"What Is The Smallest Amount Of Power You've Seen Go To Someone's Head?" (42 Answers)

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It's super funny when a person gets a tiny bit of power and loses it. It's like a little kid being entrusted to handle the kiddy scissors in kindergarten and then feeling as if he is The Lord Of The Rings, Sauron itself, possessing infinite power over his meager subjects.

It's also pretty sad. But more funny.

Today, we’re here to laugh at and vote on the times when people got a teensy weensy grain of power and then took it on an absolute trip.

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Any Homeowners Association board member in America

liongrad430 , Kindel Media Report

HOAs: Recreating 'The Lord of the Flies' with condominiums.

Once I volunteered to be a vest for a parade. Basically, I got a brightly colored vest and a bicycle to help keep people behind the parade route lines, help floats if they got into trouble, misc stuff like that. I got beer tokens as payment. After the parade was over, I turned in my vest, got my beer tokens and went to the party at the end of the route. I got to the long a*s line for cheap beer and opened my mouth and took a deep breath. Okay so... I'd just spent 4 hours using my loud-a*s voice to shout at people. Now that it was over, shouting at people and watching them do what I said had become some surreal form of normal. I exhaled, closed my f*****g mouth, and waited in line like a human being. Basically, being a parade volunteer made me think I had the power to cut in line for beer, but my meat-brain kicked into gear just before I made an a*s of myself. Most surreal moment of my life.

IronOhki , Vlad Vasnetsov Report

This (the vest thing) reminded me of that brat that refused to grant me entrance to the stadium for a soccer game because the ticket wouldn't scan at the first time. She accused me of getting a fake ticket. After that it was because I only payed a ticket for a child instead of for an adult. Then she said it was impossible for someone like me to afford these kind of tickets. She refused to try and scan it for a second time, but tried to kick me out. It was an important game that day and we had premium seats. It was busy and took forever for me to wave someone else down to solve that issue. In fact she was about to get physical because apparently I held up the line. Hope she got a good kick out of it, before she got in trouble that racist b. Missed a whole quarter of the game. It's been years but still makes me angry.

When the teacher put the stapler on Jerry's desk. She could have put it on any desk, but she chose his. He proceeded to spend the next 30 minutes as the Stapler King, giving the stapler to people he felt were worthy. I needed the stapler but I had to wait 5 minutes while he debated with himself over whether I was worthy or not. F**k you ,Jerry.

anon , Kara Report

F**k you, Jerry!

Missed a parcel by the postman and got the slip through my door to go to the depot. Card says wait 24 hours before collecting. Figured I'd try my luck and went there anyway. Guy takes f*****g ages to get to me as he clearly doesn't give a f**k (as always, anybody who lives in Britain will tell you Post Office staff in depots are hopeless) and then finally takes my slip off. I see him go to my parcel, PICK IT UP, then notice the slip says wait 24 hours. He genuinely refuses to give me the parcel as I haven't waited. F*****g d**k- give me my parcel!Turn up an hour later, a different person is on the desk. Get my parcel no problem.

anon , SHVETS production Report

The reason for the 24-hour wait is so that the parcel can be returned from the mail carrier's possession to the post office. If it was already there, the carrier never intended to deliver it, but planned on giving everyone a slip that day. My carrier does this habitually, because he's too lazy to drive down my 100m driveway and get out of his truck.

Teacher here - making a student in charge of the glue sticks. Acted like I'd given them a veto in the UN.

anon , George Milton Report

The kid in charge of paste usually ate it.

I had to interview a guy who is president of the cha-cha dancing club at my university, ChaChaLoco. When I asked for his full name, he scoffed. "You don't know who I am?" I said no, I was just a reporter for the school newspaper. He then said, "I am Firstname Middlename SecondSpanishMiddlename Lastname, President and Financial Executive of ChaChaLoco. If you haven't heard of me yet, you must live under a rock."

whoops519 , Silvio Barbosa Report

You killed my father, prepare to die!

