20 people share petty situations where someone got drunk on power.

When we think of someone drunk on power, we often think of conniving world leaders, rich overseers, and people who have more power than they know what to do with. Their drunkenness comes from a place of abundance and having too much, and while it can be gross and terrifying to behold, it also contextually makes sense.

In a popular Reddit thread, people shared the smallest amount of power they've seen someone get drunk on, and it's a doozy.

1. From Some-Mango:

The woman in the office that was in charge of the coffee fund. She had a list of rules for using the coffee machine. One was you couldn’t brew any after 1pm. Even tho we had a few people that liked coffee in the afternoon. Then she didn’t buy coffee with the fund because people weren’t following the rules.

So someone else just bought coffee and brought it in. She didn’t like that either. I think eventually the people she clashed with just brought in a new machine and did their own coffee fund. That woman was crazy

2. From rhett342:

This one woman almost everyone hated was also the newest and lowest level employee at a place I used to work. When we got another employee that had literally the same job the woman everyone hated took it upon herself to boss the new employee around. Out of 25 employees I was #3 and I finally pulled the very new woman aside and told her she didn't have to take that crap and she was doing fine.

3. From suffertunity:

Me as fire marshall at summer camp. Your bucket wasn't filled there was gonna be some sh*t.

4. From ImOnlyHalfAlive:

Discord moderators can get pretty extreme.

5. From Complete_Entry:

Every gaming clan I've ever been in. The really fun ones were when the leader would be unable to make it to that night's festivities and would temporarily mod someone else. Almost every time, instant power monger. Next day 'What in the f*ck did you do?' and removal. Like they forgot it was temporary.

6. From dubdrummerz:

In UK about 10 years ago, I'm filling my car at a petrol station when suddenly the pump stops. I can't get the attention of the cashier from the pump who is inside the station. No other choice so I head into the station and join a fairly long queue. I eventually get to the cashier...

Me - 'I think there's something up with pump #3, it just stopped working.'

Cashier - 'it didn't just stop working, I turned it off!'
looks at me like she's chewing a wasp**.**

Me -' OK? Why did you turn if off?'

Cashier - 'You know why!'

Me, totally confused - 'I really don't know why. Can you just explain?'

Cashier shouting to get attention- 'You were on your phone!'

• Note there were a lot of scare stories about mobile phones causing fires in petrol stations at the time.

Me totally confused - 'I wasn't on my phone. I think you're confused.'

Cashier - 'well, your friend was on his phone!'

Me - 'Well, there we go, I wasn't on my phone and I didn't know my passenger was on his phone, plus he's inside the car so there really wasn't a risk....'

Cashier interrupts - 'IT IS A RISK! AND YOU KNOW IT! '
bollocking from cashier continues and it becomes clear she's on a power trip...

Me - 'OK. Can you just turn the pump back on please?'

Cashier - 'No. I have to reset it, you have to pay for what you've already taken.'

Me - 'Ok' and I hand over £20

Cashier - 'I don't have change for a £20.'

I presume this was bollocks as she was clearly looking to make my life as problematic as possible)

Me - 'Well I wanted to put £20 in. How about I go continue filling up the car and I come back and pay you my £20.'

Cashier very reluctantly agrees.

I get back to the car and open the door to talk to the passenger who has been watching all this and asks 'what the f*ck is going on?'. I explain about the crazy cashier and ask him to just put the phone away for her.

The cashier clearly keeps me waiting a minute or two before turning the pump on, enjoying the power trip. Now, because I'm pretty wound up at this point and maths isn't my greatest skill, I had to memorise the pump reading as it reset to zero before it restarted, it was on something like £13.47 and I needed to do some mental arithmetic to work out how much more to put in to hit £20.

All done (I thought) I go back into the shop. Queue up again. Get to the cashier, hand her my twenty when she says 'this isn't the right amount'.

Me - 'I had to work it out which wasn't easy given the situation.'

Cashier - 'Well I don't know who taught you how to do maths but you're £1 short!'

Slightly offended I've also no more money and no means of paying. I had to go back to my car and ask my passenger friend for £1. I queue up again (third time!) to pay the lady her £1.

