Was this person being disrespectful to me?

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Bob is a douchebag, but doesn't seem to be a very harmful one. You basically work for a less amusing version of the boss in the tv series "The Office".

Learn to fake a "hail fellow well met" Chandler Bing work persona, or just be prepared to put up with his condescending BS.

He doesn't seem like he would hurt you, but he does seem to want people to think he could if he wanted to. That probably means he couldn't. Best to just let him think that and ignore him.

You could however start watching the show "The Office" and talk about it to your co-workers and know in your own mind you are making fun of Bob.

ETA: Guys in lower or middle management who act like arrogant douchebags are usually that way because they keep trying and not getting anywhere and never really wanted to be doing the job they are doing and think they are worth much more so they are miserable and make sure others either know it, fear them like they would if he were the big boss, or make them miserable too.

Well, I was there and I wasn’t certain about the subtext either. I only figured he was being disrespectful (or, a better term would be condescending) based upon his public interaction with Sam.


This is probably an accurate assessment.

Bob's middle-management of course he's a douchebag that's just redundant.

He was trying to be nice, he showed everyone that you got it on the nose. You understood excellently.

Touching the finger to the nose is the gesture people make in Charades to indicate that the person has guessed correctly. I think all he meant was that you were right in your explanation. His other behavior indicates that he is 1. closed-minded and does not listen to other people's ideas, 2. arrogant as a reaction to his own low self-esteem, 3. needs to reinforce his superiority by either promoting himself ("I've worked on much more complicated projects"), putting others down, or nitpicking tiny details that don't matter ("Sam, slow down. Sam, speed it up"). I've had bosses like this, and they can become bullies in bad situations. A hard issue to resolve. He needs a position without much power or influence over others, but where he can feel like his opinions matter so he doesn't have to punish others to feel better about himself.