I had a friend in another city who was living in a s****y room and board situation and I wanted to move there so we decided to get a place together. I gave him my share of the damage deposit and first months rent. He lived there so he found the place.He put his name on the tenancy agreement so he figured he was my landlord and he was in charge of every little thing in the house. I needed work, so I helped the landlord in some renovations (we had a leak and a minor flood) for the equivalent value in free rent which really pissed him off because I was going over his head and interfering with his future legal case against the landlord (which never happened). He horded the mail key so I needed permission to get my mail. Eventually I lost it on him and demanded to get my name on the place on paper or I would leave so he "evicted" me. The next month he had to move out because he couldn't afford the place.

scorchedTV , NPJINC Report

Jerk!

A moderator of /r/Food banned me for providing links to the source and recipe of food pictures I posted. Apparently that's spam.

PussyWhistle , Jane Doan Report

Well, if the recipe involved spiced ham...

I used to be an admin on a Minecraft server where after you played for 10 hours you would get the rank "Member", which gave you access to a couple new commands. Some really annoying 10 year old thought that it was a huge achievement when he got that and he started acting superior to all the moderators and threatening them. I talked to him over skype about it and he started screeching at me and saying that he f****d my mom. I banned him permanently. Make sure your kids know how to act semi-maturely before you let them play online in any game.

anon , Mike Mozart Report

I couldn't help but laugh at this one but it's pretty much the same behavior I've seen from some other 10 year olds with access to technology and zero supervision. They can be pretty hard-core bullies over text if they have phones when they're that young too. My 9 year old tries to convince me that everyone he knows has a phone, and plays games with friends online and I'm like well I guess you'll just have to be uncool until middle school at least.

We promoted a call center employee to shift manager. She was a nice, dependable, hardworking and pleasant girl. Within days she was hiding behind potted plants trying to catch people looking at their cellphones (against policy to have them on the floor) and reported one person because her phone vibrated in her purse. She would time breaks (bathroom and scheduled) just itching for someone to return late. This chick suddenly got semi-orgasmic at the thought of getting others in trouble. We moved her to an 'administrative' position and eventually fired her.

skeewackybabble , Karolina Grabowska Report

Some people are born to be Hall Monitors.

Reddit Modsoh snap

Ramrod312 , Brett Jordan Report

the meme of posting something inappropriate while mods are asleep will never get old.

RankI'm in the military and some people think their rank is like Thor's hammer.... We had this one guy get promoted to first lieutenant from second lieutenant in my first assignment (basically a 100% promotion rate for that rank) and THAT DAY started to order all the other LTs around and telling them to call him sir, etc. Our DO put him in his place pretty quickly, but it's amazing what a bar on your shoulder or stripe on your arm can add to an ego

gefilthyfish , Pixabay Report

Did you expect people who had the idea of rank pounded into their heads during basic to act any other way?

Not exactly the smallest, but when Theodore Roosevelt became the acting Secretary for the US Navy for 4 hours, he cabled the Navy worldwide to prepare for war, ordered ammunition and supplies, brought in experts and went to Congress asking for the authority to recruit as many sailors as he wanted.He held the job for 4 hours and did that during the timeframe.

Reddit_Bork , Maël BALLAND Report

On his lunch break, he carved his face into Mt. Rushmore.

Our tiny community has an email list to join for buying & selling locally. I overheard the woman who sends out the emails saying that deciding what made the email was like playing god every morning.

13goody13 , Taryn Elliott Report

God's 'Buying and Selling Locally' email: For Sale. Small blue planet. Fixer Upper. No reasonable offer refused.

Assistant to the regional manager.

salutishi , Tima Miroshnichenko Report

I could never wrap my head around the many middle management titles. It is all gibberish to me.

