get the hell away from this person as quickly as you possibly can. I've dealt with three people in my life who I consider sociopaths or pyschopaths. The first time I had no idea what to expect, so it was a massive shock.

The second time, I watched them turn on me incredibly rapidly, and from going from being supportive to being entirely bent on destroying me and my reputation in a day, this time I wasn't shocked but just felt a sick feeling inside: it was happening again.

This time I knew what to do though. I was pulled into a meeting after my 21st day of non-stop work. The meeting was attended by my boss who the psycopath had just been telling me he would "end" because of his sheer incompetence. Durimg the meeting I was told that adding a synthetic key column was unacceptable (the pysopath couldn't wrap his mind around why you would do this) he told me he had countermanded my request for the change in the ETL process but hadn't told me. When I pointed out I had proceeded under the understanding from my then boss that this was an approved change, he called me a liar, and when I protested that he hadn't told me he threatened to ensure that everything would be sent to me in writing. Then he told me he would be having a meeting with me and the CEO on the next day, a Monday.

I excused myself from the meeting. He had a smirk, because he felt he now had power and I could be used as a pawn to destroy the CEO, who had recently pretty much given the man's wife a nervous breakdown.

It was clear what the man's goal was: take down the CEO by any means necessary, even if it meant destroying those who had actually made every attempt to protect his wife (who was my manager before she left). I suddenly realised that his plan to bring down the CEO was to remove all competent employees and effectively neuter the CEO, which - truth be told - wasn't very difficult as the CEO was an arrogant twerp who thought he knew about management and IT, but in reality had no idea.

Faced with a situation where I was being undermined by my immediate manager, whose incompetence was literally destroying the company, and caught between the anger of a man I consider to be a psychopath, and on the other side dealing with an arrogant, unethical and unheeding CEO, I realised that with my level of burnout and exhaustion my mental health was going to suffer very badly. For me, this was unacceptable - at my most stressed I get thoughts of suicide, but I have a young family who I love...

Faced with this, I quietly wrote my resignation letter, ensured it said pleasant things and wasn't critical of anyone, printed it out, put it on the CEO's desk and left the building.

If you get targeted by a psychopath, know that as you aren't one yourself they are almost impossible to fight back against because, unlike you, they have no guilt and no compunction against using other people as tools to achieve whatever means they deem necessary. If their best option is to be nice to you, then that's what they'll use. If they realise that you can be used to destroy an enemy, then they'll do whatever it takes to manipulate you into undertaking their actions. They will be very effective at this, and often you won't know till too late you've become entrapped in their machinations. They certainly won't hesitate to drop you at the first sign you can't be manipulated or you have realised what they are up to.

So if you meet such a person, you probably have not much realistic chance of beating them at their own game - they are much, much better at it than you. Don't feel bad about this though: the reason they are better at it than you is because they have no sense of guilt or shame, and have almost zero empathy. There is something deeply wrong with them, but they either don't know it or don't care. They are a cancer on society, and you should feel happy you aren't them. But what it does mean is that to beat them, and protect yourself, you must starve them of oxygen, and to do so you must remove yourself from their presence as quickly and abruptly as possible.

In my case, I'm glad I did. Six weeks later the incompetent manager was forced to resign when it became apparent that it really was him who destroyed everything. Nine month later, and through his own unethical behaviour and sheer incompetence, arrogance and stupidity the CEO has been sacked. The one who engineered this is now in charge and has taken over the CEO's position - just as I predicted. My former colleagues are in shock, but seem amazed at what I predicted has come to pass.