Back in the early 1980's at the company I worked at, there was a meat manager who had a reputation of being hard to get along with. He transferred lots of people out of his shop. A few 2nd men stepped down, meat wrappers hated him, clean up boys quit, etc. But he was doing a good job. Good gross, things like that. Finally the supervisors had to stop listening to him. I mean after a while, they realize that maybe he's the problem. Well one of the last people transferred to his shop wasn't very good. "Cliff" decided to use reverse psychology. Instead of complaining about him, Cliff started saying how great "Steve" is. Cliff told the supervisors that they should make Steve a 2nd man when the next position opens. It worked! They promoted Steve and transferred him out.