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power moves
Once you realize the only person with power over you is you... the possibilities are endless. BUT... don't get crazy. Be as civil as possible.
Redditor woollyhammock needed to know... What was your best "You have no power here" moment?
Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity. Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.
I can't hear you!
GiphyWhen I realized I could just hang up on my sister when she wanted to yell at me on the phone. As a twelve-year-old that was a powerful moment.
Try that game at Papa John's....
I worked at a dominos and there was this old lady who ordered from us a lot and was always unpleasant. One day she calls and makes an order that she must make a lot because she knew exactly how much it was supposed to cost down to the penny. I put her order in and tell her how much it is and she starts getting upset because the order was two cents more than what it usually is and starts accusing me of trying to steal money from her. She asks "how much money do you make stealing two cents from every customer" well if I was trying to steal money and I did it to 100 customers I would have made a whole two dollars. I didn't know what to do because she wouldn't accept the order unless it was exactly how much she thought it should be and there's nothing I can do to remove 2 cents from an order so I ask the manager and she just tells me to hang up I was new at that time and I'm guessing this wasn't the first time that store got screwed by her. It felt amazing that was the only time I ever got to do that to a customer.
Tony & Anne... we see you!
GiphyI once worked for a shady company that sold and repaired expensive American vacuum cleaners. I was the service manager. I had planned a 6 week scuba diving trip with a mate for 2 years. They were well aware of this and said it was fine. When the time came close, I put in my application for 6 weeks leave. I was called into the husband / wife owners office and told that I could only take 3 weeks (I had saved the time up with their permission). I pointed this out but the were adamant that 3 weeks was the most they were prepared to authorize. I even tried to negotiate them to 5 weeks but that was firmly rejected. So I walked from the office, wrote my resignation letter and left. Had a great holiday diving the Great Barrier Reef. They rang me weekly for a solid 3 months offering all sorts of incentives to come back but by then I had won a great government job. F you Tony and Anne!!
Do I know you? Not for free I don't!
My boss sold the company and about a week after the official switch to the new owners he called me up to ask me to do something. I told him my consulting fees were $120/hr. He didn't take me up on it, unfortunately.
There is an " I " in this team fool....
I had an issue where our district manager was purposely not correcting my pay to reflect the raise I'd been promised, so after 6 weeks of him blowing me off I called corporate HR and they came down on him like the fires of mount Doom.
He drove to my store and tore into me in front of customers for "not being a team player" and going over his head.
Six months later, we're informed our store is closing and the employees can transfer to other stores. Oh, but not me, I was told I'd never be welcome in the company again because I "wasn't a team player" so I would just be laid off after the store closed... Then he told me he also needed me to oversee shipping our product out to other stores based on a list he had of what store gets what.
Yeah, none of those stores got what he wanted on that list. I spent three weeks shipping whatever to whoever, playing my own music over the store speakers, and telling customers about a whole bunch of exploitable loopholes in store policies and systems.
What was he going to do? Fire me?
You're gonna miss when I'm gone...
GiphyWhen I left a job I was invited to meet with the CEO because he was unhappy I was leaving and wanted to understand why.
I explained that I was not being paid enough and the recently announced pay rise was not good enough. He got irritated and in a patronizing tone started trying to lecture me on how I should have handled that situation better. I interrupted him, he didn't like that, so I added "I'm leaving, I have nothing to lose" and then informed him that I had already been let down over pay multiple times, had witnessed others trying to get more pay and being refused, so I had no interest in begging to be paid what I already deserved to be paid.
That star is burnt out honey!
I coached gymnastics at a very highly competitive gym. One of my duties was to select and train the youngest talent for compulsory team training. Parents caught on to what I was doing when I pulled kids from rec classes and got all nail biting excited, but never confronted me if I didn't pursue a kid for higher training. Until one high powered exec mom did: yelling in the lobby that I was blind, couldn't see Suzy's talent, her somersault (!) is better than all the other 5yr olds in class, we should be training her for free because did we know her soccer coach thinks she's a STAR. A STAR. I told her competitive gymnastics is a family commitment, and while Suzy is great, her family is what didn't make the cut.
The customer is CRAY!
