These 14 people let the smallest amount of power go to their head and instantly regretted it. (We're cringing just reading about it.)
Pizza boot camp
“Delivered for domino’s years ago. The store manager I started with was fired and a new guy came in. His first words to me were that he runs his business like a boot camp. I took it as a metaphor and started my night. I came in at one point to this guy screaming over a young girls shoulder, ‘FASTER FASTER GET THE CHEESE ON FASTER GO GO GO.’ I was dumbfounded. He was fired after customers started calling to complain because they could hear him screaming.”
Are we sure this cashier isn’t actually Dwight Schrute?
“I used to work at a grocery store. There was a cashier that was ‘promoted’ to an office lead, and within five minutes he started calling people up to ‘his office’ to chew them out about bullshit non-issues. Then, within 30 minutes he started telling all the other cashiers that they were all scanning and bagging too slow. Within an hour he told all the baggers they needed to bag faster and make sure that the number of carts in the store (which they were responsible for taking back in) needed to never drop down under a ridiculous amount. On his first day, the store manager saw him causing strife and pissing off every single employee he talked with and took his promotion away and told him to get back on a register. Everyone gave him shit about it for the entire rest of the time I was there, which was at least a year.”
The Tribal War King
“There was a guy on Tribal Wars. He had a tribe with three members and always talked to them like he was a president or something. He even made serious plans on what to do if the tribes around them attacked. He sent diplomatic messages with a goddamn signature. And he wanted to be called King by the three poor souls in the tribe.
It was me. And I still cringe.”
Children are little tyrants.
“Ever babysit and put one child ‘in charge’ of multiple children? It’s hilarious.”
When you think you’re Command Sergeant Major and are actually just a Platoon Guide…
“When I was in basic training the drill sergeant would appoint a couple of guys to be Platoon Guides or PGs. They’re basically assistants in the unit meant to help ensure that everyone’s bunks and lockers were squared away, etc. Once these two guys got picked and they went power crazy. I mean you would’ve thought they were promoted to Command Sergeant Major by the way they were acting. They lasted about a week before a full scale mutiny by the platoon forced the drill sergeant to appoint new PGs.”
The new kid
“Used to work at a seafood store. We had hired a new kid and one of the guys was showing him how to skin a salmon fillet. Next day, we’re working together. Lady orders salmon and asks me to skin it. I was taught how to skin salmon way before he started working there. I grab the fillet knife and as I’m about to make the cut, the kid walks over, pulls the knife from my hands (which on its own is very dangerous) and takes the fish over to his side and says, ‘Give me that. Let the experienced cutter do the job.’ (Small clarification: this woman was a repeat customer and liked how clean my cuts were, and I was always glad to help her.) I ask the kid, ‘What the hell was that about?’ And he tells me, ‘You didn’t receive training from the manager, so you’re not good enough at cutting salmon.’ You bet your a** the manager heard about that. The lady also called in a complaint about it.”
Mr. Barista
“Rob got promoted from barista to team lead at costa coffee (a difference of 30 pence extra an hour back in 2006) and the next day he abruptly asked us to call him sir.”
Beware of message board moderators
“Message board moderators are the worst. I’ve been staff on a couple roleplaying forums in the past. I can definitely confirm that we are all f*cking terrible. I was on a site where a ton of the moderators were planning a coup on the global admin that they didn’t like and planned to overthrow her. It was the most baffling case of e-drama I’ve ever been a part of.”
Clearly this person lives in Stars Hollow and Taylor Doose is running things
“Small town zoning boards get so power hungry. Honestly, with a county population of 6000, we really don’t need a board that meets monthly. I needed one little stamp approval, and had to wait until they opened up the floor at the end of the meeting. For an hour I had to listen to these guys discuss visual barriers on a commercial AC unit. They also spent half an hour discussing a concrete median vs the concrete triangular thing to prevent left turns into a parking lot. It seems someone thinks too many cars are holding up traffic trying to turn left. The guys were idiots. Our town only has two stoplights (which only blink red) I have never seen anything resembling a traffic jam (other than one street closure due to a house fire).
The Gordon Ramsay wannabe
“A graduate of a culinary school got a job at the nursing home I worked at. Attempted to be the next Gordon Ramsay, without the sexy accent, and eventually got fired for verbally abusing the waitstaff and having tantrums in the kitchen, which were overheard by THE ELDERLY RESIDENTS WITH HEARING PROBLEMS! That’s just sad. She thought she wouldn’t get fired. HAH, I say. (I reported her, along with five residents).”
When you dress too professionally…
“I was 22 and at a new job. This old biddy (who wasn’t my boss) came to me to say I was dressed inappropriately….because I was dressed too professional. She talked down to and acted like a complete b*tch to all her staff. Within 4 years I was managing her job PLUS another department and she was demoted….to my old job. Was truly grand.”
You had one job, Mr. DJ…
“A wedding couple hired a DJ for their reception, having talked with him well in advance about what kind of music they wanted at different points in the celebration. The DJ was establishing himself in the area and decided at the event that he would play exactly what he thought was the best material, and completely ignored the couple’s wishes. Everyone sensed his arrogance and overbearing personality, but no matter how nicely he was asked to change selections, he insisted on doing things his way.”
Outside the box
“Had a logistics clerk refuse to issue MREs because my signature was just outside of the box.”
Billy the barista
“Reminds me of the time I was working in a newly opened franchise coffee shop. We had an (admittedly) ineffectual manager, but a pretty good team over all. There was one kid—let’s call him Billy—who had … problems, he was … off, and a little slow, but he was the nicest person you could ever meet. We knew from the get go that we’d be covering for him, and we were all (most of us, apparently) pretty much okay with it. This wasn’t going to be his career, and like I said, he was a really nice guy, and fun to talk Star Wars with. Then, about a month after we opened, one of the coworkers decided to take him out into the cafe area for a sit down meeting and told Billy that he really needed to step up his game if he wanted to still work there. This coworker who did this had absolutely NO AUTHORITY TO DO THIS and the rest of us were furious. For a couple of weeks, poor Billy looked like a kicked puppy and lost almost all of what little confidence he had in his job.”