A cheerful disposition and easy-going manner pay big dividends.  On the other hand, a disposition to bully people and be hard to get along with usually end up costing the mean person—hereinafter referred to as the MP.

Adam is a mechanic for John Deere.  An irate customer had purchased a new tractor 18 months previously, and it wasn't working right.  He demanded that a mechanic be sent to his farm immediately to fix the problem.  His tractor was new, and shouldn't be acting like it was, and the John Deere Company had better make things good pronto.  Adam was dispatched to diagnose the problem and fix the customer.

One of Adam's first acts at the farm was to check the engine's oil level.  He found it to be three or four inches too high on the dipstick.  "Do you put oil in this tractor?" he asked the MP.

"Of course I do!" the MP responded hotly.

"Well, you'd better check the oil level, because there's too much in here.  That's probably the cause of your problem."

The MP paused briefly as he weighed the implications and planned his retort.  His tractor's problems couldn't possibly be operator-caused because in his mind he'd already pronounced judgment against the manufacturer and tractor dealership.  He'd been sold a lemon, and they'd better make things right.  Backpedaling was the answer.

"Now that I think about it," he said, "I've never put oil in this tractor.  If there's too much in there, it must have been you guys that put it in.  This tractor is a piece of junk.  It's never worked right.  I don't know where that extra oil could have come from unless you put it there or the tractor makes it.  I want this tractor to be gone through and fixed!"

Adam could have drained the extra oil from the engine and left the MP with a fixed tractor and a $40 service call.  But when the MP insisted that everything was someone else's fault and implied that the tractor's oil maker was malfunctioning; there was nothing left to do but load the tractor on a flatbed, haul it back to town, and give it a thorough going over.  A brand-new tractor was sent to the MP as a "loaner" so that he could continue his farm work while his own tractor was laid up in the shop.

The MP's tractor got a thorough inspection.  The engine oil was drained out, and the proper amount was added back.  The tractor worked fine.  The MP was called and told that his tractor was coming home.

"I've decided I'm keeping the loaner," the MP responded.  "You keep mine.  That tractor is a lemon!  I'm trading!  It's fair!"

The MP was Adam's customer.  No one else relished the idea of jumping in and dealing with him; so Adam loaded the tractor up, and headed for the farm prepared to do battle.

The dealership's new tractor was sitting by the man's shop.  The MP himself could be seen through the window taking a nap in his chair in the living room.  In no time at all Adam had made the switch, and surmised that it would be weeks before the MP even realized that he had his old tractor back again.  He also received a hefty repair bill that he was required to pay.

The same fellow had a rototiller that was pulled behind a tractor.  It had multiple problems that required a shop visit and $400 worth of repairs and parts.  It was a $1000 machine, but the MP was incensed at both the machine and the size of the repair bill.  He declared the rototiller good for nothing but the scrap metal pile, and that's where he was going to throw it!

Adam stepped up and said, "If you're going to send it to the scrap metal pile, why don't you give it to me, and I'll pay the repair bill."

Nothing doing.  The rototiller was junk, and it was going to the scrap metal pile.  Period.

Whether the rototiller really went to the junk pile, or whether this was just the man's attempt to get out of paying a bill, couldn't be determined.  Adam wasn't able to talk the MP out of his rash action.  Adam did explain the situation and his offer to the billing department, however.  The boss thought his offer to be very generous and reasonable, so the MP's protests about paying the bill were declined.

Another MP appeared at the dealership during Adam's lunch break.  Adam happened to be out front when the MP arrived, so he offered to help him.  The MP's problem was a little wire.  He'd obviously been working on his problem for some time, and was in a rage because of his down time, and because the down time had been caused by that little wire.  It wasn't an "original wire," and he wanted an original wire.  Substitutes wouldn't do.  He had to have an original wire!  He didn't care if it cost $200.  He wanted an original wire, and the dealership had better come up with one right now.

The MP was not nice.  He was swearing.  He'd had a bad day, and the dealership could make it good again if it would just produce an original wire—hang the cost.  The parts man had appeared behind the counter, and been a silent witness to the man's demands and abuse.  He consulted his computer, found that the dealership had an "original wire" in stock, produced it, added a $100 Mean Person's Fee to the cost, and handed it to the MP with this explanation:

"I've found an original wire, but it's pretty expensive."

"I don't care what it costs!" the MP said.  "I want an original wire, and that's what I'm going to have."

He left the store with a $130 wire.

A third MP was a regular customer at the dealership.  He made himself at home there.  He considered himself such a good customer that he saw nothing wrong with going into the employees' break room and helping himself to whatever doughnuts, cakes and cookies happened to be provided there for the workers.  The dealership owed it to him.

On one occasion the boss' son had been having fun with one of the mechanics.  The fun involved throwing Oreo cookies at the mechanic as he worked.  The mechanic picked one of the cookies up, carefully took it apart, scraped the icing from the middle, replaced it with a squirt of red grease from the grease gun, put the cookie back together, and placed it at the front of the package of cookies in the break room.  He warned his coworkers to avoid the renegade cookie so that his tormentor would be the one to end up getting it.

A few minutes later the hanger-on MP showed up, and headed straight for the break room.  He helped himself to the cookie, popped the whole thing into his mouth, chewed, swallowed, swore, and declared to the stunned workers that they'd better get some better cookies.  That one tasted like "crap."  Since the guy was a Mean Person, no one dared to even smile, let alone tell him what he'd just eaten.