Robert Louis Mueller, J.D., is an experienced writer and former employee-side attorney who won precedent-setting cases on behalf of employees in the highest courts in California. He is the author of the narrative non-fiction, Bullying Bosses: A Survivor’s Guide (How To Transcend The Illusion of the Interpersonal), which won glowing international press and peer reviews, as well as numerous widely reposted articles on that subject. Among other projects, he is currently working on his book Sociopaths As Villains: A Writer’s Thesaurus (1,001 True Tells). It is developing into a massive tome as is appropriate to reference books and particularly appropriate to the complexity of this subject matter. But it still needs a lot of work.

 

Coming up from the trades and heavy industry, Mueller has always been pro-employee. When he first became a union-side lawyer representing employees in 1983, sexual harassment cases were a basic part of his high-volume case load. That soon broadened to include cases of employees who were being bullied in the workplace generally, culminating in the publication of his Bullying Bosses book in 2008 – a step-by-step guide helping employees document and so understand and thus strategize around negative workplace events foisted on them through no fault of their own. Along the way, Mueller became an expert on the “bad guys” a.k.a. bullies, abusers, harassers, violent criminals, stalkers, sociopaths, villains….

 

Even then, Mueller understood that abusive bosses are, at their core, “narcissists” (DSM-5, 301.81); they are people lacking a capacity for empathy (LCE). They simply cannot connect with others personally so they rather obviously do not understand a lot of what is going on around them. Essentially lost in the world and thus not having the option of becoming leaders, 301.81s customarily adopt phony personas as substitute for heathy, pro-human personalities. In the workplace, sociopathic narcissists become bullying bosses.

 

As an occupational expert, Mueller also understood that psychological terms like “narcissist” (301.81) get very little respect within the production and service missions of most managements. Indeed, when someone in the workplace setting is accused of being a “narcissist”, it is quickly dismissed as an empty insult in such political environments. Worse, in many places and with too many management teams, it is even recognized as a compliment. With all the drama they create, managements frequently applaud and even promote 301.81s who are the very best of manipulators, charming up with uncanny ability, while bullying down. It is common for managers to perceive the narcissists as productive, which is not always the case with supervisors. In truth, all these bullies are doing is creating drama featuring great self-righteousness. 301.81s are not providing production nor service.

 

With Sociopaths As Villains (SAV), Mueller steps back to look at abuse issues globally, seeing the bigger picture. As a reverse-profiling manual, the book assists healthy people in identifying the sociopathic narcissists in their midst, even in the 301.81’s initial charm-phase, so people can take the steps necessary to protect themselves and others from harm.

 

After 30 years in San Francisco, with extended stays in West Virginia, New England, Beirut, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, Sevilla and, very recently, Moab (researching his next crime thriller), Mueller has returned to his native Colorado, where he lives and writes in the Rocky Mountains, not far from Boulder. Mueller is a survivor.