Oilhead, excellent post and just what I needed to read after my last couple of flights. On the whole the Captains I fly with are superb, and smashing chaps to boot but there are the odd exceptions.
Last flight for instance I did the flight planning while cpt read his newspaper and conversed with everyone in preflight except for myself.
For the entirety of the flight all my attempts to start conversation were shot dead with curt one word replies or simply ignored. His body language was hostile and he only addressed me directly to tear appart my approach brief. I won't reapeat the tirade I received on the ground for fear of sounding like I'm having a whinge but I really felt this brings rise to some serious safety issues.
At no point on this sector did I feel we were a team, or more importantly COULD work as a team should we have a problem.
Most situations would require open and frank discussion between both pilots to diagnose the problem, formate and then action a plan. This certainly wouldn't have happened on my flight and the problem was only compounded by his perceived authority gradient.
From a personal point of view it left me feeling angry and somewhat humiliated, not emotions that are at home in a flight deck and certainly don't enable you to carry out your job with confidence and alacrity. I shrugged it off, stapled a smile to my face and got on with it because you have no choice, but inside I wanted to throttle him.
With the number of CRM courses Captain Bastard must have taken it is breathtaking to find such blatant disregard their principles....in a modern airline.