[NonIndigenous]

Obviously it's hard for me to judge your situation from an armchair, or judge your personality too.

One thing I know is that in some cases, people who may look "quirky", talkative, friendly, etc... such people can come across as somehow emotionally "vulnerable" to others. Let's call these "others" predators. It is something I find hard to describe in short.

These are people with mental issues, although if they hold an influential position in your environment... they can very effectively infect other people with their corrupt thought patterns. Role models. It doesn't necessarily mean they have to be the "manager" to do this. It could be that, or it could be social influence instead of authoritarian influence. Like I said, hard for me to tell from an armchair.

How do I put this? They're not necessarily "bad" people. There are certainly much worse out there. I think of them as too stupid to be "bad". They're often not self-aware enough to even realise what they're doing. They just do it because that's how they were raised in some dysfunctional environment, and they know no different. Personally I find such people fking annoying, because they don't allow me to be a decent person when I'm around them. I don't enjoy being intimidating (which makes it difficult for me to be good at it unless someone genuinely pissed me off somehow), and it doesn't always work either, but I rarely find better ways of dealing with these kinds... because they seem to pick up most kind gestures as "weaknesses". You pick up their stuff from the printer on your way back from the kitchen, or get them a glass of water once, and in their mind it somehow sets a precedent that I'm their fking butler. Like I said: stupid.

I don't mean to be demeaning to any generic group, but this kind of stuff from my experience is much more commonplace among people from low-income backgrounds. So "moving up in the world" (as you put it), usually means you have to deal with less of this kind of shit, or at least it is more subtle because such people are more aware of potential repercussions of workplace bullying. You certainly deal with more open-minded/tolerant people, up to a point.

Theory goes that if you "move up in the world" far enough then you start dealing with far more toxic types more often. More toxic than the imbeciles you're talking about (I mean... pulling faces??? That's some kindergarden shit. And you say it's coming from the manager. Makes me want to facepalm). But I'm talking about director/CEO kind of jobs. Or politics.
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My advice would be, don't be nice to people who don't deserve it. That doesn't necessarily mean that you should deliberately "offend" them, or provoke them, or any such things. Just do your job, nothing more, nothing less. No one has the right to complain then. Not everyone is worth your concern. Tread carefully at first, assess the situation, try to judge who it is worth being nice to, who will appreciate it, and who won't... and modify your behavior to suit that. In other words: adapt to your environment.

In retrospect, it's hard to re-establish boundaries between yourself and other people in a workplace where you've been working for some longer period time. It almost always ends up in a power struggle, and most of the time someone gets hurt. Then there are bad feelings, and the shit just drags on indefinitely.

Your best option is to "move up in the world". Or find a job somewhere else, and not make the same mistakes again. Larger companies certainly tend to value workplace culture more. Professionally trained managers know what effect it has on the morale of employees, and the effect that in turn has on their creativity and productivity.

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