Arthritic Toe
Well-known member
A few years ago I started work on a contract in Brussels on a large EU project. On my first day, one of the Belgian guys in the team was getting very agitated with the team leader, who was American, and fluent in several languages. The argument was slowly building and getting more animated. Unfortunately, I had no idea what it was about as it was conducted in Flemish. Anyway, it continued to build for a full hour and finally the Belgian guy stood up, screamed Flemish expletives at the boss and stormed out of the office, not to be seen again until the following week. I was quite shocked at all of this and wondered how he could possibly be that rude to the boss and get away with it. It was generally acknowledged that the guy had ‘anger management issues’ and was undergoing some sort of therapy for it.
As I continued to work on the project I did get to know the boss pretty well and he really did become quite annoying when he got stressed – he would seek to blame his team members for his own failings and not listen when you explained why you had done something a particular way – usually because that was the way he had asked for it to be done.
Over the next couple of years the project neared completion and the team was whittled down from the original 6, until, for the final 3 months it was just me and him. One day, the boss was down at the Luxembourg office and he called me up on my Brussels office phone in one of his agitated states. It was a large open plan office, and I could tell people were stopping what they were doing and enjoying listening to my side of the growing argument. I am well known to be the calmest of calm people and they were all enjoying listening to me starting to lose it (of course, they all understood English). They also knew my boss well and in general, disliked him intensely. Anyway, it was a two hour phone call that ended with me screaming down the phone “You know what Tom? Just f*ck off. I slammed the phone down and stormed out of the office for a cigarette. When I came back into the office 10 minutes later, I was greeted by a standing ovation, round of applause – cheering. It was quite funny. I said – oh my god, I have turned into Jergen (the original angry guy).
Oddly enough, the boss didn’t take it any further and in fact apologised to me the following day – we got on fine for the remainder of the project. Jergen and I were good drinking buddies and remain in touch. Names changed to protect the innocent.
As I continued to work on the project I did get to know the boss pretty well and he really did become quite annoying when he got stressed – he would seek to blame his team members for his own failings and not listen when you explained why you had done something a particular way – usually because that was the way he had asked for it to be done.
Over the next couple of years the project neared completion and the team was whittled down from the original 6, until, for the final 3 months it was just me and him. One day, the boss was down at the Luxembourg office and he called me up on my Brussels office phone in one of his agitated states. It was a large open plan office, and I could tell people were stopping what they were doing and enjoying listening to my side of the growing argument. I am well known to be the calmest of calm people and they were all enjoying listening to me starting to lose it (of course, they all understood English). They also knew my boss well and in general, disliked him intensely. Anyway, it was a two hour phone call that ended with me screaming down the phone “You know what Tom? Just f*ck off. I slammed the phone down and stormed out of the office for a cigarette. When I came back into the office 10 minutes later, I was greeted by a standing ovation, round of applause – cheering. It was quite funny. I said – oh my god, I have turned into Jergen (the original angry guy).
Oddly enough, the boss didn’t take it any further and in fact apologised to me the following day – we got on fine for the remainder of the project. Jergen and I were good drinking buddies and remain in touch. Names changed to protect the innocent.