I worked for a small used game store and the one girl that worked there was made assistant manager and instantly felt that meant that she didn't have to do any work and could just tell me what to do. When the owner came in and saw that I was doing 90% of the work he gave me the title of "weekend manager" and told me that I didn't have to listen to anything she said.

Admiral_Fancypants Report

"YOU'RE A MANAGER! YOU'RE A MANAGER! EVERYONE'S A FŪCKING MANAGER!"

My former university's IT admin. I studied computer science and my laptop was pretty weak. I used to work all night, weekends and preferred working out of the IT labs computers. This A*hole of an IT admin, the typical reddit neckbeard, fat, slobby, know it all dips**t had weird rules. In the bitter cold of US northeast he had a rule that stated nobody could eat inside the computer labs. Since I worked there all day and night, I would usually keep my sandwich with me and eat it after 11pm. One night this mongrel was taking a stroll in the corridor, saw me eating my sandwich. Told me either I throw it out or he was going to lock my account to the department network. I tried reasoning with him and said 'I will close it and put it in my backpack', he insisted I throw it because otherwise I might come back and eat it when he's not around. It was the moment I felt the most helpless in my life. I couldn't afford to get locked out the department lab, since I had some huge program running whose results were due soon. I couldn't afford to throw away a $7 sandwich as I was a foreign student here on scholarship. It was a snowy midnight in december when I did not have any option to go buy myself anything else. I succumbed to his threat, went and trashed my sandwich in front of his eyes. He gave me a dirty grin and left. I felt helpless, alone and lost. I had nobody to go and talk my heart out. I was almost in tears at my own miserable situation. I hated my life back then.

Smug_developer , Polina Zimmerman Report

evil

Our local landfill built a plywood booth near the front gate and installed their longtime bulldozer operator, an older lady who was morbidly obese and a heavy smoker, as the full-time attendant. "If you EVER show up here again with a No-Tarp you'll be banned for life," she said, taking a long pull on her smoke. "Banned from the landfill for LIFE?" I asked, suddenly thinking that this might be a badge of distinction. "For LIFE!" she replied, adding sternly, "This is a WASTE-FA-CILITY, not a f****n' dump."

tomparker Report

It's been my experience that people who are newly promoted often become a hard a*s. I always felt they did these crack downs so upper management would think they were correct in who they promoted. I've seen it again and again.

Anyone who has been in a fraternity will know that when a newly initiated brother is given the slightest amount of power it's an instant power trip. Perfect example being our new "parliamentarian" basically the person responsible for handing out fines. He threatened to send my $1 fine to collections if I didn't pay it for cursing in a chapter meeting. I told him to f**k himself with a cactus. I paid the fine though.

ComeAndTakeIt993 , Emily Ranquist Report

I'd give the dollar to the cactus, it's the LEAST you could do.

Some s****y admin on a freelancing website.He used to be the lowest of the low, always helping me out.He then got promoted to 'head customer support agent' within weeks he had removed my top rated seller status (because I complained that he wasn't doing his job properly). I asked for the reasons, he said he does not have time to give me the reasons.Income plummeted by £1000 a month, costing me my house.Cheers man.Glad you got fired a few months later for incompetence.

anon , Bich Tran Report

But not soon enough 😢

Once I was given the honorary title of drill sergeant in middle school. I started yelling at kids and made up my own drill songs. This girl I liked told me later that I was being lame. I told her to give me 20.

writ002 , Frans van Heerden Report

Did she give it to you?

