Let's begin
What have you witnessed?
A few short questions. Select whatever applies as you go, there's no wrong answer, and you can skip any question that doesn't fit.
Private by design: everything happens in your browser. Nothing is sent or stored.
First, one thing, so the rest of the questions make sense:
Watching this happen to a colleague instead? Being a Useful Bystander
This tool is an educational resource, not therapy, legal advice, or a diagnostic tool. It does one thing: it takes behavior you have described and tells you which documented pattern that behavior most resembles. That is a statement about what you witnessed, not a verdict on the person behind it, and it is not a diagnosis. Only a licensed clinician can diagnose anyone, and nobody can diagnose a person they have never met. What a pattern name is good for is your own clarity and your own next move.
A reference, not just a quiz
Every pattern this tool checks for
The tool above scores your answers against behaviors documented in the Field Guide. Here is the complete list, organized the same way, in case you would rather read than click, or want to jump straight to one pattern's full entry.
Weapons & Tactics
Rewriting what is real
- Denies things they clearly said or did, "that never happened."
- When confronted, flips it, suddenly you're the one on trial.
- You meet every requirement, and the requirement quietly changes.
- Accuses you of a mistake you didn't make, before you've said a word about anything.
- Calls you "too sensitive" or "difficult" often enough that you start editing yourself around it.
- Reads betrayal or a hidden agenda into completely ordinary comments and decisions.
Hot, then cold
- Showered you with praise and opportunity almost immediately, faster than the relationship really justified.
- Paints a big future for you that conveniently never arrives.
- Praises your work one day, ignores or criticizes the same kind of work the next, no clear pattern.
- Disappears, then comes back sweet, right when you'd finally moved on.
- Goes silent for days after any friction, until you drop it just to restore normal contact.
- Swings between 'you're amazing' and 'you've ruined everything,' with almost no middle ground.
- Went from treating you as their favorite to finding fault in everything you do, seemingly overnight.
Guilt and pressure
- Does a shared task so badly, so reliably, that you give up and just take it over.
- Overly warm and flattering to your face, while your projects quietly stall behind the scenes.
- Agrees to everything enthusiastically, delivers almost nothing, always with a sweet apology.
- Sighs and says "I guess I'll just do it myself then" the moment you hold a boundary.
- Any bit of feedback turns into "I guess I'm the worst boss ever," and now you're comforting them.
- Turns routine work into a fake emergency, so there is no time to ask questions.
- Agrees to your face, then "forgets," stalls, or turns in sloppy work, every single time.
Wounds in front of others
- Knows exactly what upsets you, and says it in front of others.
- Says something that sounds fine to everyone, except you.
- Corrects or mocks your mistake in front of the whole team instead of privately.
- Talks over you, sighs at your questions, forgets to loop you in, small things, every single week.
- Provokes you, then acts shocked at your reaction in front of others.
- Breaks small rules and commitments without a flicker of guilt, and is very good at not getting caught.
- Singles someone out for correction, and seems to enjoy the discomfort more than it ever changes the work.
Narrative & Credit
Taking the credit
Shaping your reputation
- Repeats a label about you, "you always overreact", until it sticks.
- Claims your idea as their own, brushes off your correction, then your persistence gets called "difficult."
- The same "heads up about them" story seems to have reached everyone on the team, separately.
- Rumors about you spread through people who were never actually there.
- You suspect they're warning other companies or managers not to hire you.
The public performance
- Warm one-on-one, cold or dismissive the moment others are watching.
- Picks a fight over something small in front of the people who matter, on a point they know you can't fully explain.
- Says "I guess I'm just doing this all myself" right in front of you, naming no one.
- Same conflict, same excuses, at literally every job they've had, if you ask around.
More patterns
- The story of what actually happened keeps quietly changing, until the group barely remembers it your way anymore.
- Speaks fluently and confidently, until you ask one question deeper than the script, then the fluency falls apart.
- Brings up something you confided in private, or a mistake from months ago, right when it can do you the most damage.
Social & Political
Whispers and signals
- Tells everyone how unfairly they're treated, but never raises anything directly with you.
- Compliments you in a way that quietly puts you down.
- Eye-rolls, sighs, smirks, every time you speak, never a word said.
- Talks about you to others instead of to you.
- One coworker can do no wrong, and somehow always knows what you said in private.
Turning the group
- Whatever goes wrong on the team, somehow it's always about you.
- Others start acting like you did something wrong, no one says what.
- People who used to be friendly are suddenly cold, all at once.
- Meeting invites and group chats you used to be part of quietly stopped including you.
- Treats you and a colleague very differently, in ways that keep the two of you from comparing notes.
