I didn't do a lot of stupid crap when I was a controller. I only had a few heated exchanges in my career. We got our jollies when we were able to place two C-5s down on parallel runways at the same time. I was in Germany during the strike, so I did not get deployed, but I knew some people who did. Those PATCO guys had a no strike clause, so they screwed up. It opened up a ton of jobs for USAF controllers to go FAA, and it took the Air Force many years to recover.
It was stupid. They were trying to gum things up, slow it down, cause minor annoyances.
Being on the receiving end of it was frustrating, because there was no way out of it, short of “don’t fly”...and since that’s how I made my living, had to do it.
The funny thing is that they could have made it work. Everyone was on their side for the first couple of days...but then when they didn’t go back, opinion turned against them in the pilot world.
As for the people who took the jobs....well....the USAF controllers were OK, but the newbies hired off the streets were a challenge over the next few years. Definitely missed some of the older guys...