Power corrupts, even if it turns out it is the smallest amount in the world.
A Special Kind Of Evil Person Hides Pizza
“We had a pizza party for people who completed a project at work. I was training a new guy and brought leftovers so I wasn’t interested in pizza. The new guy was about to take lunch and I told him if he wanted a couple slices of pizza he could have mine.
Good lord, the guy who ran the pizza party said no way even after explaining to him I wasn’t eating, and he hid the leftover pizza in his office. ‘Only people who worked on this project are allowed to eat the pizza’.
I went into his office and grabbed it and gave it to my guy.”
The Comissar Of The Break Room
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“My office has several departments, each having their own supervisor. A new supervisor was hired from outside of the company to manage a certain department and it quickly became a crap show. She tried walking around with a box and demanding people put their cellphones in it, and they could have them back during lunch or at the end of the day. Everyone refused. In an effort to show cost savings she started ordering the worst plastic utensils for the breakroom. The knives and forks might as well been made out of al dente pasta for all the good it did. She quickly became the memo queen and soon every part of the break room was wallpapered in her asinine missives.
She tried to impose a two cup limit on break room coffee. That’s right, you read that sentence correctly. She’d play favorites and give special treatment to certain individuals and before long that department resembled a gulag era of commissar employees snitching on other employees so they could get the days off they needed.
It got so bad that the turn around in that department became horrendous, no amount of ass kissing or bodies tossed under the bus by her could cover the fact that she was as toxic as they come. She was quietly moved to a non-management role in a completely different department. All she had to do was order office supplies and deal with vacation and sick time requests for payroll.
The breaking point or line in the sand is when she played power games with me. She scheduled a meeting for her department and told me mine needed to attend. I told her we have our own weekly webcam meetings in my department and I didn’t see the point, her response was the CEO personally requested I attend. I saw the CEO the next week and asked them why this seemed necessary as it doesn’t apply to me or my peers in my department and the CEO gave me a bewildered look and stated that no such request had ever been made nor implied. So at that point she was lying and obviously to me full of crud. No longer just petty but something more insidious.
Before she came in her department was like a group of seasoned NCOs that needed little or no guidance. By the time she left it was a smoking ruin.”
Why Be An RA If You Hate Kids?
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“The head RA at my freshman dorm… It was as if he accepted the job because he hated teenagers so much he wanted to ruin their lives. Since we were a freshman only dorm there was a strict no alcohol policy and he would stay up late waiting in the common room to catch people returning from parties drunk so he could kick them out.
But that’s not why I’m writing this story… He and I had beef after I asked him to get the vending machine fixed. When I told him it was broken he said he’d call someone to get repaired. Every week I politely asked him for an update on the repair and each week he became more and more annoyed by my inquiries. I didn’t understand how it could take so long to get a repairman out so after about 5 weeks I started investigating on my own. First I called the university to ask who fills the machines, then I wedged my body between the snack machine and the soda machine until I found the sticker on the back with the company contact info. I called the supplier, they gave me a number for the repair request line, and ONE HOUR LATER someone was fixing the damn vending machine.
I stood there chatting with the repairman waiting for the head RA to walk by… When he finally did I pointed to the repairman with a nasty grin on my face and proudly announced that I got it fixed on my own and wouldn’t be needing his help anymore. I wish I could describe the look on his face, but he was clearly unhappy. I knew after a month that he was never going to call and get it fixed, just to spite me. He literally used his power to DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.”
The Cruella De Ville Of Managers
“I work in a company with 5 managers. Everyone is terrified of my manager, seriously, she reminds me of Cruella De Ville! So we have a kitchen where we have lunch – we’re all highly qualified professionals – there’s usually about 8-10 of us sitting there having lunch. All the other managers will sit with us but she never does. When my manager walks in she always turns off the light stating something like ‘Why do we have the lights on, no need to be burning electricity!’ (it has a window but no sunlight comes in so it’s pretty dark).
One day she walks in and does this and notices one of the other managers sitting there and says ‘Oh, OtherManager, I didn’t notice you were here’ and immediately turns the light back on. It’s just one of many little things she does to intimidate people.'”
“They Drove Over An Hour Just At The Hope That They Would Bust Me Breaking A Rule
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“So in another life, I was a Mormon missionary (one of those guys in a suit riding a bike). Well, there are different levels of leadership as a missionary. From the bottom to the top there is Jr. Companion, Sr. Companion, District Leader, Zone Leader, and AP (Assistant to the President) and at the top is some old guy who is the president of your mission. Anyways the power struggle is real to become the AP. If you become AP your family can brag about you SO much more than if you’re just a district leader. Anyways at least in my mission under my mission president, he valued tattle tales the most. There are a lot of strict rules as a Mormon missionary.
Now onto the story. One night I was up a little bit late (our bedtime was 9:30 PM) and was strictly enforced. I was just up reading an unapproved book. I think it was Lord of the rings. Anyways all of a sudden I get a knock on the door at 10 pm. The zone leaders had been peeking into my window and ‘caught’ me being an apostate missionary. So to give you some perspective they were up past the curfew and drove over an hour just at the hope that they would bust me breaking a rule. I can only assume my companion told them that I enjoyed reading a little past curfew.
