People Are Sharing Hilarious Tales Of The Smallest Amount Of Power They’ve Seen Get To Someone’s Head

Because sometimes, with a little bit of power comes an overinflated sense of authority.

Jesse

• Published in Interesting
• March 16, 2024

Have you ever witnessed someone with just a tiny bit of authority suddenly act like they’ve been crowned king of the world? It’s the human condition—hand someone a sliver of power, and they’ll wield it like the mighty Excalibur.

The result? That awkward encounter where we have to silently watch as an ordinary individual morphs into a miniature dictator—courtesy of a mere drop of power.

Uncomfortable glances might be exchanged, and the same question is on everyone’s mind—Who’s going to tell them?

It's the kind of spectacle that leaves you simultaneously chuckling and shaking your head in disbelief, like watching a goldfish swim circles around its tank, thinking it's ruling the seven seas. 

Today, we’re diving headfirst into the comedic chaos of power trips on a micro-scale. From the local Homeowners Association board member who rules over lawns like a sovereign monarch to the Minecraft player who thinks a digital rank grants them absolute authority. We’ve compiled a collection of 30 uproarious anecdotes that showcase the absurdity of power gone awry. 

So, grab your popcorn and prepare to be entertained as we explore the hilarious world of small-time power trips, where a little authority goes straight to the wielder’s head.

1. The Burger King Dictator: No haircuts, no tattoos, no non-Christians allowed.

The guy who was the manager at the Burger King I worked at when I was a teenager. We had to get prior approval from him if we wanted to get a hair cut or dye our hair or pierce our ears. Tattoos were forbidden, even if they were hidden. If he found out you had one, he'd find an excuse to fire you. Same if you weren't Christian. He would also drive by our houses to make sure the pit crews weren't fraternizing with the managers or assistant managers on our off hours.

I heard he's a cop now. He'll probably show up on the news some day for shooting a black man for jaywalking or something.

2. And the award for the most horrible admin ever goes to…

My former university's IT admin. I studied computer science and my laptop was pretty weak. I used to work all night, weekends and preferred working out of the IT labs computers. This A*hole of an IT admin, the typical reddit neckbeard, fat, slobby, know it all dips**t had weird rules.

In the bitter cold of US northeast he had a rule that stated nobody could eat inside the computer labs. Since I worked there all day and night, I would usually keep my sandwich with me and eat it after 11pm. One night this mongrel was taking a stroll in the corridor, saw me eating my sandwich. Told me either I throw it out or he was going to lock my account to the department network.

I tried reasoning with him and said 'I will close it and put it in my backpack', he insisted I throw it because otherwise I might come back and eat it when he's not around. It was the moment I felt the most helpless in my life. I couldn't afford to get locked out the department lab, since I had some huge program running whose results were due soon.

I couldn't afford to throw away a $7 sandwich as I was a foreign student here on scholarship. It was a snowy midnight in december when I did not have any option to go buy myself anything else. I succumbed to his threat, went and trashed my sandwich in front of his eyes. He gave me a dirty grin and left. I felt helpless, alone and lost. I had nobody to go and talk my heart out. I was almost in tears at my own miserable situation. I hated my life back then.

3. Ever met someone who takes their "wait 24 hours" policy more seriously than their job description?

Missed a parcel by the postman and got the slip through my door to go to the depot. Card says wait 24 hours before collecting. Figured I'd try my luck and went there anyway. Guy takes f*****g ages to get to me as he clearly doesn't give a f**k (as always, anybody who lives in Britain will tell you Post Office staff in depots are hopeless) and then finally takes my slip off.

I see him go to my parcel, PICK IT UP, then notice the slip says wait 24 hours. He genuinely refuses to give me the parcel as I haven't waited. F*****g d**k- give me my parcel!

Turn up an hour later, a different person is on the desk. Get my parcel no problem.

4. To some, a promotion means less work and more orders.

5. A dollar fine leads to a showdown with the parliamentarian.

Anyone who has been in a fraternity will know that when a newly initiated brother is given the slightest amount of power it's an instant power trip. Perfect example being our new "parliamentarian" basically the person responsible for handing out fines. He threatened to send my $1 fine to collections if I didn't pay it for cursing in a chapter meeting. I told him to f**k himself with a cactus. 

