Back in the earlier nineties my gang was assigned a young woman who had a mechanical engineers degree. The idea was these young engineers would make the rounds in different departments. She was nice enough and smart enough not to think she knew it all like so many of the other younger newly hired engineers. One day i was replacing larger diameter piping on a cooler. She was always around us just wanting to see what we were doing and learn. So i told her to go up to the foreman's office see Joe another foreman and ask him for the metal cutting blade for the chain saw. She took the bait and ran off to see Joe. Well, with all sorts of enthusiasm she asked Joe in front of all the other foreman and they all started to laugh and told her i was breaking her chops. She came back down to were we were working, her face was beet red and she tore into me with a vengeance. She was so mad as only a woman could be. She even accidentally called me her husbands name. I tried to apologize but she was not having it. Everybody was staring. About two hours later i saw her and she was calm and i said i was sorry and did not mean to humiliate her. She laughed and said no worries. Today i guess id be suspended and she could put a claim in for metal anguish. What happened was we became good friends, she turned out to be one of the best supervisors i ever had. Everybody in the gang loved her and was defensive of her but none more than me. She was a bigger person and a better boss than a lot of other men, she had our utmost respect. She saw what i did as not a put down but as a initiation of becoming one of the gang, being accepted and she was right about that. She moved on in the company and did well.
