It was a threat that didn't preclude physical violence.

He was kneeling by the receptionist desk talking to her about what he had spoken to me forty minutes earlier. He was still having an unfavorable attitude. I bent down to speak to him.

"If you ever speak to me like that again, there is going to be trouble."

"Tim, I apologize--" He wasn't actually apologizing he was trying to avoid a confrontation he could not win.

"I was telling you there was no one down here to transfer calls upstairs but you wouldn't listen--"

"Tim are you hearing me?"

Cutting me short proved he didn't think his attitude was incorrect. If he thought he was wrong he would have given me the courtesy of hearing me out. "I refuse your apology."

The exchange set off a cascade of points and counterpoints of which I wasn't a part because I walked away.

But after the guy had left, I did overhear, "Tim doesn't react like that for no reason. That guy's full of shit."