I just love hearing how others have turned the tables on bullying bosses/supervisors/etc. I'll start it off; a few years ago, I was working the night shift in an injection molding shop. It was not a great place to work, expectations were high, pay was bottom of the barrel low, and even on midnights when the brass wasn't around to impress, the supervisors felt the need to be up everyone's ass, micromanage everything, and make things generally unpleasant for everyone.
I'd worked about 8 or 9 6-day work weeks in a row. This is especially rough on midnights because unless you force yourself to stay up all day when you get home on Saturday morning, it's gonna feel like you had 0 days off when you have to go back in Sunday night.
So the supervisor comes to me on Thursday night (our Friday) as we're on our way to our presses to start our shift. I see the clipboard in his hand and I already know what's coming.
“So I really need people…”
“Jimmy, you know I'm normally willing to help out when you need it, but I've been running non-stop for almost 2 months now…I think I've seen my wife for a grand total of 5 hours in the past 8 weeks. I just need to sit at least this one out.”
“Oh. Ok. You know…” Looks at his clipboard “I really don't think we're running anything you'd be capable of anyways. Have a good weekend.”
I laughed and clapped him on the back. “You and I both know I'm one of the most versatile operators you have. I've run every press in here at least once, and a few times run a job solo that's supposed to be two people and still met the production quota. Reverse psychology usually works best when you have a higher IQ than your target…you might want to try a different management tactic there bud, don't see it playing in your favor much.”
While he stood there scratching his head figuring out if I just called him stupid, I walked over to my press, fired the thing up, and proceeded to exceed my production quota for the night. That back and forth was the final straw though, I used that free weekend to fill out job applications and was at a new shop within 2 weeks.