Me - 'here's your £1, by the way this has all been hugely unnecessarily difficult.'

Cashier - 'well maybe if you weren't using your phone while filling up!

Me as I'm walking out (and I admit shouting somewhat) - 'I wasn't on my phone and maybe it you weren't such a little Hitler this would have been over and done with twenty f*cking minutes ago!' This got a laugh from another person in the shop, but man was I furious about the whole thing.

7. From Christhebest2:

The canteen lady at my old school. The deputy principal blamed the students for littering what we called ‘juicies’ (which are like ice blocks) around the school. But what would you know? It was the canteen lady, who me and my friend found scattering the wrappers around the school and claiming it was the ‘students.’ Makes me laugh to this day.

8. From Yingthings:

Sadly, me as a 4th grade volunteer crosswalk guard. I would literally make the kids wait until there was a car I could stop. I really thought I had legal authority when I put that vest on. Traffic kid

9. From RealHot_RealSteel:

I forget the circumstances, but once my wife and I ended up at a busy theme park during their Halloween festival with an entire booklet of front-of-the-line passes. I'm talking 150 of the suckers. Effectively infinite rides on a packed weekend.

We rode so many roller coasters in a row that I was sick as a dog mid-way through the night. We still planned to enjoy the park (scare zones and food and such), but no longer had need of the blessed booklet. So we strolled through the festivities, arm in arm like amusement park gods, judging couples based on their costumes and demeanor, carefully deciding to whom we should bestow a night of infinite rides.

10. From requisitename:

Years ago, while driving the U.S. gulf coast from Texas to Florida I was passing through Pensacola, Florida when I became confused about which turn I needed to take. I pulled just off the highway onto the edge of a massive empty parking lot and pulled out my large map.

The nearest building was nearly a quarter of a mile away and I was just on the edge of this gigantic, unfenced parking lot. A rent-a-cop drove all the way from the building in a golf cart, got out and shouted at me 'No parking! This is a private lot! You can't park here!'

I'm sitting there in a car with California tags, the engine running and a map spread out on my lap and this idiot is telling me I can't PARK there. He looked like Eric Cartman, demanding that everyone 'respect mah authoritay!' I ignored him until I found the road I wanted and drove off.

11. From Magnus_40:

I once helped with first aid at half-marathon and one guy had a single job to do; he had to stand at the bottom of a road and direct the runners down one of two roads. Since there were barriers across to road it was a no brainer and impossible to screw up in any way, shape or form.

He decided that, despite the road being closed to traffic and contrary to the very simple instructions he was given, the runners MUST run on the pavement. Cars=Road therefore On Foot=Pavement. He screamed at them and forced hundreds of people to squeeze along the pavement even chasing after anyone who put a foot on the road yelling at them.

People were tripping each other up in the small space and when I got a couple of first aid patients I called around to see if I could get someone to stop him because he was drunk on absolutely zero power.

Eventually, someone shifted him and left no replacement, not even a direction sign and it all run smoother than when he was there. Nobody took the wrong road showing that he was less effective than empty space.

12. From Z0MBGiEF:

When I was in my late teens, I got a job at the arcade inside my local mall. At first, I was so stoked because I was an avid arcade junkie and I thought it would end up being the most awesome place to work, sadly it was absolute misery due to the horrible human being that was the store manager.

This woman was so absolutely bitter with her life that she made up for it by making life miserable for the young people who worked there.

She was mean, cranky, condescending and would do anything to make sure you understood it was her way or the highway. She'd worked for the Arcade company for over 15 years and I guess that is all she had.

One of the things she did was assign every worker a set of chores which she called her 'little chore list' as if we were her kids. These chores often consisted of busy work, usually things that didn't need to be done but would take up the entire shift so that you couldn't, ever just chill if it got slow. Her philosophy was; if you're on the clock you have to be working even if the work is pointless.

The straw that broke the camel's back with me was when one of my chores on the chore list was cleaning the very top of the 15 foot glass windows. I remember asking her why she felt I should get on a ladder and risk falling just to clean windows that literally never get dirty because nobody is tall enough to reach that height.

