The Sweet Taste of Victory: Top “You Have No Power Here” Moments

Locked Out and In Love

The guy that I’d gone on a few dates with introduced me to his parents, things went well, or so I thought.

He drives me home, and we end up talking and drinking a few beers, I didn’t want him on the road with any alcohol in his system, and I enjoyed his company, so we end up hanging out until 3 am. His mom starts blowing up his phone, demanding that he comes home, so he drives himself home to find that he’s been locked out of his house. His mom said that he can sleep outside, he shouldn’t be spending time with someone like me (still don’t know what she meant by that), and that I’m “just another stop on the p*ssy train”. He tells her not to talk about me like that, to which she says “When you’re under my roof, I’ll say whatever I want about whoever I want!” so he picks up his phone, calls me, asks if he can stay at my place for a little while.

It’s been seven years, we’re engaged, have a dog, a cat, and a happy life.

The 45-Minute Fix

IT services for a client of mine. They paid for me to come to their office and address a problem. 8 hrs minimum time. The issue was resolved in about 45 minutes, they’d set up something incorrectly and it was pretty obvious once I got into the system.

I was packing up to leave and the client stopped me.

“What are you doing?”

“The system is fixed so I’m headed out back to my office.”

“No, I paid for 8 hours, you’ll do your 8 hours. If I tell you to wash my car for 8 hours that’s what you’ll be doing.”

“Right…so anyway, I’m leaving. I’ll notify the office to send you the invoice and in all likelihood, we’ll no longer be working with you and withdrawing your lease on our equipment.”

Popcorn and Apologies

I worked in management at a theatre for a while. If the concession counter was slammed and I was able, I’d leave my post and help them sling popcorn.

One night while helping out, a particularly belligerent man started cussing out a 16year old girl on a cash register for being too slow, even suggesting she quit since she clearly couldn’t handle pushing buttons or scooping popcorn. It was pretty disgusting and I felt so bad for the girl, I stepped in and told the guy that our employees have the right to refuse service to customers who harass them as part of our anti-harassment/discrimination policy, empathized that the lines were longer than usual, and suggested he should apologize and move on. He was PISSED. Left half his order on the counter and started fuming off.

Anticipating his next move, I went back to my original post that night – as manager of the customer service kiosk. Oh boy, the look on his face when he saw me. (Didn’t want a refund of his tickets though so I assume he watched the movie, without popcorn).

How to Lose a Job

I worked for 8 years servicing communications equipment on-site, and 5 of those years were as the department manager. When oil was found in our area, we got so busy we could barely even think. Most of my team were pulling 12+ hour days 6 days a week and we were struggling to hire people quickly enough.

One day, the CEO texted and said he hired an assistant manager for me, which was something I desperately needed. I was dirty as h*ll from my previous job and swung by the store to pick him up and take him to one of our sites where he would be doing paperwork. The moment he got in the truck, he immediately started talking sh*t. He started telling me about how everything we were doing is f*cked up and the department manager <my name> was a total moron and he would have my job within a few months.

I just sat and mostly listened. He obviously didn’t know sh*t about my industry and every time he would say something wrong, I would try to politely correct him and he’d either backtrack or insist that I was trained wrong. When we got to the site OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WEST TEXAS DESERT, he complained about the layer of dust on everything and “ordered me” to clean up the entire site.

When I sat down at my desk, the guy continued to b*tch my ear off about everything that was wrong and chastised me for sitting down at my desk when he told me to clean up the site. So I called for a taxi, filled out a notice of termination, and handed it to him. He looked absolutely shocked. Then he defiantly protested that only <CEO> could fire him. I said and <my name>, right? He sheepishly nodded. So I stuck my hand out for a handshake and introduced myself.

I can teach anyone how to service equipment, but I don’t have a clue how to teach someone to not be an a**h*le.

Lesson Comes Full Circle

I wasn’t good at returning library books when I was a kid. I got lectured by my school librarian about it a lot.