The next day I get a call from the mission president who asks me to drive to the mission home.
He reamed me for over an hour (full on screaming at me) I was just a 19 year old who enjoys reading. Anyways. I’ll always remember the time I got in a crap-ton of trouble over reading a ‘non-approved book’ past curfew.”
“She Is Standing Right Next To Him Like Iago Perched On Jafar’s Shoulder”
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“Worked for a small computer repair company, 4 people total: the boss, two grease monkeys (we did all the small stuff like reformats and virus removable) and the secretary. It was awesome, I loved that job, the boss and my co-worker were super chill and helpful. But the secretary, we’ll call her Lorelei, was a different story. When I started working I got a text from an old friend of mine warning me about her, apparently I had been hired because he had just been fired because of her… ok, I thought… but she was great, very helpful and nice. She’d bring us Starbucks once in a while and other little niceties. Maybe my old friend had been the problem? Anyway, life was great…
The months passed and things started to change. The nice secretary came out one day and told us she was no longer a ‘secretary’ but the ‘Office manager’ and berated us anytime we didn’t call her the ‘office manager.’ It was strange, but whatever. A little while later I get called into the bosses office where she is standing right next to him like Iago perched on Jafar’s shoulder, she tells me my work priorities have been shifted, I was no longer allowed to work on any computer that came into the shop or go out on service calls. Instead, she said I was to monitor and report on our customer’s server activity… uh…. okay, I guess this must be important?
For the next week I’m confined to my desk and printed out about small batches of computer jargon that made very little sense and took less than an hour to do. When I asked what else I should do, she would intervene before my boss responded and told me to try to improve the reports… whatever that meant.
The next Monday she calls me into the office again and says I’m on work probation, I have 3 weeks to be more productive or I’ll be fired. Apparently, I wasn’t doing enough to earn a paycheck?
I did my best to make the reports as readable as possible, and when no one was looking I’d finish up clients computers that were on the workbench (simple stuff like clicking next after a virus scan) until she caught me and reprimanded me for half an hour about how I don’t have permission to do anything outside of my job description.
I gave up, sad to admit, I could see the writing on the wall, I spent the last week goofing off on my computer until the next Monday.
I get called into the office… there’s the boss I once respected sitting like a beat dog and Lorelei sitting like a queen in her palace… She tells me I haven’t improved my performance and they’re sorry but here’s my last check, goodbye. I turn to my boss and look him square in the eye and asked him if he really agreed with it, he slumped his shoulders and said ‘kinda’.
I went home and texted that old friend asking him what happened when he got fired, he told me pretty much the same story I just went through. Later on, I hear they hired some other kid to take my place… the same thing ends up happening to him.
She eventually got fired after trying to get rid of the best tech guy they had (my coworker/superior) I think my old boss finally grew a spine. She ended up leaving her husband and two daughters for another woman who eventually left her… no idea where she is now, don’t care.”
A Politician In The Making
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“When I did safety patrol in elementary school we gave out ‘good job’ tickets to younger kids if they made good choices in the hallway. My best friend from my neighborhood was a grade below me so every day I would give him a good job card so his mom would let him come outside and play.
He’s the only person I ever gave good job cards too.”
Petty Abuse Of Power Meets Petty Revenge
“Mall security guard was blocking an intersection saying no cars were allowed to pass through. There was no reason why that I could tell and he wasn’t closing the other side, just the intersection itself. I pulled up and politely asked him what was going on. He lost his top and started yelling from about a foot away that I should ‘Mind my own businesses this is his jurisdiction.’ I blinked at him confused as to why he was yelling at me and given I could see absolutely no reason why I couldn’t go I just lifted my foot off the brake and slowly started crawling forward. I maintained eye contact with him the entire time while he was screaming at me to stop and waddling after my car. When I made it to the other side of the intersection he was now behind my car still waddling after me screaming.
I hit the brake and he ran into the back of my car.”
A Cop With An Axe To Grind
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“My friend was teaching a 3-hour class in the middle of winter. She accidentally left her headlights on. While she was teaching, a cop pulls up and waits. As she was leaving, cop waits for her to get on a public street, then pulls her over for having a headlight out. Bangs on her window with his giant ring. Then proceeds to make her wait for 45 minutes, in a blizzard, while he runs her plates.
After all that, he gave her a ticket because he didn’t believe she would get it fixed unless he did.”
A College Professor Who Gave F’s For Bad Handwriting
“My (ex)wife was going to community college and was in English 101. The teacher, like so many English 101 teachers, was woefully unqualified.
This was around 1986-87, and computers were not really common at all for use in writing papers. You either turned in a paper in handwriting, or you typed it on a typewriter.
My wife opted to turn in her paper handwritten. Now she had beautiful cursive; truly a lost art.
When she got the paper back, it had a big fat F on it. The only comments on the page was he had circled every single capital letter in red, and had a big note on the paper: ‘Cursive capital letters should NOT be connected to the lower case following letters.’
