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This is a question Absolute Power

Have you ever been put in a position of power? Did you become a rabid dictator, or did you completely arse it up and end up publicly humiliated? We demand you tell us your stories.

Thanks to The Supreme Crow for the suggestion

(, Thu 8 Jul 2010, 14:09)
Pages: Popular, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

This question is now closed.

My name is Amorous Badger
And I believe I have the power to sneer at and take the piss out of anyone on QOTW.
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 17:21, 53 replies)
The joys of my newly acquired degree
One of my lecturers has the dubious honour of organising school's days in the chemistry department. However, this lecturer suffers from an unfortunate malody known as "Has the organisational skills of a blind midget beekeeper". As I'm one of the few (ex) students left on campus, I ended up drawing the ever-shortening short straw and being buggered, ahem, I mean honoured, with helping out on the day. The one day that Dr-I-couldn't-find-my-arse-with-my-elbows-in-a-mirror-maze decided to book in 120 seventeen year olds when we can only fit 40 in the lab at a time, max. So in his wisdom he hastily shoved in an extra session to allow the group that would normally be split into 2 into 3 and decided to get me to help on the extra new, untested, never run before session. Oh yay. Bottle of wine? I'll need a stiffer drink than that at the end of the day...

The first 2 sessions went well with a lecturer to supervise and help each time. I had the largest group last, yay! And who was my supervising/helping lecturer for the last session? Oh yes, Dr odd socks with sandals. Joys. So I was left with Dr terminally useless and 40 hot and tired seventeen year olds, at which point Dr waste of space decided to wander off and leave me to it. And all because now I have a degree I'm technically qualified to supervise, something which 3 weeks ago I wasn't.

Absolute power? Have you ever tried to single handedly control 40 seventeen year olds?! More like absolutely powerless!
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 16:57, Reply)
I am giving absolute power to this post
§§±@3{}-_$&(*%43*($£@*(!@§\}-=_+CRC ERROR - 0 byte(s) salvaged
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 16:35, Reply)

When I was a youngester my grans went back to Ireland for a week to visit her sisters. She lived a few minutes walk from us so I was charged with the task of going round to water the plants since my dad couldn't be arsed.

I was never my grans biggest fan. Every Friday night my sister and I would be sent to stay so my parents could fuck. My sister quickly figured my gran is a push over so would act the brat, get away with it and get her own way. This infuriated me- my grans could have had the back bone to put my sister in her place. My grans was also a cleaner but her house was never clean. I used to write my name in the dust and refuse to eat anything I couldn't eat right out the packet. One time I left my inhaler on the counter without it's lid. I came back and took it without looking at it and got an insect in my mouth- I've never seen such an insect before or since.

Now I was faced with the power to do whatever I wanted to her house. How should I prove my point of her failing as a human being? I done the obvious thing and pissed on the carpet behind her chair. For weeks later I had the satisfaction of knowing ti while she sat there watching Coronation Street.

On reflection I am now somewhere between baffled and disgusted by my youngster self.
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 15:58, 1 reply)
I was made school prefect…
..but lost the ‘privilege’ when a fight broke out one lunchtime. I was caught shouting, ‘TWAT HIM IN THE GONADS’ instead of running off to get a teacher. Wrong thing to do, apparently.
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 14:49, Reply)
The cuter the kid, the more powerful he is
A mate of mine at Uni has a little kid called Aron. Aron is four years old. His bright eyes and naivly excited demeanour make him very cute. And he knows it.

Aron is a huge fan of Bob the Builder. One day, he noticed that the wallpaper in the living room was starting to peel. So he grabbed his little toy hammer and started his builderswork.

His mother appears about a half hour later, aghast that a significant portion of the wallpaper has been stripped off-

"Aron! What are you doing!?!" she asks.

Aron drops his hammer, looks up at his mum with the biggest, most innocent eyes he can muster and says

"I was getting the job done"

Did he get punished? Naaah of course not!
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 14:31, 2 replies)
Power vacuum
Once upon a lifetime, back when I was still married to the first Mrs Udders we built a little house together. This was in Perth, Western Australia, which, as maybe one or two of you might know, has relatively poor sandy soil for the most part. Perth is on the coast, and it's something like having a beach that extends 20 kays inland, except without the water or the topless teenagers. The eastern edge of the city is bound by a smallish range, and there the soil is solid clay.

