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.