Worst of the worst: the passive aggressive gene.

Found this article. Interesting. So glad I was never raised around a passive aggressive. I never even knew what one was until my late 20's!

Passive aggressive: superficially cooperative but motivated by retribution; stubborn, un-coach-able, use their intelligence to excuse and justify their behavior, and they detest anyone more competent than themselves.

Then, there are the passive-aggressive bullies. Passive-aggressive bullies do things that at first glance, don’t appear to have hidden agendas. They often appear to be friendly gestures to on-lookers or even just normal interactions. They subtly hide their anger with what can appear on the surface to be normal behavior. Passive-aggressive behaviors are a powerful mind game and a form of emotional abuse.

Some of the traits of passive-aggressive behavior include:

• Never expressing anger (or at least on the outside). They may have been taught as a child that anger was wrong. So instead of talking about it with you, they bottle it up and then subtly get you back by assigning crappy tasks to you or not replying back to an email.

• Never taking responsibility for their actions. There is no such thing as shared responsibility in their book. There is a source for whatever the problem is- and it’s never them!

• Never remembering. Things and events important to you will never be acknowledged. Finally open up and share something important about your life? You may feel really hurt that they don’t even acknowledge or remember it.

• Never having their words and their actions line up. Someone’s actions most of the time add up with their words. In passive-aggressive people, their actions speak louder than their words.

• Never being a team. Passive-aggressive people rarely admit how much of an integral force you are in their lives. While they do rely on you to help them get the job done more than they really want to admit, they can often have a time delegating because they can’t trust others.

• Always being a martyr. These individuals tend to think that no matter what happens to them at home, at work, or with friends, the world is out to get them. There is never a coincidence. There is never an accident or oversight. Anything that upsets them was carefully planned to their utter discomfort.

Rumor has it that it's genetic.