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There is no way that he doesn't know what the phrase means, nothing has ever not happened more than that story.

"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story."

-- Mark Twain

"You/You're the man" is a phrase that's complimentary.

That reading would also fit into the conversation as a sort of commiseration. "But...you the man dad, who wouldn't want to work with you?"

You're thinking of tha man. This is The Man.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man

(Note that the article also mentions confusion with complimentary sense)

The complimentary sense is completely blocked by context here:

> The problem is ______.

Not totally. The problem is [that you're awesome] and people find you intimidating (or something).

I suppose it could be made up or embellished, but I don't think it's the most wildly implausible thing ever (unlike @woodman).

Well shoot, you keep producing plausible explanations: so now he might be so narcissistic that he thinks the reason he can't find capable subordinates is because people are intimidated by his awesomeness.

Wow, that is a stretch and reads like an advocacy of Bible skip code or Nostradamus predictions. So the best case scenario is that he doesn't understand conversational context? Well I stand corrected: he is either a liar, suffers from a mental disorder, or isn't a native English speaker.

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