Fast forward twenty years and I’m a supervisor at the local public library and my former now retired school librarian goes there. One day I see her sneaking around the front desk instead of coming back to say hi to me and I immediately figure something’s up. I go up to say hi and she acts exasperated and tells me she was trying to avoid me because she had overdue books.

So I put on my reading glasses, pulled them down over my nose, and delivered the same lecture she’d given me countless times about being responsible and turning in books on time.

The Power of the Pour

I was bartending one night and these three guys were absolutely hammered so I cut them off. One of the guys proceeded to try to argue with me saying he has all this money and he tells me when he was done drinking and he was not even drunk. At this point, I’m done trying to be polite and point blank tell him I’m done arguing with him, will not be serving him and his buddies, and he can leave. He looks at me and says “Now excuse me, who are you to tell me how much I can and can not drink?”, I look him dead in the eye and say “the f*cking bartender, now it’s time for you to go”. The look on his face was priceless. Never forget the golden rule, don’t p*ss off your bartender.

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Taking A Stand

I once had a boss try to give me a disciplinary (three months later I may add) for my behaviour as it was noted I was ‘rude to her’ by several of the Group CEOs in a Board meeting.

On the disciplinary forms, you both have to write your version of the events and it goes to HR for an adjudication, she did her part and I casually filled in something to the effect of “manager continually pressured me into deleting files from our client management system prior to a regulatory audit which is against the ethical code of our profession and not aligned with my moral standards, I accept I was short with her but she was trying to force me into performing an illegal activity.”

I watched her collect up the paper and the colour drained from her face. I never did hear from HR.

She got fired not long after when I casually mentioned to the CEO in a bar if she remembered the encounter and explained why I may have appeared a little frustrated and upset. Bye Felicia.

The Priceless Look

My parents came to visit and my mother, (who is very old fashioned the woman should be a homemaker and if not she shouldn’t outearn the mankind of old fashioned)

Told my wife (who makes stacks as a dev team manager compared to my peanuts as a sports writer)

“you know dear you really should try to keep a cleaner house.” And without looking up from her making lunch my wife said “Yeah your son forgot to clean this week before you guys flew in” The stunned look on my mom’s face was priceless.

Paying for Silence

Property manager – the owner was an absolute prick. He was heartless and rude and racist and I loathed him. I hated every day going into that job but I needed the money. I was applying daily to my dream company in hopes that eventually I’d be accepted.

In the meantime, every time I complained or mentioned something to my supervisor I was told to shut up and get on with it. “He was paying me too much to have opinions”

Three years after, we were a small office and the receptionist and assistant prop managers had quit. I finally got accepted into my dream company and happily put in my two-week notice.

In desperation, he offered me more money, a higher position, and better benefits (which were laughable). When I said no, he asked why. I have never felt more gleeful than the moment when I said “I don’t know, I’m not paid to have opinions here.”

That was a year ago and even now the look on his stupid old face gives me joy to this day.

From Poaching to Demands

One of my new employees came from a competitor who is, shall we say, not as put together as we are. Her former boss had actually called me to yell at me about “poaching” his consultants. Which, in and of itself, is weird enough. However, a few weeks after she started the dude rolled up to our office. He had apparently been calling her to get her to finish an analysis for him and she just ghosted him. I went to the lobby to see what the f*ck he was doing here. He started in on me again and then she happened to walk by. I didn’t fully understand the conversation but at one point he literally “demanded” she do this analysis. She just said, “Or what?” and waited for a few beats before turning on her heels and walking away. I did the ol’ hand on his back point to the door universal symbol for “leave or a large security man will make you leave.” Never heard from him again.

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The Subway Rebellion

I used to work at a few Subways. Thing is, the owner inherited them when she already had a busy and lucrative career elsewhere. She mainly held on to them to employ immigrant family members, I think. One time, she was in the back when she heard me interact with an angry customer. Afterwards, she came out and said, “You know you don’t have to take sh*t like that. I trust you, you can use your judgment and just toss anybody out who talks to you like that.”