Us being young this was the first house either of us owned. Us being young and therefore relatively poor it was also a cheap starter project home in a new subdivision that was right on the edge of the city, as far away from the prime coastal land that it was possible to be. So the place was solid clay. Since this subdivision was being sold cheaply the developers didn't want to spend any money doing expensive stuff like digging where they could get avoid it. So, they simply burnt off the scrub, laid all the sewers and various cabling pipework down, then trucked in masses of sand to bury the lot. A bit like sweeping everything under the carpet, but cheap, abrasive carpet.

Being a cheap project home meant that it didn't come with loads of extras, and the builders were happy to trade off some things if we wanted others, like more than one power point in a room. So, when we moved in we had tiles in the wet rooms, but the rest of the house had no floor coverings at all. Perth houses are inevitably built used double brick, on a concrete pad. Our floors were therefore bare concrete.

A kindly chap I worked with suggested we seal the bare concrete to lessen powdering and wear. Not long before moving in I used a bucket and broom to apply a watered down sealant throughout the house. Perth has another distinctive feature though that the cricket followers amongst you may remember - a fairly regular evening breeze that goes by the name of the Fremantle Doctor. Being so far inland it never reached us full force, but then again, sand isn't the heaviest material to move around, and being mostly skint we certainly hadn't spent much money on landscaping, and neither had most of our equally skint neighbours. The result was a constant stream of grit and dust making its way through any open door or window (no money for airconditioning either), or being tracked inside any time someone came through the front door. In the first Mrs Udder's case, rather more often than I knew about at the time, but that's another story.

Fearing that I would be up for another tin of expensive floor sealant, not to mention another broom, as the first had ended as a clagged up mess, we were both fastideous users of the vacuum cleaner. Or it might have been her mother's OCD-strength approach to house cleaning asserting itself, as we had boarded with them for a few months in between out last lease running out and the builder finishing the house.

The trouble with cheap vacuum cleaners is that they generally aren't very well built. In this case the switch mechanism was susceptible to the ingress of dirt, resulting in a cleaner than wouldn't turn on, especially when the arrival of my mother in law for "a visit" was imminent. If I couldn't afford a decent vacuum cleaner in the first place there was no way that I could spring for a proper repairperson to pop around on a regular basis. I did however own a few tools. It became as usual for me to pop open the recalcitrant machine "for a quick squiz" as it was for it to go on the blink in the first place.

Over time I grew ever impatient and slowly but surely let my standards slip. Where once I always disconnected the machine from the power point before commencing my Mr Fixit routine I began to cut corners. At first I'd skip rewinding the power cable as I worked out exactly the reconstruction contortions required to reassemble the beast with its cord unwound. Then I gave up taking the plug out the wall - my back doesn't like me bending down unnecessarily. Finally I even gave up switching off the power at the wall as it was slowing me down. And this new house had a shiny new residual current trip switch installed when it was built merely months before.

My father in law was an electrician by trade, and he'd taught me to always work with one hand behind my back. Any escaping current wouldn't have to cross my chest on its escape to earth you see, avoiding the rather unpleasant "stopping of the heart" situation.

One day the inevitable happened - I'd whipped out the number two philips head for a quick shufty at the innards of the vacuum switch mechanism and I suddenly found myself across the room with a very achy arm. Turns out that an annoyingly high percentage of RCD protectors were factory-faulty and I'd just found out the hard way that I had one of them in the meterbox outside.

My position of power apparently looks unerringly like a flag.
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 14:08, 3 replies)
Absolute Power
Is taking a woman whilst your goons force her lover to watch.

Is showering urine onto the smiling, upturned faces of ten nubile blondes, certain in the knowledge that they won't wash until they hear your command.

Is pulling the beating heart from a sacrificial victim and sinking your teeth into it, as his horrified gaze glazes over.

Is a moderately entertaining film starring Clint Eastwood.
Meh.
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 14:06, Reply)
I was about ten, I think.
There was a kid in my class who vaguely irritated me. I have no idea why. One day, I remember deciding I would bully him, my logic being that, as he was slightly taller than me, it was only a matter of time before he got the same idea.

I approached him in the playground and insulted him. I don't remember the words, and they're not important. He looked worried. I poured forth more verbal abuse. I felt emboldened.