So she got an F for that.
Apparently, she wasn’t the only one; so a group of them packed up their papers, went to the dean, talked with him about it. The next day the teacher was not there, and the dean was. He taught the class for the next week until they hired someone new.”
The Committee President Stealing Money From The School
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“My mom is in the high school committee of my sister’s school, she is in charge of the treasury and she’s usually a cook. She is loved by every student and by so many mothers and fathers, except the committee president, who believes she should be as popular and loved as my mom. She has gone as far as shutting the gas off just so my mom doesn’t cook her food at school, apparently she has the power to do so. One day she actually fired my mom from her position just so she can manage the entire committee money by herself. One time the principal did an audit, turns out all she wanted to do was steal some of the money. The principal gave the treasury position to my mom again and the president started behaving a little better, still, what a freaking nutjob.”
Emperor Of The Boy Scouts
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“Every troop leader I’ve ever met at Boy Scout Camp. If you were troop lead, you were little more than a representative for your troop at the leader meeting each night. You didn’t decide anything or make choices for your troop. All you did was bring your updated roster, any equipment or service requests, and relayed back any news or information to your respective troop. A troop leader was essentially just a manilla envelop that asked questions. But this very clear lack of power never stopped a single scout that held that title from believing they were only a few drops of blood short of scouting royalty.
One year, the troop leader at my site (we shared a campsite with another troop) held random ‘Tent inspections.’ If your tent wasn’t organized the way he felt was appropriate and correct, he’d give you a demerit. What a demerit actually meant was not explained. What he felt was appropriate and correct was also not explained. It was summer, and hot, so most of us just rolled the side flaps up so that the tents were essentially just A-frame tarps hanging about 3 feet off the ground. Each flap that was rolled up was a separate demerit. If your sleeping bag wasn’t rolled up or in its stuff sack, it was a demerit. If you hung a lamp or lantern from the frame, it had to be taken down during the day. None of these things were actual rules. That same year, he attempted to rigidly enforce a swimming policy that the scouts from our campsite couldn’t go swimming unless they got his approval. More demerits were earned there too.
A year or two later, a kid from my own troop was troop leader. The little loser would play Reveille 5 minutes before the rest of the camp did. No demerits that year, but he did threaten to tell the adult leader if we didn’t wake up on time. The adults regularly slept right up until breakfast, so they didn’t care. That year, the camp store started stocking backpacking hammocks… which we naturally all bought and then had to re-hang multiple times because the troop leader would dismantle them during merit badge classes. He also kept trying to get us in trouble for bringing juice back from the cafeteria after lunch.”
Beware Who You Taunt, You Might Just Get A Wet Rag Thrown At You
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“My first job at 16 was as a hostess in this little local seafood joint. I was put with another hostess of a similar age who had been there a few months in order to be trained. You’d think they’d told her she was general manager of the place or had just received her own personal slave! She would bark orders at me and then raise her voice or act totally condescending if I needed to ask additional questions or if I took a moment to figure something out. Basically, the job entailed not only seating people but cleaning the tables as well (there were no bussers). So, of course, she insisted that she would do the seating and I was to do the cleaning. This went on for a couple days. I wasn’t being trained to seat people as I should have been and she kept telling me I wasn’t ‘ready’ or that it was ‘too busy’ when in reality, she was just a loser and didn’t want to get her hands dirty if she didn’t have to.
Finally on the third night, after again being told I was the busser and she would do the seating, and after one too many sarcastic, condescending remarks from her, I snapped. She went to seat a party at one of the tables I’d just cleaned. Apparently, the rag had been a bit wet and when she saw this, she yelled across the dining room at me, ‘Oh my God, this table is DISGUSTING! Get over here and clean it RIGHT!’ I was so enraged that I screamed, ‘CLEAN IT YOURSELF!’ and I grabbed the rag out of the water bucket where it sat and FLUNG IT at her as hard as I could. It caught her around the neck. Several diners witnessed this and found it rather comical. She clawed the rag off her throat and stormed out in tears. Like, she actually left the restaurant. The GM took me aside and (obviously stifling a laugh) said, and I quote, ‘I know she’s a nutjob but you can’t do things like that.’ And then sent me back to work. She never returned.”
The Bouncer Who Remembered Everything
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“This happened at least 10 years ago. A female friend of mine was jumped by some girl who was drinking at the bar. This friend is a black belt in Karate so needless to say the tipsy girl was pinned to the ground quickly.
The bouncers made my friend leave believing she had started the ‘fight’ so we all left. On the way out this one bouncer, who kinda looked like Stone Cold Steve Austin, and always wore jeans a few inches too short, told her she was banned for life.
Life goes on… she moved to another city for school and eventually to another country. Years later she’s in town visiting and we go out for a drink. We go to a different bar, and guess who’s the doorman. That’s right, Steve Austin-guy in his too short jeans!
He then proceeds to tell her that he remembers banning her 5 years ago. It doesn’t matter that it was at a different bar that’s no longer in business, the ban was by him and the ban goes with him wherever he works.”