There is a button in my car that makes the headrests in the back fall down. I use it to smack people in the head if they try to be cute.

anon , Garvin St. Villier Report

Volvo

Landlord of government-subsidized housing in a s****y part of town.* Immediately used any conceivable lease violation to get 75%+ tenants to "2nd strike" (3rd is "automatic" eviction)* Encouraged 2nd-strike tenants to anonymously report their neighbors in return for leniency* Lied to tenants, their lawyers, and their family members about violations* Had individual visitors banned over rumors of illegal activity (from the 2nd-strike crew)* Has written up people for "loitering" outside their own apartments after 10pm. Not loud gathering-type loitering. Stepping out to smoke, even.* Drives her in-crowd to appointments, etc.* Completely unequal enforcement of all rules.

kernunnos77 Report

One caretaker I had ( a couple) thought they ruled the building and everyone's lives. Wouldn't give proper entry notices, nor clear instructions about pest control procedures for tenants, harassed tenants about non-existent issues or things that were out of the tenant's control, meddled in their lives. One day the lady told me she "loved putting the fear in tenants". This was when she was somewhat cool with me shortly after I moved in. She became a total b***h soon after. She accused my daughter of running down the stairs and shouting when she had a busted foot and wore a walking cast. She had to be slow going down the stairs. She also likes to sing. It was during the day and she was just going to her friend's who lived in the same building. The caretaker was trying to gaslight me, saying I did hear her shouting. I didn't. When I called mgmt they said it was a "she said, she said" issue with no proof of evidence. I told them my kid's in a cast. Still didn't budge.

The one who became the admin of a facebook page, with 23 likes. I made it with another guy, and we were posting cool images for our friends. Anyway, one of our other friends wanted in, so we added him. A bunch more of my friends liked the page, taking us to just over 50 likes. The new admin went insane. He banned people, tried to bar the other admin, then tried to initiate a coup, by telling our viewers that I and the other admin had gone insane and that he was he only one who they should trust.I just deleted the page, and told him to make his own. He was none too happy.

sinisterpresence Report

It's just social media 🤷🏽‍♂️

Most of the cops in my area act like they own the entire county.

_--_--_- Report

Former bullies, or they were bullied.

Our high school had 4 custodians. One retired and the next-in-line was promoted to **Head Custodian**.Both the student body and staff knew it had gone to his head when he posted an announcement regarding locker inspections for *interior cleanliness* - replete with a schedule of days/times to show up for his *mandatory* inspections.Apparently, he took it upon himself without the administration's authorization, because we heard about it only through him, not from official notification by the principal.

Back2Bach , Paul Sableman Report

Aw man custodians are so under appreciated too so it's too bad it went to his head. When I read this I pictured him as the janitor from scrubs though.

I put someone "in charge" as team leader of a small crew that was digging a foundation. He tried to fire 3 of the five guys.

suitology , Harsh Vardhan Report

That just leaves 2 to dig an entire foundation. Doesn't seem like a smart move. Maybe try some sort of 3 strike policy before you over abuse the thimble of authority you had.

In seventh grade one of our teachers would ask a student to keep an eye on the room if he needed to step out for a moment. Mostly the kids were happy to stand in front of the room and watch everyone read or work on a quiz for a few minutes and felt great about their responsibility.One time the teacher stepped out and gave the responsibility to "Brian" while we started a test. I asked out loud if anyone knew the date. "Brian" yelled at me not to talk during a test, that talking was cheating, grabbed the test off my desk and ripped it in half.I'm not joking. He actually tore it in half.When the teacher came back "Brian" told the teacher he had stopped me from cheating and gave him my ripped up test that only had my name written on it. The other students spoke up in my defense. Teacher told "Brian" he had done well in making sure no one talked, but he was going to let me do the test anyway.

Green7000 , Deane Bayas Report

teacher was a moron for praising such idiocy

The Gymbro guy who thinks he owns the public gym. Literally said to me once, "PM come in my gym, can't tell me what to do."

porporporporpor , Hotel du Vin & Bistro Report

when i worked at mcdonalds, a guy was "temporary manager" while the actual manager ran out to get something we ran out of. it was my first day. he threatened to send home 2 of the experienced people because the average times were 1 second above the corporate goal, 10 minutes into his time as manager. he got his hours cut pretty quickly after (wasn't that good a worker anyways) and never figured out why.

novelty_bone Report

Manager.Gets the thinnest shred of authority and turns into a tyrant.

username_004 , Pixabay Report

Becoming a manager is in some respects like growing up with abusive parents. Some people copy those that have gone before, others rebel and vow to do it better. I was fortunate to have some appalling managers that taught me how NOT to manage people.

