Mr. Graef. Yes; in the interest of teamwork and getting a job out, we try to tend to overlook things like that.
Mr. Jenner. Things like what?
Mr. Graef. Flareups of temper or an ugly word or something like that that someone who may be under particular pressure at the time, and someone says the wrong thing—it might set them off a little bit, so I began to hear rumors of some of these things happening with Lee, but it has happened with other fellows also, but little by little, I mean other fellows who have had these flareups—I have had them myself—something will happen that will just be the straw that broke the camel's back, and you will spout off, you know, but this began happening—I began to hear rumors—I began, and of course, sometimes the boss is the last to know, and I began hearing that—or began noticing—that very few people liked him. He was very difficult to get along with. Other people that worked with him, with whom I had conversations and Lee's name came up or something came up about Lee, they wouldn't speak kindly toward him, to say the very least, and something might have happened between them and Lee that they hadn't mentioned it to anyone—some word that had been said in an unfriendly way, that they just overlooked or passed off, but it didn't leave a good impression with them from then on. Lee was not one to make friends. I never had any words with him at all. He never countered any order that I gave him, he always did what I told him to do the way I told him to do it. It might have been wrong sometimes, but he never was antagonistic.
Mr. Jenner. In other words, he might not have been able to carry out your directions, but he tried to do so?
Mr. Graef. That's so.
Mr. Jenner. You didn't mean your directions to him might have been wrong?
Mr. Graef. No; he was not belligerent to me. Anything that I told him to do, he did, or tried to do to the best of his ability.
Mr. Jenner. But you began having the impression, with the increased intensity, that he was not getting along with employees at his level?
Mr. Graef. Right. I was a witness to one of these flareups which I had, up to this time, taken not lightly, but passed it off as one of those things that happen in our department quite frequently, but I was quite close to one of Lee's flareups. I don't know who was responsible—whether it was Lee or one of the other workers, so at the time I couldn't actually reprimand anyone, so I didn't, but tried to pacify and laugh the whole thing off and make some remark that "Well, we are all under pressure. Let's get down and let's get on with the job." Something to that effect.
Then, the two people went their separate ways but it was quite a flareup, a sudden flareup of temper—a quick chip on the shoulder thing that I don't know—I have a hard time understanding people that lose their temper so quickly.