Kontrabida, we call them, and the term is often mistranslated as “villain.” In theatrical presentations and in movies, the kontrabida is the villain, the actor’s thespian abilities measured by the ability to get the audience to hate him or her during the show.

The audience wants the villain to be bad, evil, wicked, and when they get their just due at the end, usually with a prolonged and agonizing death, we have a sense of catharsis... almost as if all the kontrabida in our own lives have been expunged as well.

Those kontrabida are the ones we have to live with in our offices. Alas, as we walk out of the theater, we know that in the real world, there is no justice, the real world kontrabida not only escaping justice but even doing quite well in life. Don’t believe that nonsense about temperamental people having short lives the kontrabida thrives on his endless shenanigans and, when confronted, will burst out in self-righteous tantrums, deriving undisguised joy from those tantrums and the suffering they cause.

The “kontra” in “kontrabida” comes closer to the English contrarian, but in a more serious way. A contrarian just has to go against a group decision, usually for the sake of argument. A “kontrabida,” on the other hand, defies rules and group decisions because he or she just isn’t a team player, but a self-centered person who always needs to have his own way.

Yet the kontrabida will survive in an organization. You find them more often in government offices, where tenure or permanent status assures the person of a lifetime job, no matter how incompetent they are and no matter how much trouble they cause to an organization.

The kontrabida survives for many reasons; but a lot of it depends on their having the right connections with superiors. They’re usually masters at sipsip (flattery), which bloats their superiors’ egos, and sulsul (a combination of goading and backbiting) against fellow workers. Because they’re not very good at their work, they have minimal responsibilities and so have all the free time to go about with their sipsip and sulsul, eroding office morale by pitting colleagues against each other. Again, it all goes back to incompetence: knowing they’re not very good themselves at their work, they need to drag down others to make themselves look good.

What’s so shocking is that even as their shoddy work and destructive intrigues are exposed, people—bosses and fellow workers will defend them. Why does this happen? It’s partly because people who are not directly affected by the kontrabida will find the intramurals entertaining, much like they do the kontrabida in a film. They need to have someone to “hate,” even if distantly.

In other cases though, and this is more dangerous, the kontrabida is tolerated out of compassion, even pity. You’ll hear comments like, “Oh, she’s that way because she has so many domestic problems,” or “Oh, he’s like that because he was the youngest in his family and was spoiled as a child.” I’ve actually heard that last one, and was horrified because I was basically being asked to allow the spoiled brat, now in his 50s, to continue being exactly that, a gray-haired balding spoiled brat, a little boy who never grew up.

Here’s another clue to why the kontrabida survives. The kontrabida can also be a kontra-bida, more in the sense of being an anti-hero. The kontrabida will put down people who do work hard, who get things done, who, horror of horrors, enforce the rules. What the kontrabida does is to label them as trying to be “bida,” and presenting himself as an anti-Establishment rebel. The worst way then of handling a kontrabida is to point out how little they’re doing and trying to contrast that with your own work. That only makes you look like someone trying to be bida, and transfers pity to the kontrabida.

I’ve also found that trying to deal with the kontrabida on your own is futile because that also means you’re trying to be bida. Shift the responsibility to the organization. Present the facts, the problems, and ask them to deal with the kontrabida. You’ll get mixed results here: some people will just give up and say we’ll have to live with the jerks until they retire. Others, as they begin to feel the impact of the kontrabida’s shenanigans, will begin to see why the kontrabida’s behavior cannot be tolerated.

It’ll be a long haul though, because so many of our corporations just haven’t developed the professional standards and mechanisms to enforce these. Add on our forgiving culture, our pity for the underdog, and you’ll understand why the entire country is actually governed by the kontrabida, while the good guys, the bida, are condemned to the opposition, the fringe.

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