He clearly didn't want any trouble, but bloodlust was upon me by this point, and I would continue. I looked him straight in the eye and told him to lick my shoe. He looked down at my shoes, which were covered in the dry summer dust you pick up when you're a kid. He looked back at me, worried, confused, uncertain. I repeated my command. There were other kids watching now. It wasn't until he actually knelt down and did it that I realised what I was doing.

Christ, the shame was unbelievable. I can't tell you what he looked like as he stood up. I couldn't look away from the dark, wet patch on the toecap of my shoe. He didn't say anything. I couldn't look at him.

I wanted to apologise, tell him I was wrong, tell him he'd done nothing wrong, hadn't deserved it, but I couldn't say a word. I just walked away past a line of curious faces and never went near the boy again.

I never did apologise, so I'm doing it now. I'm sorry, Jonathan. I was wrong, and you didn't deserve it.
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 13:45, 10 replies)
I have a conundrum
No, that doesn't mean I've kidnapped a b3tan. It's a colleague's 18th birthday party this evening, and I'm wondering about the best method of abusing my power of getting him totally of his face. Any suggestions as to the quickest method? Of course, anything that will provide a horrible hangover in the morning is the best idea.

So far the only thing I can think of is tequila, beyond that, no idea.
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 13:12, 34 replies)
I should never have stolen the car.
But the judge was quite lenient, suggesting an Anti Social Behaviour Order was required, and I should go and help out in the community music centre.

A young man with an electric lute was trying to cover "China in your Hand", but couldn't get the sound right. I suggested a few effects might be in order, and after a bit of fiddling, it all came out pretty well, which shows you the importance of Asbo Lute T'Pau Wah. Or Chorus at least.

The concert that evening was a great success, aside from being entirely fictitious.
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 13:06, 4 replies)
Oh yes!
I remember creating a special generator than ran on a specific brand of vodka. It gave me Absolut power.
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 13:02, Reply)
And the pub dog bit me.
This is a morality tale about biting off more than you can chew.

A very long time ago, before Sid and Jolene seduced each other in the shower, and when Cif was Jif, I was packed off to university to study for a degree in music which mysteriously (to my parents) took five years instead of the four they expected. But it began with the traditional "Freshers' Concert" where all the shiny new first years were expected to play their party-pieces. Though I had been a church organist for a few years before going up to university, choral conducting experience was not mine. But when the tutor asked the first-years, "who has been a conductor?" and no-one responded, my hand timidly went up.

I was poo. They threw motets and madrigals at me with time-signature changes throughout (mostly to accommodate hemiolas q.v.), and even some Gesualdo, and I carved like a man trying to sculpt wet candy floss. And so the concert came and went.

Afterwards, the traditional visit to The Ram, a cider house, took place. The Ram served cider, and cider only, and was way out in the countryside, reachable only by rail and a long sobering walk. But the final-year students felt it their adult duty to introduce the freshers to real drinking, so I sat down in the garden in a chilly autumn evening, with my regulation pint of Bulmer's medium-dry.

Three more pint glasses were plonked onto the table in front of me, by final year students. The reckoning was approaching.

"In honour of you conducting the freshers' choir, we offer you these gifts for your immediate consumption!" The more boorish students, including first-years, were by now chanting, "In One! In One!" and a church organist isn't unused to drinking with his thirsty bellringers, so I obliged.

These glasses did not contain medium-dry cider. They carried a half-pint of "Bulmer's No. 7" (long since discontinued) topped-up with a half of Special Reserve and probably some spirits too. These, they called "hand grenades" (and are still remembered on a Romany discussion forum run by the BBC!)

I did not know this. I pleasured myself and my fellow students, but then the hand grenades started to come to the end of their fuses. After giving a speech from which photographs were posted, one by one, upon the music department noticeboard by a man who now runs the very best audio gear maintenance business in the country, I fell over. The shite conductor of the Freshers' Choir was now about to pass shite himself, it felt. My last memory is of vomiting so fulsomely that the brook running through the garden of this pub was changing colour, and I wanted to laugh at the funny gurgling noises. Then the pub dog bit me.

I remember nothing now. Apparently, one of the students (who now runs the very best classical recording business in the country) brought a white Escort van, and ran me back to campus. A bunch of students dragged me upstairs feet first, and I was relieved of my clothing before they caught my bed for long enough to put me in it.