She assured me it was dirty and she would know if I didn't do the chore. She always accused us of not doing the chores she'd assigned or half-a**ing them. It was absolute insanity, we all did our shit pretty much without fail.

Anyway, that night I pulled the 15 ft ladder out of the storage room and started cleaning the very top of those windows. When I got to the very back corner of the store, there was two sets of small handprints planted there.

This crazy psycho had taken the ladder out at some point during the day and literally climbed up 15 feet to leave hand prints so that she could 100% confirm if the windows had been cleaned. I could not believe that level of power hunger pettiness. I called her ass out on it over the phone immediately.

At first she tried to deny it, and then she said 'Well, I guess you actually do all your chores after all and gave me a snark little chuckle over the phone.' To which I replied 'Well, I guess I'm just gonna quit then, have a nice life.' and I just left. There was nobody at the store but me so I'm sure she had to leave whatever she was doing at home to close that night.

I remember going to that arcade a few years later and she was still there.

13. From antagonistic_tea:

The power tripping b**ch, self-appointed super in my mum's building, when she angrily tapes signs near the elevator...

14. From ledow:

Worked as a self-employed contractor for schools for about a decade (before turning full time).

I used to visit one small school each day, advise them on their IT, do their little jobs, plan their future deployments, spec projects, even roll out their networks over the summer, etc. if they wanted. I had a full schedule and a waiting list of clients, all by word-of-mouth.

One school I was there for about 5 years. Every week, same day, go into this large specialist primary school (they catered for deaf kids in the classroom along with the other children, was a lovely school to work in because of that, very caring for their children, and lots of technology in every room).

Over the summer they wanted upgrades. So I had maybe 5, 6 days to do those upgrades over the entire summer. Really wasn't a problem, I was doing the same for half a dozen schools every summer. But summer in a small school is a lonely affair. Just me and the caretaker usually, no senior members of staff, and no headteacher/principal (who is the person I normally report to).

This one summer, they had promoted the woman who worked in the office. She had nobody else there working under her, it was just her, but they gave her a promotion I think to justify a slightly higher wage that she demanded. So she decided to 'work' the summer. And she decided somehow to take it upon herself to be 'my boss'. Which was a bit of a mistake.

One day I cycled in, it was a few minutes past 9am. She tried to berate me, and in that kind of shocked 'what the hell are you on about' kind of reaction, I just stared at her. She walked off, all proud of herself. I shrugged, carried on with my day.

The next day (a week later) I cycled in, and it was a bit later. She berated me again. I ignored her as politely as I could.

The next day I cycled in, and it was a bit later again. She berated me again, obviously being totally oblivious to the pattern that was forming, and threatened to report me to the headteacher. I suggested she do so, politely.

The next day I cycled in, and it was a bit later again. I was getting bored now of stopping my bike at the end of the road before 9am, waiting a little longer every time while I browsed on my mobile, and then coming in a few minutes later each day. She was totally triggered by this and phoned the headteacher, disturbing him on his only holiday. It was at this point that she was informed by the headteacher:

I was self-employed.

I had no contracted starting time, just contracted hours (so as long as I put in the right number of hours, it didn't matter what time I turned up).

We had ALWAYS agreed to be flexible as it works to everyone's advantage when something needed doing, and it was the same agreement that I had with a dozen other schools - so I could leave early from one school and dive to another if they had a pressing matter and the schools all collectively agreed to this as it was beneficial to them all when it mattered.

Even if I had been 'employed', she wasn't - and wouldn't be - my boss. I reported directly to him.

He didn't care, even if I didn't do my contracted hours, because I was a long-time contractor, he trusted me, and he just cared about the work getting done. The work was all finished by the fourth week. Of six. I just had an error margin to be safe. And I didn't even charge them for the other two weeks, because there was nothing to do.

I had also, as part of that upgrade, removed all their old equipment and disposed of it for free by bundling the collection of waste electronics with all my other schools - saving the school a small fortune and a lot of hassle.

