When I first moved to London, I came across a small "talent agency" that had a sign in the window about needing a part time IT person for some grand idea (nothing more than that). As I have an interest in the artistic stuff, like screenplays and writing, I thought it seemed like an interesting opportunity. The interview was ... a bit off. The owner of this agency didn't know anything about IT, and was cagy about his idea, but it was part time work and I needed the money. And the little he told me about the idea was interesting.

It turned out to be a good idea, really. I think it would have made some waves, had the guy and his partner (in all senses of the word) had not been a) totally clueless about IT and b) raging sociopathic narcissists. The owner, over time, revealed himself to be a narcissist by constantly comparing himself to Bill Gates, proclaiming he was going to take over the world (in so many words), etc - the self congratulatory self talk narcissists indulge in - all the while being paranoid about the things I needed to do to set up a web host account, fix a problem with the sort of network we had, and constantly belittling the "interns" from Europe, who in exchange for doing a bunch of manual screen scraping and other junk, got a "stipend" of a hundred or so a week - in exchange for the opportunity to "learn English". The Wikipedia entry summarizes this guy's characteristics really well. And the stuff he let slip about being beaten by his father and he didn't see anything wrong with that... was enlightening.

I finally investigated the UK labor laws and this guy was exploiting all of us. But in my defense, it was really a good idea for a B2B website involving a eBay type of setup for promoting and selling TV shows in the European market. but great ideas are worthless if the people involved are useless.

I diagnosed these two (ok, Wikipedia and some textbooks I have) as having a particular type of relationship that narcissists and their SO have - I can't find the reference right now, but it is one that psychologists don't know too much about because the people don't ever seek treatment - each person's disorder is mirrored by the other's and so they feed off and support each other. The complex involves some form of psychological S & M...

So if your boss fits all the criteria on the Wikipedia article - i.e. he's not just a jerk and his behavioral tics are really outside of the upper range of normal, then get out. How I defused my leaving was (this guy had a meltdown when one of the interns decided to take a vacation to go home - he got fired instead and was sworn at, etc) by leveraging the narcissist's need for validation as a wonderful, kind, and generous person - I said I was having issues with depression due to being in London (I moved from the US, so culture shock), the shift in daylight hours, etc and needed to go home for a bit. He wasn't too thrilled as I was the key in his plans for world domination, but how could he yell at me - then I'd totally fuck off. There wasn't really any sort of contract as the project hadn't really got that far, so I was covered on that front.

It was a lesson in spotting disordered people, and figuring out how to take advantage of their issues (for strictly my own safety, of course). So play up on his need to be validated, and don't make any promises you'd find hard to break. And get a lawyer if it's in any way possibly needed. Try not to antagonize this person when you do leave.