- Raising a problem, even calmly, seems to quietly cost people their standing.
- Bringing bad news early earns you irritation and "why didn't you catch this sooner," never thanks.
Playing the hierarchy
- Charming to leadership, harsh or dismissive to you.
- Always polished for the people above, somehow scarce when the actual work needs doing.
- The real decision always seems to happen somewhere you weren't invited.
- Got the promotion right as the situation was already failing, and somehow the failure became yours.
- Piled on an impossible workload and hostility right after you raised a concern, as if they want you gone without firing you.
- Backed you loudly right up until leadership's favor shifted, then switched sides overnight with no acknowledgment.
Quietly held back
- Small "coincidental" delays and comments always seem to land right before your big moments.
- The one person with the answer is always somehow slightly too busy to actually share it.
- Coasts quietly most of the time, so a last-minute burst of effort looks like heroics.
- You're the one who always ends up taking notes, planning things, onboarding people, unpaid and uncredited.
- A peer who was warm and supportive suddenly goes cold and starts raising vague "concerns" about you right after your visible win.
Everything on their terms
- Has to be at the center of every room, and small moments keep turning into a performance.
- So rigid about "the right way" to do things that reasonable flexibility reads to them as a personal insult.
- Name-drops their past wins in every meeting, expects special treatment, and meets mild feedback with cold contempt and a grudge that doesn't fade.
More patterns
- One person alone keeps this up for months, no one else ever gets pulled in.
- A colleague with no history of friction with you suddenly starts relaying complaints, or turning cold, seemingly on someone else's behalf.
- Weeks of sudden coolness from people who used to be friendly, then one sharp accusation about you lands in the room that matters most.
The Deflectors
- Gives instructions out loud, never in writing.
- When you raise a concern, turns it around: "prove it."
- "This has already been decided", said to shut the conversation down.
- Turns your reasoned objection into "you're just being emotional."
- Raise a real concern, and somehow the conversation ends up about something you did instead.
- Claims innocence before anyone's even accused them of anything.
- Frames a skipped check or missed step as a reasonable assumption anyone would have made.
- When you raise a problem in their own area, asks what THEY think should be done about it instead of proposing a fix.
- Only agrees an issue is serious once the blame has already landed on someone else.
- "I don't have a clear opinion yet", every time taking a side would cost them something.
- Raises a vague worry with no metric, no threshold, nothing you can actually check.
- "That's for the management meeting to decide", a meeting with no date, no agenda, and no attendees you can name.
- "Thanks for the feedback, let's keep it on the sheet", and then it's never mentioned again.
- "This is just how the industry works", used to end the actual ethical question on the table.
The five patterns this tool can surface
Selections are scored toward these five profiles, sometimes as a blend of two.
Grandiosity, calculation, and coldness combined. Charming when it serves them, indifferent to the cost to you.
Charm with a blade underneath. Cruelty that feels justified to them, even satisfying.
Quiet, easily wounded, and certain that they are the one being mistreated.
Confident and decisive upward, exploitative downward. Climbs fast, leaves damage behind.
Relentless niceness as armor, until the resentment underneath leaks out sideways.
Techniques recommended in your roadmap
Depending on what you select, the results screen recommends some of these.
The Grey Rock Method
Become as boring and unresponsive as a grey rock. They feed on your reaction; take the food away.
Document Contemporaneously
Dated, factual, first-person notes, written close to the moment, before a story can be rewritten.
Don't JADE
Justify, Argue, Defend, Explain, the four things that feed a manipulator. Skip all four.
Make Your Work Undeniable
Visible, timestamped, attributable output. The best counter to credit theft and rewritten history.
Trust the Body
If every interaction leaves you foggy or drained, that is data, the warning system working.
The Broken Record
State the boundary once. End the sentence. No long explanations for them to pick apart.
The Yellow Rock Method
Grey Rock for the workplace, polite enough to avoid the "difficult" label, but no leverage shared.
Don't Fight the Whisper War
Trying to win a rumor campaign head-on usually backfires. Build your record instead, let it speak.
Radical Acceptance
Accept, on a cellular level, that this person will not change, so you stop pouring energy into fixing them.
Know the HR Reality: When to Exit
HR protects the company, not you. Escalate wisely, and recognize when leaving is the win.
Fogging
Agree with the small grain of truth in a criticism, then move on. They lose a target to attack.
Malicious Compliance
Follow a bad instruction to the letter. Let its cost or absurdity become impossible for them to ignore.
Cultivate Skip-Level Allies
Build your own relationships and reputation, so you never depend solely on their framing of you.