I paid the fine though.

6. Three out of five crew members, almost fired by the “boss.”

I put someone "in charge" as team leader of a small crew that was digging a foundation. He tried to fire 3 of the five guys.

7. Assistant to the Overlord

Assistant to the regional manager.

8. Four hours of power led to global naval preparations.

Not exactly the smallest, but when Theodore Roosevelt became the acting Secretary for the US Navy for 4 hours, he cabled the Navy worldwide to prepare for war, ordered ammunition and supplies, brought in experts and went to Congress asking for the authority to recruit as many sailors as he wanted.

He held the job for 4 hours and did that during the timeframe.

9. Don’t mess with the headrest button wielder.

There is a button in my car that makes the headrests in the back fall down. I use it to smack people in the head if they try to be cute.

10. Reddit mods take their powers very seriously.

A moderator of /r/Food banned me for providing links to the source and recipe of food pictures I posted. Apparently that's spam.

11. The email list deity

Our tiny community has an email list to join for buying & selling locally. I overheard the woman who sends out the emails saying that deciding what made the email was like playing god every morning.

12. Mandatory locker inspections by decree of the head custodian.

Our high school had 4 custodians. One retired and the next-in-line was promoted to **Head Custodian**.

Both the student body and staff knew it had gone to his head when he posted an announcement regarding locker inspections for *interior cleanliness* - replete with a schedule of days/times to show up for his *mandatory* inspections.

Apparently, he took it upon himself without the administration's authorization, because we heard about it only through him, not from official notification by the principal.

13. From model employee to micromanaging maniac in record time.

We promoted a call center employee to shift manager. She was a nice, dependable, hardworking and pleasant girl. Within days she was hiding behind potted plants trying to catch people looking at their cellphones (against policy to have them on the floor) and reported one person because her phone vibrated in her purse.

She would time breaks (bathroom and scheduled) just itching for someone to return late. This chick suddenly got semi-orgasmic at the thought of getting others in trouble. We moved her to an 'administrative' position and eventually fired her.

14. That sad moment when reality kicks in

Once I volunteered to be a vest for a parade. Basically, I got a brightly colored vest and a bicycle to help keep people behind the parade route lines, help floats if they got into trouble, misc stuff like that. I got beer tokens as payment. 

After the parade was over, I turned in my vest, got my beer tokens and went to the party at the end of the route. I got to the long a*s line for cheap beer and opened my mouth and took a deep breath. 

Okay so... I'd just spent 4 hours using my loud-a*s voice to shout at people. Now that it was over, shouting at people and watching them do what I said had become some surreal form of normal. 

I exhaled, closed my f*****g mouth, and waited in line like a human being. 

Basically, being a parade volunteer made me think I had the power to cut in line for beer, but my meat-brain kicked into gear just before I made an a*s of myself.

Most surreal moment of my life.

15. From helpful assistant to top-rated saboteur.

Some s****y admin on a freelancing website.

He used to be the lowest of the low, always helping me out.

He then got promoted to 'head customer support agent' within weeks he had removed my top rated seller status (because I complained that he wasn't doing his job properly). I asked for the reasons, he said he does not have time to give me the reasons.

Income plummeted by £1000 a month, costing me my house.

Cheers man.

Glad you got fired a few months later for incompetence.

16. When roommates become landlords, drama follows.

I had a friend in another city who was living in a s****y room and board situation and I wanted to move there so we decided to get a place together. I gave him my share of the damage deposit and first months rent. He lived there so he found the place.

He put his name on the tenancy agreement so he figured he was my landlord and he was in charge of every little thing in the house. I needed work, so I helped the landlord in some renovations (we had a leak and a minor flood) for the equivalent value in free rent which really pissed him off because I was going over his head and interfering with his future legal case against the landlord (which never happened).

He horded the mail key so I needed permission to get my mail. Eventually I lost it on him and demanded to get my name on the place on paper or I would leave so he "evicted" me. The next month he had to move out because he couldn't afford the place.