My old friend opened his own tattoo shop. Experienced success and soon had the most popular shop in town. We live in an artsy city, and people started recognizing him out and being like "I love your work. I'd like to get a tattoo."He thought he was some celebrity that could act in any way he pleased. He started partying constantly, then wound up being an alcoholic meth addict that is now in prison.Another guy around here was co-owner of a whiskey distillery, and thought that he was a god. I remember waiting in line to get into this bar. They were having a big show, so they closed their doors at 6:00 to prepare, then reopened at 8:00. He thought that they should let him in, and then got further pissed that they made him wait in the line.

45MinutesOfRoadHead , cottonbro studio Report

Having a successful business doesn't mean you're a celebrity. I'm sure acting like he's the best thing since Betty White is helping the distillary.

My third grade teacher was in charge of the "red dot" which was a red circular piece of construction paper she would hang outside her classroom. It indicated it was too muddy to play on the baseball field at recess. So many stories and anecdotes involving the red dot. Even 3rd grade me saw she was drunk with the power.

Tralalaladey Report

The guy who was the manager at the Burger King I worked at when I was a teenager. We had to get prior approval from him if we wanted to get a hair cut or dye our hair or pierce our ears. Tattoos were forbidden, even if they were hidden. If he found out you had one, he'd find an excuse to fire you. Same if you weren't Christian. He would also drive by our houses to make sure the pit crews weren't fraternizing with the managers or assistant managers on our off hours. I heard he's a cop now. He'll probably show up on the news some day for shooting a black man for jaywalking or something.

Fray38 , Leo Arslan Report

That's super duper illegal.

I went to a rugby game a few weeks back and I assume this guy was the "bar manager" at one of the overpriced liquor windows they have at the stadium. He looked like a fatter, balding, older, toady-looking version of a poor man's Josh Gad. He was just lingering around the queues, finding young women to take up to the front of the queue with an obsequious "madam, here you go, yessssss, come up to *this line*", his p**s-hole-in-the-snow eyes darting around looking for someone fresh to lord it over. Or perhaps a blowfly to snack upon. When he wasn't busy belittling his bar staff (and let's face it, bar staff at a stadium aren't exactly pick of the crop as a general rule but hey, we all need an income), he was just itching, possibly physically, to find some customer he could f**k up the day of by telling them that they looked drunk and could only buy one drink at a time instead of four. I saw him get his way a few times, and his face just took on a kind of glow, not unlike the glow you might expect from the site of a massive skin infection.I've never felt such scorn for someone I don't know, but I know my instincts were on point when I got back to my seat and the stranger next to me overheard me talking about Toady and felt the need to put in his own 2c about this sad little man.

Josecholas , Egor Komarov Report

Twitch TV channel moderators. So to preface this was early 2014 and I was watching a rather large stream (over 10k viewers) and the streamer was joking around and was like "if I lose this I'll make a random person mod" well he lost and I got picked. So his stream went on and not much happened to me (I don't talk in chat much so it want like I was waving the mod icon around or trying to troll the streams chat but I did time out a few guys spamming for 30 seconds) well after his stream I get a message from one of the mods telling me basically "Don't go thinking your a real Mod here I worked for months and have dedicated countless hours to his stream... Blah blah blah.. And your just a poser" I replied saying something to the effect of "Hey *mods name* I never ment to cause any issues I just won a random drawing for it and I know it isn't for real and that I won't be moded for long" he then replied something like "What ever you better not be getting any ideas your not a real mod so don't act like one." at this point I have just forgotten about this and go to watch another smaller streamer and im talking in chat normally and BAM I am perm banned from talking in chat and guess what? The mod that got upset with me was in the chat, he ended up banning me in every chat he moded of people I followed (mostly wow streamers so I got banned in 80% of the chats of channels I watched. I got unmanned in most the streams by another popular mod who heard my case and ended up getting that mod to message the streamer to DE mod me so the harassment would stop for over 3 months after this because I frequented the same channel (some small) but it didn't so I inevitably had to start a new account. Tl;drGot moded in a big twitch chat as a joke. A real mod got upset and banned me on almost all the channels I followed that he moded for because he thought I was a poser twitch mod.