Had a client freak out on us and harass us with phone calls every few minutes because we couldn't accommodate her needs (she wanted to make her Countertops larger than the actual slab of granite. You can't grow rock...) so we just refused her deposit and told her to not call us any more. She was speechless, she was trying to get a discount and now she's gotta start the whole process elsewhere.
We don't abide by "the customer is always right."
PEACE! OUT!
GiphyWas hired to be on doing PC repair, only to be told an hour before my first shift that there wasn't any hours avail for that and they could put me elsewhere. Begrudgingly I accepted as I turned down another position and needed the work.
Fast forward a few months and the manager decides that I'm going to be filling in for the only person handling shipping and receiving for this giant department store single handedly with 3 days training. Of course things aren't going so well as this is a two person position at a min for 8 hours and I'm expected to do it in 6.
The last day on the job I'm swamped as hell, vendors are fighting with each other over dock space and another manager comes up freaking out at me because I couldn't get the extra work I had told her repeatedly couldn't be done was done. Exasperated I pleaded my case, to which she callously said I don't give a crap. Now I'm getting mad, she replied to me at this point and says " do you know who you're talking to? "
I replied "ya the B is who is now running this crap show cause I'm out"
11.35 an hour with my promised hours gutted was not worth it.
YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!
There was a sales manager known for having a less than ethical attitude to many things, and I'm in a support role. I was put in charge of something because the sales people couldn't be trusted to do it on their own.
Sales person: I want X.
Me: You aren't allowed X. We have to do Y.
Sales person sends email to manager
Manager: We want X.
Me: You aren't allowed X. We have to do Y.
Manager: You are acting like a gate keeper. I should have a say in what we do.
Me: You're right. I am acting as a gate keeper. Because I am a gate keeper. Because you and your employees cannot be trusted to handle it on their own. Which is why I was placed here. As a gate keeper.
Final sale sweetie...
I was working in retail and a customer walked up and asked if, since the atm was broken, she could buy something then return it for cash. I had no clue so I called over another employee who had been there a while and they said no. Furious, she demanded to speak to our manager. We called over the supervisor of our section and he listened to her question and said no. Furious, she demanded his manager. He calls the manager and she shows up. Surprise the answer is no. Customer is red in the face and demands another manager. We call over another "manager." She asks again, he says no. When she said she wanted HIS manager he, the owner, said "I'm the owner of this store, the answer is no. It's against company policy." She stormed out, surprisingly not asking for the CEO of the company.
She didn't take no from 2 employees, 1 supervisor, 1 manager or the owner. And jfc when you have 5 people of increasing power lined up telling you no, and there is a line of bored customers behind you, you need to stop.
The truth can sting...
GiphyCompany did restructuring; and laid about 30 of us off. My boss (picture female Limburg) gave me my contract package, which also included a lecture on if I was a better worker the company wouldn't need to do this.
After a month, they realized it was a mistake and told us they were nullifying our contracts and we could have our job back.
I told that my attorney wasn't aware of contract nullification given the language in the document and if they didn't stand by their commitment, we had already retained counsel so whatever would happen .....
They came back said we could have a one year package (over and above salary) if we stayed for a year.
I quit on the 366th day and my boss told me that she was hurt; and that this was very hard for her. I called her a sociopath and walked out of the building.
Check and Mate...
I had found another job and was just waiting it out to get my bonus. For about three months I was free to express myself in ways I wouldn't have otherwise. I had noticed that my Vacation time had not been approved and normally would have asked about it but decided to see how it might play out. My manager called me in about 2 weeks before my vacation to inform me that it was denied. I wasnt the least upset but I informed her I was going anyway. She threatened me every way under the sun which only made me laugh at her. Everyone was surprised when I left her office smiling as they had heard her. I went to my desk, printed off my resignation and gave it to her.
Got my bonus, got my vacation, and also got an extra 2 weeks paid because I was going to a competitor and they didn't want me sharing information.
Guard This
Got out of the army and joined the air force national guard in my home state. 20 minutes after leaving my new base for the first time i receive a phone call from a guy introducing himself as a sergeant first class from the army reserve informing me that his system shows my name had been pulled from the reserve pool to deploy to iraq within 3 months and congratulated me.
