The difficult negotiator returns

Several years ago, whilst in the middle of my MBA course on negotiation, I quoted a chunk of the text as it describes beautifully someone with whom I have to deal with occasionally at work. There is not one person that I know who has a positive relationship with this person, except perhaps his wife who also works with us - a clear conflict of interests.

Today this person telephoned me and proceeded to rant for several minutes, claiming that his emails are the epitome of clarity and that there must be something wrong with me that I don't understand grade 1 Hebrew. At the end of the call, I was shaking like a leaf and my mouth had gone dry: a pure physiological reaction to speaking (or rather, listening: he doesn't let me say anything and ignores most of what I have to say anyway ) to this person. 

A few minutes after this, my manager called to see whether I was OK. She didn't know about the above phone call but presumably intuited that something like this would happen. If I were not such a dedicated worker, I would go to a doctor to try and get sick leave: this person is causing me psychological and physical damage and it's not something that I can control. She is going to tell this person not to telephone me ever and that every communication must be by email. Let's see how long that will last.

When I managed to calm down sufficiently, I looked at the email which I had difficulty in understanding. It turns out that there is a small but very significant spelling mistake which totally changes the meaning of a sentence. No wonder that I misunderstood.

I sent another email, explaining that I had implemented the changes that he wanted and that he would have to make a small change to a certain screen in order to see the change. The response: "I don't understand". This is not the first time that he has written thus.

This is someone who berates me for not understanding his unclear Hebrew, but when I write something (and many people have told me how clearly I write), he doesn't understand. So I spell it out in complete detail whilst trying very hard not to condescend or patronise. 

This kind of person always has to have the last word and is always right, even when he is demonstrably wrong. We had another exchange of emails a week or so ago which left me scratching my head - he had made a mistake in a part number which I didn't understand. When I pointed this out in excruciating detail, he finally admitted that he had made a mistake. People on my side considered making a poster from that email.