Ent_of_Louisiana Report

"... I got unmanned in most the streams..." OUCH!!!

Spongebob as hall monitor.

Catbug_is , Paramount Pictures Report

Cartman as hall monitor

"Team leaders" in retail. You get an extra 10p an hour because you've been working so long yet they don't actually trust you with a real promotion. I hated 80% of the "team leaders" I worked with. Lazy as f**k and quick to blame.

Chooseday Report

Yes, In the 90s I worked at a small dept store that had team leads on weekends and evening when the manager went home. One was 17 and we had to ask her if it was OK to go for a break. I was a married woman in my late 30ties with kids. She was in the office on the phone when I popped my head in to ask " Can I go on my 15 min break" Her reply " No you can't ya f*ucking b***h" I was to shocked to reply in the moment. I lety it sink in and was getting more and more upset and went back to the office with a " how dare you speak to me like that......"

RAs in college

Jburg12 , Mikhail Nilov Report

My first GF had an RA in college who was ROTC, while I was active duty Navy. Had exactly one personal interaction with her (after hearing many horror stories)... my discussion with her unit commander was fun

League manager in Fantasy Football...

vmanisvnasty Report

The V.P at my highschool was about 4 foot 10 and wore a hair piece. I think he took his job as vengeance for his childhood or something.

anon Report

Have you ever witnessed a perpetually single friend gain interest from the opposite (or same) sex?Jesus. From Pepe to Jefe in 2.5 seconds flat.

thatswhatshesaidxx , Polina Tankilevitch Report

I gotta steal that one! Pepe to jefe is great!

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Larsas is a Bored Panda writer, finishing his New Media Language bachelor's diploma with competencies in Educology at the Kaunas University of Technology. Interested in topics ranging from theology to deep space exploration, microhistory to operatic science fiction, Larsas enjoys researching anything and everything and talking ears off of his friends and colleagues about his findings.

Saulė is a photo editor at Bored Panda with bachelor's degree in Multimedia and Computer Design. The thing that relaxes her the best is going into YouTube rabbit hole. In her free time she loves painting, embroidering and taking walks in nature.

I’ve seen many of my classmates back in 2nd and 3rd grade get very egotistical after being assigned the class monitor. I used to take bribes from my friends when I was a class monitor (by bribes I mean their tiffin food) until I started to realise how f****d up with was and also when it stopped being "cool" to be a class monitor

I was made a moderator over at forums.debian.net (Mike didn't even ask me, I would have refused). It did not end well. Questions were asked on the mailing lists.

I get that! I was a mod on a TMC site (a popular classic movie station) and another mod on the site attacked and challenged several of us. Yes, there were at least a 100,000 members, but really? She was a dirty bird.

Every single claims examiner at the US Department of Labor it has been my displeasure to have assigned to my claim (which is 25 years old now). They violate the Federal Employees' Compensation Act with regularity, forcing me to appeal multiple times, all of which I've won. They just enjoy making disabled people miserable. No punitive measures are taken against them for having violated federal law, and the Act prevents claimants from seeking redress in court. It's frustrating as hell, especially since the appeals process takes about a year, during which I have no income.

I was made a moderator over at forums.debian.net (Mike didn't even ask me, I would have refused). It did not end well. Questions were asked on the mailing lists.