Kindly informed him that 1. I had just returned from deployment before getting out and was still guaranteed more than 3 months stateside
2. I had enlisted with the air guard and therefore exempt.
He got irritated raises his tone of voice and said well you better get that paperwork to me asap because my system says you're going. Told him i signed a contract which binds me to that, not your system. So i told him its not my job to update to ensure your system for you. I gave him the name of the organization i was now affiliated with, city and state it was in, my recruiters name, rank and personal phone number. Now you have several different ways to contact who u need to in order to get your system updated and hung up on him.
Boss Move
GiphyOver the course of 6 months through countless phone calls to different union offices and the department of labor I eventually got my boss fired for changing people's time keeping information to steal overtime from them. During those months I was treated like absolute dog s*** by this guy but I never actually did anything wrong, so I couldn't be punished.
At one point management against contract rules denied my time off request to be in my best friends wedding and my boss brought me into his office and threatened to fire me. At this point I had called the north east district business associate on him and I will never forget the look on my bosses face when he realized I knew he couldn't do anything to me.
Sit down little girl!
I was in a wedding party and there was a brief lull in between scheduled parts and we were all just milling around waiting. The bridesmaid known for being obnoxiously bossy starts barking out orders to every single person. As soon as she's finished the wedding planner who was standing behind her chimes in with "nobody do any of that" and then told us to sit tight. It was great.
I choose Verizon!
My mother-in-law passed away last year and my wife and I got rid of the the leftover stuff. Most was easy, except the AT&T router for her Internet access. We got a total runaround.
I brought it into an AT&T store, the same one my MIL had signed up from, and they said it had to be returned in some special box from the local post office. We went to the post office and were told the special box came from AT&T. We went back to AT&T, in a different city, and were told yet another BS story.
It caused my wife an amazing amount of grief. Her mother had just died. She's trying to do the "adult" thing and responsibly close out her mother's accounts. And AT&T was just being a bunch of clowns. The router became her albatross.
The router sat in the trunk of the car for weeks. One day I'm grabbing lunch and notice another AT&T. I walk inside and up to a desk where a rep is talking Internet plans with another customer. I don't interrupt, but the rep pauses to give me a story about how I can't return the router here and will need to set up a return "with a central office."
I calmly put the router on her desk and said "No, I won't be doing that. The owner of this account just died. I'm just trying to give you your property back. You've given me the runaround for weeks now and I'm done." As I turn to walk away she yells "but we're just going to throw it away if you leave it here! You'll get charged for it!"
"Okay by me!" I toss over my shoulder as I walk out the door. "Good luck collecting from a dead woman!"
I occasionally wonder if the other customer stuck around or not. But then I remember who runs the FCC and it's not like there's a real choice in ISPs in most areas of the country.
Boy bye...
GiphyA (heading towards abusive) ex told me that he would leave me if I didn't lose 10 lbs in the two weeks before his friends wedding. He was blown away when I said okay and walked away.
I worked for a school board and they contracted me to do some additional work on the side creating a website. When it was complete i went to the guy for presentation and payment and he told me he wouldn't be paying me and there was nothing i could do. I leaned over and deleted the site. He seemed curiously surprised somehow. I giggled. He later wanted the website restored and he would pay me with stolen school merchandise. I told him i wasn't going to steal from children and teachers just so he could have leverage over me.
Another time i had made a website allowing people to send messages to the members of the school board. He later wanted me to send him the messages so he could "vet" them. I added him to the CC of every message. I was then asked in a board meeting why he was also getting these messages and i told them why he felt entitled to their private communications. They talked to him. When i put in my notice there he came to my cubicle on a busy floor and told me I'd have to pay them back for training they sent me to. He said it so quietly too. So i asked him if he was threatening me but i said it loudly so everyone came to see what was up. He literally fled. What a tool.
That's strike 1... keep going.. I dare you.
I'm an ICU nurse, the last 2 nights I've been taking care of a large strong man going through withdrawals. It involves 4 point restraints.
This morning I was trying to put elbow pads on him and he swung at me, but of course the restraints prevented this. He was furious as I just stood there and slow blinked at him.