At 2.30pm the next day, I awoke to a knock on the door. The conductor had paid his price, and my first visitor was a final-year student who is now chairman of a Very Important Industry Association, arriving to see if I was ok. He'd already apologised to my tutor in advance, apparently! I was taken to the bathroom where my clothes lay in water whose colour resembled the brook in the pub garden.

A diner does not have to farm cattle for beef to know a good steak from a bad one. And a singer does not need to be a conductor to know when a lunatic first-year student is overstretching himself!

Length? About 64 bars plus The Ram.
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 12:58, 2 replies)
Bar work.
Im currently working in a swanky(ish) bar in the north east.
I know that when the unis come back - im going to be in a position of power. well, nothing huge, just over the regular staff.
Im terrified that this will turn me into a nob.
Last power I had was babysitting, and I taught my then child brother all the wrong colours. Green = Red and so forth.

This could be interesting...
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 12:25, Reply)
Passwords
Being a web monkey for a day job, it's amazing two things:-

a) How many people trust you with your passwords. Not just website FTP passwords (which are often necessary & created by us anyway), we're talking Facebook passwords, Paypal passwords (yeah Mr. rhyswynne, here's our business paypal password, take your payment of our account for your dev work).

b) How easy some passwords are to break (we're talking passwords of "admininstrator" or "password"). Despite advising otherwise.

Of course, this goes onto a horrible sense of paranoia that if the interenet collapses, or there's a power cut, or if Google goes under, I'd be out of a job.

It's beyond terrifying.
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 11:49, 4 replies)
Many years ago
When my kids were still at the early years of primary school age, I sent them all to bed 10 minutes early for bickering over Hungry Hungry Hippos.
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 11:45, 2 replies)
Dunno if this counts or not.
When working in a comic book store we had an advert up for staff wanted. All the usual freak geeks of nature came in, practically jizzing their pants at the prospect of working in an Aladdin's cave of geekery, not to mention working with some GIRLS. They handed over the CVs which we promptly read, laughed at and binned because we already knew who we were planning on hiring, and it wasn't going to be a geek with a personal hygiene problem. Most people who worked in the shop were kind of a bit geeky about stuff but not as much as the clientele. They'd ask you questions about Seaquest DSV and I'd just look at them and say 'I just work here, I don't watch that rubbish'. The evil glares and jealousy vibes I got from them were pricesless. The openly staring at my knockers was not. Socially awkward Aspergers freaks.
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 10:50, 16 replies)
If I had
Absolute power, I would be kind and make everyone's death quick and painless...mwahahahha!
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 10:49, 2 replies)
I was made bus steward
That’s right, the warden of the school bus (normal size, not short).

I’d set the school record for detentions the year before, so I was somewhat surprised by this development.
I never actually did anything really bad, not anything that would warrant suspension or report at least, just juvenile showing off in class, sticking Barnaby’s head in the bass drum type of thing, so I guess they thought a bit of responsibility would set me straight.

Well I set that bus straight.

By which I mean I sat on the back seat with my friends and I got to play my tapes on the stereo.

No more teen girl fodder of choice at the time “Dirty Dancing OST” for this bus! Hell no, I think you’ll find we’re listening to Incesticide, Siamese Dream or Pearl Jam’s 10. Oh yes we are. Now sit down and face the front.

And the people loved me for it. I was Che Dervel. Banisher of Swayze and absolute ruler of this 54 seating (+10 standing) republic.

I have absolute command and authority.

I will determine when it is hot enough to open the sky light.
No, you can’t flick yogurt at the French exchange kids.
I don’t believe you can stand forward of this point and disturb the driver, now get back to your seat.

I am all powerful.

“What are we doing today?” you ask? I’ll tell you! We’re listening to Disintegration as I’m feeling a bit moody and I’m going to chuck this cassette out of the window whilst holding onto the tape so we can all look out the back window and watch it bounce on the road!

Years later I watched Napoleon Dynamite do similar with an action figure tied to some string.
And I thought, “oh, bum. Maybe I wasn’t that cool” “maybe the people didn’t love me?”

Then I remembered that I had long curtains with an undercut and wore boots from the army surplus shop and “let” the kids listen to grunge. I was clearly cool and of course the people loved me.

I imagine I have now moved into school mythology, an almost celestial entity, and that the kids still huddle round bus stops on cold winter mornings dreaming of my return.

