Taking a compliment

The angry man walks over to me and sits down. I tense up. My fingers literally cramp over my keyboard and stop tapping. I almost wince because I think he's about to yell at me about something. It can't be good. He's never sat in on any of my meetings except when it's critical. He's even gotten up and left halfway through a critical meeting. I can't help but glare at him whenever we pass each other in the corridor. So most of the time, I pretend to be pre-occupied and look down when I walk past him.

Ok. So I'm not very subtle :P

Angry Man: "I just read your email about go-live, and I wanted to tell you that I think you did a great job. You did really well, and I've told *insert Boss' name here* the same thing."
Me: "..."

I can't help but think, "You ass".

For the past 3 months, I've had no support from him at all. It was obvious he didn't give a fck about my work. Even worse, in his position, he should've taken a more active interest. The only time he spoke to me, was to yell at me for making a couple of minor mistakes. It was more a misunderstanding than a mistake. It was soon cleared up with other colleagues. No harm done, everyone else seemed content. I had sincerely apologised to him and more importantly, people who were actually involved, what else did I have to do?

It's been bothering me for awhile. It's been a long time since I had been yelled at and made to feel imbecelic. When I talk to people at work, I don't yell at them and make them feel like the world's going to end. I don't belittle them. I don't make people feel shit about making mistakes. You hope that after talking them through it, they'd learn from it and improve. Or at least, that's how I've always treated people I've worked with. I didn't scream like a lunatic at the developers when they left with me a server error at login after a 7pm code release. If I was younger in my career, I would have been crushed and probably would have grovelled for the angry man's forgiveness.

You know what, fck that. I was doing my job and trying to deliver.

Me: "Thank you. But, I'd just like to say, you made my life difficult. You're not very good at communicating. And it wasn't easy for me to deal with how you spoke to me."
Angry Man: "I'm sorry to hear that. I wish someone had told me."

I'm pretty sure someone did.

The world moves on, but at least I said my piece.