sharp dressing-down; more than most; courage to answer them

Colleagues found him cold and unfriendly and wondered why he behaved so oddly the whole time: his superiors thought him incompetent and wasted no time in telling him so.

'As a man there was something strange about him. I cannot say that anyone particularly like him,' recalled one woman who worked with him as head of the warehouse where he had to bring his supplies. Others used to watch in fascination as he sat at his desk writing in a little exercise book. He was so absorbed in what he was doing that sometimes he did not even seem to hear when people were talking to him. He used to keep his distance from the men, too, never joining them when they went out drinking after work, and walking straight past when they stood in the corridor talking and smoking.

By now, his obsession was also beginning to have an effect on his work. The planning meetings held early every morning, inevitable saw Chikatilo receiving a sharp dressing-down from his bosses. Chikatilo seemed to get told off more than most. Pyotr Evgrafov, the plant's deputy director, who chaired the meetings, began to loathe his employee so intensely that he wold make him leave in the middle, just like a teacher sending out a naughty pupil. The former teacher accepted meekly, without putting up any kind of protest. But the air of indifference that he cultivated was only a front. Underneath, he was suffering. In spite of the criticism, he was convinced that he was doing his job properly. Evgrafov and the others simply didn't like him. And because of that, they would pick on him and deliberately do so  in front of as many people as possible.
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Despite all this, he somehow managed to convince himself that his bosses were wrong and that he was being unfairly treated. But what could he do? He never had the courage to answer them back; instead, he would go back to his office and sit quietly writing letters of complaint about them to their superiors and to the local Communist Party organisation. The letters did his position no good whatsoever. If anything, they made things much worse, only increasing his reputation as a moaner and tale-teller. For him it was a way of getting the anger out of his system, as chopping wood or other heavy physical work might be for others.

The emotion which he put into his letter-writing had the effect of momentarily calming the sexual frustration which was taking over his life. While he was venting his spleen on the paper, his obsession with sex and his own inadequacy lightened. But the relief wore off quickly, and soon he was out once more on the streets looking for victims.

Pg 72