I was too critical for the school to lose, even after the upgrades were complete, and the chance of her potentially pissing me off didn't go down well at all. I was paid far more than she ever was, even for one day a week, but he couldn't tell her that.

So the next time I was in, I was on time. She never spoke to me again except where strictly necessary. The school got their upgrades. They worked for years. Which I know because that headteacher eventually employed me full-time (costing a small fortune) because he knew what I'd done for their school.

Sadly, the school eventually closed and was demolished and a new building put in its place, and the headteacher retired. But I shall always remember the pseudo-promotion of someone who printed the school registers and took calls from the parents going to their heads and thinking they were suddenly HR, headteacher and boss of all the contractors.

15. From haaaaaaaaaaalp:

A worker at a local recycling center. My husband was dropping off styrofoam in a huuuge pile of styrofoam. He was walking back to the car when one of the workers yelled at him to move it to the other styrofoam pile, across the lot.

No signs indicting not to put anything in that pile. He just stood there with his arms crossed until my husband finished making two trips to right the wrong.

Legend has it he’s still guarding that pile o’ ‘foam to this day. Arms crossed and all.

16. From HeadlessManhorse:

When my cat learned how to close doors, she started trapping the other cat in the bathroom by luring him in and pulling the door closed from underneath. She also pushes doors closed on me. I'm not sure if you could call it drunk, but she is very clearly pleased with herself when she does this (tail up, purring).

17. From DUS8K4:

Call center supervisors. This is one of our greater turnover positions where we have to fire people who can't handle the little bit of authority. It happens so often when we promote a tech to a supervisor position that I prefer to have management and HR hire supes out of house now.

18. From Smithme2g:

A woman created a group on Facebook for one of my hobbies for organizing meetups and stuff like that. She shared it around on other groups and naturally hundreds of others joined.

Things only went downhill after that. Nobody was allowed to post except her. Seemingly every comment, mostly related to the meetup details, would set her off and cause her to lash out or ban a member completely. I got banned but can't remember the exact details, I think I responded to a post like 'I can't make it, but everyone have fun', which prompted her to berate and guilt trip me.

Eventually, she went off the deep end and deleted the entire group to 'punish everyone'. Somebody else created a new group, which everyone joined, and it is still going strong to this day.

19. From bloodgutsandpunkrock:

I was part of a group who was brought in to try and save a flagship store of a now defunct UK sportswear retailer. It was a thankless task, the writing had been on the wall long before we arrived and it was pretty much a case of waiting it out until we were either made redundant or they pulled the plug.

A few weeks after we arrived another guy was transferred from another store to be the Assistant to the Assistant Manager. He was 21, weighed 150 lbs soaking wet, had glasses about 2 inch thick and clearly thought he was God's Gift to retail who had been brought in to carry the store single-handed.

He would march around the store barking out orders while doing nothing himself and would constantly make references to 'when you've been doing this as long as I have' or 'once you've reached my level' and just generally being condescending to anyone he deemed below him.

I kept quiet, letting him bank up enough embarrassment for a few weeks until he went on one of his tangents, acting as if he was some 50-year-old grizzled veteran of retail. It was then I decided to quietly tell him that I was actually a few years older than him, had been a retail manager since I was 18 and was on a higher level/salary than him. I've never seen someone shrivel up so fast.

Needless to say, none of it ultimately mattered as one by one we were all picked off as a result of cost cutting until the business shut down permanently the next year, but it was nice to bring him down a peg or two.

20. From Normal_Narwhal:

I once taught English in an international school in Egypt. The school was run by an Army General in the Egyptian government, and was pretty poorly mismanaged. We had a guy there who was responsible for some general maintenance around the school, but happened to have his office in the same room as the copy machine.

Every day, teachers would bring their papers to his room to copy them for class, and every day the man would tell us to 'leave it on his desk,' where there'd be a pile of teacher copies needing to be made.

He wanted to make the copies himself. It was not technically his job, but the machine was in his office, and by forcing people to copy through him, he seemed to kept some level of necessary status at school.

Copies would always be late, sometimes not being available until the next day. Just depended on how the dude felt at that moment. 🤦