A small example

During the 1960s my father was a design draftsman for a major engineering company in the UK Midlands and had a friend called Bill who was a metalworker at a company nearby - this is a true story of something that happened to Bill and caused us all great amusement.

Bill worked for a boss who was a bit of a joker and one of the boss's 'management techniques' was the put-down - telling people they had little value presumably to boost his own ego. One of the things he used to do was to pick on Bill - and in one particular way as a regular habit. The boss would read through the jobs section of the local newspaper and select a job advert and mark it by drawing a heavy ring around it. Then he would walk up to Bill with the newspaper, and in front off all the other people in the workshop he would point at the advert and say 'This one would suit you Bill'.

This happened week after week, and Bill, who was excellent at his job and well aware of his worth, became fed up with the stupid habit of his boss and decided to act, and he also decided to teach his boss a lesson .

So one day the local newspaper arrived as usual, and the boss checked the jobs page as usual, and ringed an advert as usual. Bill saw him coming towards him with his usual put-down smile, and listened to the put-down remark 'this one would suit you Bill' as usual.

But this time Bill's reply was something the boss was totally unprepared for...

'No thanks John, I got the job you showed me last week - and I start there next monday.'

And it was true - Bill had applied for the very job this boss had shown him the previous week - and got it. It also turned out that his new company placed value in its employees and eventually Bill became a section supervisor.

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