After seeing quite a few similar posts on here I was reminded of one (of many) of my own terrible work experiences. It happened ~15 years ago, but based on this sub it sounds like it could have happened yesterday.
Once upon a time I worked at a Circuit City (remember them?). I don't want to toot my own horn, but I can quote the upper management as calling me a “genius” and “god of what I do” on multiple occasions, so suffice to say I was good at my job, not that my paycheck or general treatment reflected that, of course.
There was a lower level department manager who no one in the store liked. She pretty much always seemed to be in a bad mood and nothing was ever good enough for her. The kind or manager for whom any form of praise is not in their vocabulary. If you're in this sub you probably know the type.
One day, while we were understaffed and I was busting my butt to get some displays done (they stopped providing plan-o-grams and left it to the floor staff to “make it look good”), this manager called me into the main office (note: I did not work in her department). The following exchange is based on my memory, so it's not word for word but should get the idea across:
Her: I've been going over your time, attendance, and the work you've done lately and it seems to be below expectations.
Me: …what?
Her: I think we are going to need an evaluation period to see if you can improve, so for the next 7 days-
Me: (cutting her off, and looking her dead in the eyes) Are you joking?
Her: Um… No?
At which point she tried to continue talking, but I just got up and walked out of the office. I went back to work and acted as if the entire exchange had never taken place. After this was an extremely odd turn of events though. Not only was there no repercussions for my actions, but she never brought it up again. Even weirder, from that day forward she was exceedingly nice whenever she spoke to me, like a complete personality change from how she interacted with everyone before.
I have no idea what happened there, but in the end it didn't matter since I quit less than a month later when the store manager gave me a hard time about taking time off for my grandmother's funeral. That may be a story for another day because despite the praise he said to my face, that store manager was quite a piece of work.