Dealing With People On Power Trips
DL, how do you deal with people who love to dominate others with power trips?
About a month ago, I posted about how a night nurse in the ICU wouldn’t let me use a more comfortable chair when I was staying overnight with my father. It turned out that was not policy and she was just a hateful person.
Now I'm currently staying overnight with my father in a rehab hospital and have encountered a dimwitted, authoritarian security guard. Visiting hours end at 7 p.m., and every other guard has told me I’m welcome to come and go so I can also check on my mother, whom I help care for. None of them lock the door. However, this one guard not only locks the door but also greets me with a condescending “Can I help you?”—as if he didn’t just see me leave 30 minutes earlier. I'm wearing a visitor badge with my information clearly displayed, and my name is signed in the visitor log.
I understand he thinks he’s doing his job but he’s just making my life more difficult than it needs to be. It’s not as if I’m leaving every hour - perhaps once around 9 pm per week. To put it bluntly, I’m not going to take any crap from low-level bureaucratic usherette.
How do you deal with people on unnecessary power trips? Were you successful in your endeavors?
| by Anonymous | reply 20 | June 13, 2025 12:01 AM
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You go full on Karen and demand to speak to their manager. If that fails, you go nuclear on Yelp and other reviews.
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | June 12, 2025 1:32 AM
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I would call or email the facility’s director .
And I would find out which car the security guard drives and slash his tires.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | June 12, 2025 3:17 AM
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R2 Heh I’m not going to slash his tires but I will go above him just based on his attitude alone. If he can’t remember me after 20 minutes, he has no business being a security guard.
I’m just surprised because I’m such a nice easy going fellow who is respectable and probably too passive. 99% being nice works for me.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | June 12, 2025 7:33 PM
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"Dealing With People On Power Trips"
We have no idea of what you're talking about.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | June 12, 2025 8:03 PM
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I would bake him a coconut cake and attempt to get to know him a bit.
He probably has a crush on you and is trying to hide his feelings.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | June 12, 2025 8:11 PM
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OP, if you were a woman, you'd be dealing with this kind of treatment from men every single day.
So you know what my mother would say: shut up and be glad!
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | June 12, 2025 8:13 PM
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For example, yesterday, I drove to the dump to dump my trash and recycle a bunch of cardboard boxes. The man in the row next to me started criticizing my little truck for no apparent reason.
"I had one of those, and now I have a new one," (which he wasn't driving that day, I guess), "and my new one is so much better! More power, better yada yada yada... You should get rid of yours and get one like mine!"
Hoping to stop what he perceived as a helpful conversation, I replied, "Well, if I had a lot of money, there's a lot of things I'd do."
Then he proceeded to give me a treatise on what a bargain it was, how great the financing was, how he's sure I wouldn't have any problems paying for it, etc. And the temperature was in the low 90s, the sun was blazing hot, and he was blocking me from leaving while he rattled on and on.
Mind you, I didn't know this motherfucker from Adam, and he wasn't even driving his fancy new truck! For all I know, it only existed in his imagination.
I dare any of you to try to survive being a woman for [italic]just one day[/italic]. You'd never make it.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | June 12, 2025 8:22 PM
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That just sounds like an entitled boomer who thinks he knows better than anyone and is an expert in every situation, including financial situations of other individuals.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | June 12, 2025 8:32 PM
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“Yeah, no, we’re not doing that.”
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | June 12, 2025 8:33 PM
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[quote] OP, if you were a woman, you'd be dealing with this kind of treatment from men every single day.
Sure, Jan.
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | June 12, 2025 8:34 PM
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[quote] OP, if you were a woman, you'd be dealing with this kind of treatment from men every single day.
People who say this are authoritarian assholes. We see you, Karen.
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | June 12, 2025 8:35 PM
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Boomer [bold]man[/bold] is what you meant to say, R8.
FIFY.
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | June 12, 2025 8:38 PM
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See, OP, things like that happen to men so seldom that they're positively [italic]shocked[/italic] by them -- whereas when stuff like that happens to women, it's just par for the course.
Quit yer bitchin'.
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | June 12, 2025 8:42 PM
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[quote] r8 That just sounds like an entitled boomer who thinks he knows better than anyone and is an expert in every situation, including financial situations of other individuals.
So apt that you're doing the same thing to r7 that the man at the dump did.
How predictable.
| by Anonymous | reply 15 | June 12, 2025 9:30 PM
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Sometimes you just have to stay and deal it.
| by Anonymous | reply 16 | June 12, 2025 9:39 PM
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Just memorize this helpful little phrase:
"You will do AS I say, WHEN I say, and HOW I say!"
| by Anonymous | reply 17 | June 12, 2025 9:46 PM
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[quote] Now I'm currently staying overnight with my father in a rehab hospital
No, no, no!
| by Anonymous | reply 18 | June 12, 2025 9:47 PM
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I just tell them, “Move it along, toots!”
| by Anonymous | reply 20 | June 13, 2025 12:01 AM
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