After that, I wouldn’t take any sh*t from anybody. The slightest hint of backtalk to your Sandwich Artist, and you were out on your a**, still hungry. It was so much fun.

“Let me speak to your manager.”

“No. Get out.”

“I’m going to call and complain.”

“OoOoOoOoOh I’m terrified. Go nuts, but you can’t call from in here, because you’re trespassing now.”

The sheer indignance of an entitled customer, when you don’t bow and scrape before them, is really something to behold.

Power-Hungry HR lady

We had an HR lady who was extremely power-hungry.

She is walking around with the president of the company who flew in from Japan. She rushes him through the warehouse. Just spits out “Oh these are the warehouse guys we don’t have to stop and talk to them.”

He stops walks over and starts talking to me about my last vacation. How did buying my house went. You could just see her fuming behind him as we talked for almost 45mins. I’ve had multiple meetings with him we knew each other really well.

I don’t think he liked her and drug it out on purpose but I was thrilled to see her just standing there bored as h*ll.

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When You Think You Know

My friend has this awesome story from college:

He was a school “president”, he was in charge of things, and had quite some power and responsibility.

This one time he had to organize a seminar which was pretty important especially because he was hosting. As he was going around making sure everything was running smoothly, he noticed a few students messing around and not rehearsing a speech they had to deliver. He questioned each of them on said speech and, as expected, none of them knew it well enough. So he asked them to start rehearsing but as reckless as freshmen students can get, they ignored the order.

Being fed up with them, my friend simply took their presentation and told them to leave. That’s when one of them snapped back, “You can’t do that! You don’t even know me, i know the president of the department!”, showing off illusions of the amount of power a 3rd grader has on a Thursday morning after a bowl of cereal.

Naturally, my friend asked this schmuck to use their wild card and call the president. They took out their phone, started dialing and guess what happened next

His phone started ringing.

Now I’ll let you imagine the sheer horror in this kid’s eyes, the shame on their face, the cringe and regret for the rest of their life. I have no idea how my friend kept a straight face.

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The Ex Factor

When I was in my very early twenties, I learned that my BF had cheated on me for months and the other girl was pregnant and keeping the baby. It was 100% certain and I was so traumatized by this that I broke up with him over the phone in about 15 seconds, without revealing what I knew, and then went hard no contact. I didn’t even want to yell at him. I wanted him to cease to exist.

About a year later I ended up with a short-term contract with his company that was too good to pass up, so I did my best to avoid him until one day cornered me and started into me, in front of about six of his co-workers, about how it was sh*tty it was we couldn’t just be friends, how immature I was to avoid him, and how I couldn’t even be ‘basically civil’ to him.

I blurted out “Congratulations on the birth of your child. Remind me how old the babe is?’ and ran from the room.

His coworkers put 2 and 2 together and I hear he didn’t last much longer there.

A Lesson In Humility

A co-worker friend of mine was flying back from a sales conference in Vegas and he was able to upgrade to a first-class seat. We had this b*tch sales VP that was on the same flight – she was the snobby, entitled type with a full-time nanny and giant McMansion in the suburbs, and she generally treated people who worked for her like servants.

She sees him in a first-class seat as she is making her way to coach and asks him how he got that seat (he used points to upgrade). As people are getting settled in, she makes her way back up to the first-class cabin and asks to speak with the lead flight attendant. She tells him that one of her underlings is sitting in first class and that she needs to switch with him since she’s higher on the corporate ladder.

The guy can’t believe what he’s hearing, but she won’t take no for an answer. Finally, he tells her she has to go back to her seat, or she will be escorted from the plane. She made a complete a** of herself in front of the whole first-class cabin.

Drawing The Line

Had an old boss who was a complete and total b*stard. He was actually my boss’ boss and wasn’t supposed to interact with us unless it was through our boss, but he just loved trying to make everyone under him squirm. The company had forced him to go to training twice because of how he spoke to people.