17. The legend of the red dot and its ruler lives on.

18. Bestowing glue stick authority upon a student resulted in UN-level negotiations over adhesive distribution.

Teacher here - making a student in charge of the glue sticks. Acted like I'd given them a veto in the UN.

19. Brian had the room for a few minutes, and it was pure chaos

In seventh grade one of our teachers would ask a student to keep an eye on the room if he needed to step out for a moment. Mostly the kids were happy to stand in front of the room and watch everyone read or work on a quiz for a few minutes and felt great about their responsibility.

One time the teacher stepped out and gave the responsibility to "Brian" while we started a test. I asked out loud if anyone knew the date. "Brian" yelled at me not to talk during a test, that talking was cheating, grabbed the test off my desk and ripped it in half.

I'm not joking. He actually tore it in half.

When the teacher came back "Brian" told the teacher he had stopped me from cheating and gave him my ripped up test that only had my name written on it. The other students spoke up in my defense. Teacher told "Brian" he had done well in making sure no one talked, but he was going to let me do the test anyway.

20. In their minds, they rule the whole kingdom.

21. The president of the cha-cha dancing club delivered a dance of dominance during an interview.

I had to interview a guy who is president of the cha-cha dancing club at my university, ChaChaLoco. When I asked for his full name, he scoffed. "You don't know who I am?" I said no, I was just a reporter for the school newspaper. He then said, "I am Firstname Middlename SecondSpanishMiddlename Lastname, President and Financial Executive of ChaChaLoco. If you haven't heard of me yet, you must live under a rock."

22. When you rise through the ranks quickly, you can’t help but go on a rampage

Rank

I'm in the military and some people think their rank is like Thor's hammer.... We had this one guy get promoted to first lieutenant from second lieutenant in my first assignment (basically a 100% promotion rate for that rank) and THAT DAY started to order all the other LTs around and telling them to call him sir, etc. Our DO put him in his place pretty quickly, but it's amazing what a bar on your shoulder or stripe on your arm can add to an ego

23. Only Jerry was worthy to guard the glorious stapler

When the teacher put the stapler on Jerry's desk. She could have put it on any desk, but she chose his. He proceeded to spend the next 30 minutes as the Stapler King, giving the stapler to people he felt were worthy. I needed the stapler but I had to wait 5 minutes while he debated with himself over whether I was worthy or not. F**k you ,Jerry. 

24. From lease violations to loitering, this landlord ruled with an iron fist.

25. Lord of the Landfills

26. They wield the power of lawn regulations like it's the crown jewel.

Any Homeowners Association board member in America

27. Beware the 10-year-old with a newfound command of digital realms.

I used to be an admin on a Minecraft server where after you played for 10 hours you would get the rank "Member", which gave you access to a couple new commands. Some really annoying 10 year old thought that it was a huge achievement when he got that and he started acting superior to all the moderators and threatening them. I talked to him over skype about it and he started screeching at me and saying that he f****d my mom. I banned him permanently. Make sure your kids know how to act semi-maturely before you let them play online in any game.

28. Middle school drill sergeant

Once I was given the honorary title of drill sergeant in middle school. I started yelling at kids and made up my own drill songs. This girl I liked told me later that I was being lame. I told her to give me 20.

29. Double the power, double the ego trip.

Reddit Mods.

oh snap!

30. A page admin's power trip led to bans, coups, and, ultimately, page deletion.

Anyone who has been in a fraternity will know that when a newly initiated brother is given the slightest amount of power it's an instant power trip. Perfect example being our new "parliamentarian" basically the person responsible for handing out fines. He threatened to send my $1 fine to collections if I didn't pay it for cursing in a chapter meeting. I told him to f**k himself with a cactus. 

I paid the fine though.

These stories are both hilarious and annoying to read, but we’ve all experienced it at some point in our lives.

So, what's the smallest dose of power you've seen go to someone's head? Share your stories, and let's laugh together at the absurdity of it all!

Remember, with great power comes...well, you know the rest.

Jesse