Well, I’m no longer in the corporate world, but a few years back when I was an accounting supervisor, my employer hired a CTO (chief tech officer) who appeared very smug, obnoxious and condescending. We never spoke in passing. I handled all the expense accounts and if you wanted to be reimbursed, the expense forms were due on specific days.

Now, most often everyone followed all the expense acct rules: must have receipts, must be received on specific day, explain why no receipt, explain unusual expenses.

So…not only did I receive this guy’s expense report late, he didn’t have all his receipts…nor was it approved by his superior. So I call him up and explain the scenario. He had the neeeerve to say something to the effect of “what’s the big deal, do you know who I am?”. We went back and forth for a bit and of course I tried remaining polite, professional and courteous…but he just got louder and became more obnoxious and condescending. So..my solution after asking him if I could call him back? I hung the phone up in his face!!

I was very well respected by my peers…from top executives down to the mailroom guy and I respected them in turn. Now you’re probably wandering if I faced serious repercussions for this…not at all! (barely a slap on the wrist) And what happened to this guy after this incident….he spoke to me in passing