One day, I get a call at home from him and he just starts unloading- cursing, name-calling, and insulting over some technical issue he just found out about. After a couple of minutes, I just looked at my phone and hung up on him.

The next day, I get called into a meeting with his boss, who basically wants to know who the f*ck I think I am hanging up on this guy.

I calmly explain that no one gets to yell at me on my time, in my home, or on my phone. You have to wait for me to be on the clock to pay me for that privilege, and I’ll gladly take that money- If I’m busy being yelled at, I’m not busy with anything else.

Seemed to work.

Leaving The Nest

The first time I had dinner at my parent’s house after I got my own apartment. My dad was giving me grief as usual. Finally, I stood up and said, ” I don’t live here anymore. I don’t have to put up with you this way any longer. I’m going home.”

And walked out.

Most liberating moment of my life.

Customer’s Threats Go Sour

This woman had kept her receipt for 11 years. She tried to return an empty tin that once had yarn in it and pickles (they were, sadly, still in the jar.) I told her absolutely not, please leave with your health hazard jar of pickles. She insisted that no matter what the receipt or SKU number said, she bought these items yesterday (I had been there all day) and that if she was refused, she would call my manager because she knew HER on a first-name basis.

“By all means.”

So she got out her phone, spoke loudly about the rude, fat, ugly man who wouldn’t take her return, then said “oh you want me to tell him he’s fired if he doesn’t take them? Okay. Thanks, hon.” She turns to me, smug, and shoves the receipt at me.

“Funny,” I said. “You said you were going to call the store manager. And yet my phone didn’t ring.”

She looked absolutely horrified and said she called our head of HR.

“Also male, and I can call him if you like.”

She meant regional manager.

“Also male, I can give you his number if you like.”

She picked up the jar of pickles as if to throw them, and then my coworker quite calmly snatched them from her hand and threw them out outside.

Silencing the Queen Bee

I had a moment with my students. I had been allowing them to listen to music on their AirPods during independent work but they abused it by playing the music too loud ( I could hear it from across the room!)

So one day I said nope no more AirPods. Since you want the music we will listen to the instrumental music I picked out.

The Queen Bee in the class was trying to convince me to let them use their AirPods and I wasn’t having it so she said to the class, “Come on guys! Peer pressure!”

At this point, I stood in front of her and said calmly, “You are not my peer.”

She stared at me like I slapped her and was quiet for the rest of the class.

“You’re not special”

I work in a warehouse pharmacy. The company rents the building. The roof was sh*t a few years ago. One day, I’m going into the employee entrance and I hear “Hey, HEY!” I turn and see a man I don’t know. He says “Hold the door for me, ill be right back.”

I say “Okay” and when he turns and walks away, I went inside and shut the door.

Apparently, that guy is the building owner and he was there to supervise roof fixes. Fast forward 2 hours and again, I hear “HEY!”

I turn to him and the pudgy little man walks up to me and says “I thought I told you to hold the door.”

I say “I don’t know you, man.”

He says “I own the building son.”

“Oh, that’s cool. Well, this is a pharmacy. I don’t know you. You go through the front door like everyone else. You’re not special.”

To which he lost his sh*t and hilariously tried to get me fired.

A Poolside Know-It-All

I went to a swim meet, and everyone should know by this point that in the “Freestyle” events, you can do anything as long as you get from one end of the pool to the other as long as you apply the universal rules of swimming.

I was speaking to a friend and he pointed out that a girl was swimming breaststroke during a freestyle event. I replied “Well this is freestyle after all. You can literally do anything” and a lady sitting near me goes “Actually, that’s wrong. Freestyle is this” and motioned to do the front crawl. I say, “No, that’s not right necessarily.” And she goes, “Have you ever even been to an event like this.”

I look out at the pool, then look back at her and I say, “Lady, I’ve been swimming longer than your kid has been alive. Don’t try to tell me how my sport works”. I then proceeded to continue my conversation with my friend.

My proudest moment, although I’m not a swimmer anymore.

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