The platform-specific jackass

We have a director-level guy visiting corporate headquarters from a branch office this week.

This isn’t his first visit. His first time out, everybody was dreading his arrival. He was universally known as a caustic, short-tempered, stupidly demanding, and generally abusive asshole, as experienced and reported by those in the office who had dealt with him, me included. Now, because he’s from a branch, those dealings were handled over email and by phone. In these messages and conversations, he was consistently mean, petty, snide, and horrible.

Then he showed up, and in person, he’s a smallish, friendly-looking guy who is, if not exactly warm, then at least personable, and rational and easy to talk to face to face. He doesn’t fly off the handle; he doesn’t jab you with imperious demands; he doesn’t spit venom in your eye for the sheer hell of it.

Huh, we all said. Guess we misread and/or misjudged him.

Then he went back to his branch office, and we all tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, and he resumed his boorish, tyrannical behavior.

He’s back for another visit, and the difference between his remote communication style and his firsthand approach is simply staggering. It’s almost as if he’s two different people. No, no almost about it: he really is two different people. Looking you in the eye, he’s decent and accommodating; when he doesn’t have to see you, you are an insect, suitable only as a target for contempt and abuse.

He’s the first person I’ve ever dealt with who displays such a dichotomous personality. Is this more common than it seems, and I’ve just been lucky?
And before anyone asks, yes, senior management at corporate is aware of the problem; they’ve talked to him repeatedly; and nothing has changed. It’s an open issue. That’s not what the thread is about.

I had a similar but opposite situation.
I worked at an art supply store that had branches. I worked at the main branch but always got along with the manager at another branch. He was nice and he respected me, we got along when we interacted. Then I transferred to his branch because I moved and happened to be closer to that one.
To put it mildly, we didn’t work well together and I ended up not coming back from lunch one day a few months later. A year after that I went back to the main branch I worked at originally and got my old position back (They never wanted me to leave in the first place). He was still bitter and we both went out of our way to contact anyone else when calling the other’s store, but we managed when we had to.

Are you sure the evil asshole isn’t sending an affable manservant to make his personal appearances for him? Next time you see him in person, test him: refer to some recent email or phone call where you discussed xyz, and when he claims to remember it, shout “a-HA! We never discussed xyz!”

He may then grimace and vanish in a puff of smoke.