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

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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