And in their dreams just as the water in lonely roadside puddles begins to reflect dusks crimson glare, in the distance would come the glorious sounds of Sonic Youth heralding my triumphant return, that I will set upon despoiling all things hallowed by boy bands and that grumpy driver with the big eyebrows, and that I will spread a righteous glory of such benevolence that would see me reign forever.
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 10:22, Reply)
Hiring & Firing.... But Only If Your Fit...
God, i have lost count of the times i have hired and fired people, normally its just the lying little crackheads who claim to be able to get up and dressed in a morning in time to be at work for 9am, but then turn up late looking like they've been bum raped by a gorilla at 10am.... However i have sometimes been in that certain mood that makes me act like a hormonal 14 year old, usually when its "Interview" day and the job is for my department.... thats when i get my old react-o-lites ( refer to the 80's please yung-uns...) on and make sure we interview in the brightest room in the building....having already loaded the day with a mix of 1 male and 6 female interviewees, all below the MILF threshold that is 47 & 3/4 we proceed to the main event, every now and then the su shines into the room, my bottle bottoms go dark and i get a chance to oggle the low cut tops filled with heaving loveliness.... every now and then having to shuffle on me chair to avoid what little i have being obvious to see....Problem with this is that i actually have to hire one of these poor lambs, and its usually the fittest one... who i eventually fire bcos shes never seen " My XXX Secretary " and therefore doesnt understand that the mornings should always start off with a blow job and a hot coffee....I apologise to all of you laydees from the bottom of my arse....
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 10:20, 20 replies)
I am an IT Technician
In a school.

Odd satisfaction wattching someone play a game through VNC, block the site, refresh the page (so the game comes up blocked) and watch them panic and try and get back on the game. It's a lessen, hello? Work?

It's evil. And I don't do it all the time, just to the ones I don't like (not that as support staff I'm supposed to show favourism).
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 9:56, 5 replies)
I broke into
this guys house to steal all his stuff and unfortunately witnessed his wife's murder by the president of the united states. Needless to say it all got a bit hairy from then on in.

C. Eastwood
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 9:30, Reply)
I once won 102 battle games of Super Mariokart on the SNES straight in one night
on a winner-stays-on circuit with a few friends who had been playing the game for months on end.

Fucking underlings....
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 9:21, 2 replies)
Power over the opposite sex...
I'm a heavily built rapist.
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 9:20, 35 replies)
DANCE PUPPETS, DANCE!
Being a GM is like having God-like power over all of your friends. It is incredible. Pity that it's not for real and involves a lot of dice. Meh.
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 9:19, 13 replies)
I became a Mason...
We rule the world*....
Muahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa"

*However, I take no responsibility for making Steve Guttenberg a star.
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 8:52, 7 replies)
Five-Fajita Tornado
I once taught a course of freshmen-level Meteorology. I explained how tornadoes are rated on the Fujita scale (named for Dr. Fujita), from F0 waterspouts and dust devils to the F5 pavement-eating monsters that terrorize the Great Plains.

So, I tested the students on the material. Some students weren't very bright. One student got the concept right, but called it the Fajita scale instead. So, fail him I did.

But there is something whimsical about rating whirlwinds by Mexican foodstuffs, so afterwards I adopted the Fajita standard to describe all powerful winds. Last October, we had a windstorm through here that had to be worth at least one fajita....
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 7:35, 6 replies)
I fired some stupid eejit who lied on his CV
We hired an 'expert Unix C programmer' cos there was no way that I could have go the project done on time. After about a day, it transpired that he was an utter liar and knew almost nothing, 'just did a few projects at Uni'... Now how was this work going to get done...

I phoned the boss (who was in Singapore) and told him, and he said "Do you want me to come back and fire him?"

"Oh no.." I said in a calm voice "let me do it..."

I fired his ass, called him a liar, explained to him in depth the hole he had dug me in and threw him out the door. Did he cry? Oh yes... he cried like a girl. "Power, oh yes... delicious, just, righteous POWAH!"

Next two weeks I worked 12+ hour days, no weekends. Effing lying turd.

S
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 4:41, 3 replies)
Did you know
In the event of a fire i'm not allowed to scream "WE'RE ALL DOOMED!!"

Then run, crying out into the streets.

Apparently it's looked down upon and is ( I quote) "Not effective managerial conduct".
(, Fri 9 Jul 2010, 3:51, Reply)

This question is now closed.

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