From 2007-2010 I was a consultant working at a huge new development site where there were multiple buildings being constructed with about a dozen different general contractors (GC) who each managed a dozen or more subcontractors (SC). I was consulting on one portion of each building so I got to work with all the GCs. Most of the GCs were good-to-great to work with; reasonable, respectful, mostly honest. Except one.
This guy wasn't that old, but he was older than me by about 20 years and had the old-school construction worker attitude of scream and yell and swear until you get what you want. He loved to intimidate and bully his SCs and it showed. Generally my consulting interactions with him were fine if not gruff but about halfway through his building there was a problem. The SC he'd hired to this specific work messed up and so I told him on site while I was there what the problem was (explained it and showed him photos), and how to fix the problem. I watched him start to get upset as the realization of what I was telling him sunk in and that both his schedule and profit for this work were going to be impacted. He started by giving me excuses and then quickly followed by questioning my knowledge and abilities. But no screaming or swearing yet.
When I got back to my office that afternoon I followed up with a written report of what I observed on site, and what next steps should be, and sent it to the project team for this building that included the property Owner, Architect, SC, etc. This was about the 10th report I'd done for this project and is standard process.
Two days later when I arrive back on site (scheduled in advance so all the GCs knew I'd be there) this guy meets me at my vehicle and is screaming a blue streak at me before I can even undo my seatbelt and get out. Between the swearing and name calling all I remember him saying was he was mad I'd documented the problem in my report to everyone and he wasn't going to fix it. At that point all I said was "Fine, but I'm not going to stand here and let you treat me this way. Give me a call or email when you've calmed down and want to proceed." before getting back in my vehicle and driving to the next building to continue on.
A week later I get a call from the municipal building inspector (who's responsible for the whole development) about one of the other projects, and during our conversation I mentioned what happened at the problem site. What I didn't know was that this inspector was so risk adverse, he went to the GC at the problem site THAT AFTERNOON to pull the building permit and shut down the GCs site until the problem gets resolved.
THE NEXT DAY the GC calls me all apologetic and would I please come back to his site to discuss the repair and I'm sorry I lost my temper blah blah blah. Sure, I'll be there tomorrow.