If you're interested in the situation that sparked our big screaming match, it went down like this:

Every year, we had our "annual review" where we sit down with our bosses and they rate our performance over the year in advance of our yearly raise. Let's call the characters in this story Big Boss and Asshole Manager... Big Boss being the head of the department and Asshole Manager being the person I directly reported to.

This particular year, we had been given a "self review," so basically we had to analyze and rate our own performance, then the higher-ups were going to rate us as well. Asshole manager hated me and was looking for an excuse to get me fired. So about a week and a half before our reviews, I turned to my counterparts at the company and casually asked "When is this self report due?" One of the guys says "You just take it in when you sit down with them" and one of the girls says "What self review? I don't have to do that."

That's when I realized they asked me to turn in this self review earlier than everyone else to give them time to think about it and bust my nuts. So I explained the situation to Human Resources and told them I felt like I was being treated unfairly and her answer was "per company policy, that form is completely voluntary. You don't have to do it at all if you don't want to."

So I emailed my boss "I really appreciate the opportunity to evaluate myself and I think it will lead to a productive conversation, but I talked to HR and this is a voluntary form. I'm going to complete it, but I'll be turning it in during my review like the rest of the department." The phone rang 10 seconds later and it was her screaming "GET YOUR FUCKING ASS IN MY OFFICE. NOW!"

She brought Asshole Manager into the room, and he sat there and grinned for 20 minutes while she screamed so loudly that the entire office heard it. After that, I knew she'd go to HR, so I left her office and took the stairs instead of the elevator and beat her to the HR department by about 1 minute. She had to sit outside the office while I spoke to HR about how I had just been treated, and I think she got written up for it. I requested that the incident be escalated to the chairman of the company, and HR complied.

I quit a week later, and when I did, I said "You know that was just a test, right? I've been treated very unfairly and unequally to my counterparts, and I wanted to see how you'd react if I called you out on it. And you didn't react very well. I've got another job lined up, so this is my two weeks notice."

The new job was at a company they're partnered with, and it was a vertical move. That means that in order for her to get anything done, she had to go through me first. I completely flipped the script 180 degrees, and from that day forward, she had to be polite because I was managing her biggest client.