WOULD you ideally like the power of life and death over others, but have to make do with minimal authority? Here’s how to pretend you’re Caligula anyway:
Be a professional harbinger of doom
Plumber? Scare every homeowner shitless with a tale of a leaking pipe that quietly waterlogged a house until it had the structural integrity of a wet tissue. The insurance didn’t cover it, naturally. Who’d have thought replacing a washer would have people cowering at dark forces only you can defeat?
Make an anodyne office a place of fear
In the real world, people don’t take one second of shit from a nobody like you. In your minor management roleyou have the power to hire and fire, to ruin a life with a performance review, and to rule a tiny kingdom of fear. The office atmosphere is toxic enough to have a lab rat clawing its own brain out and it’s all down to you.
Learn every petty rule
Even the little ones. As a train conductor, it’s your job to sneer at naive customers asking for a ticket from London to Liverpool via Manchester as if they’ve just requested the moon on a presentation stand. Inform them they could have saved £60 by splitting their ticket between Milton Kenyes and Presto but they didn’t, like morons.
Guard the gates with your very life
Do you stand between the public and someone really important, like a doctor or judge? Act as if you’re manning the drawbridge at a castle. Never let anyone through. Every patient stuck at home with itchy piles is a marauding Mongol warrior kept safely at bay.
Threaten to walk
Builders, unjustly, don’t have the powers of the Gestapo. But they can threaten to leave an extension half-finished. Leave this possibility hanging darkly in the air to continue to be brought tea and Homewheat by the lady of the house as a grovelling offering to her new masters.
Split hairs
Get into detail. Was that car really parked between the lines, or slightly over? Can the driver prove they haven’t overstayed their 30 minutes, or haven’t returned within two hours? Don’t they realise your power is absolute in this situation and they exist at your whim?
Relish the delivery of bad news
‘I’m afraid there will be no further flights today,’ should be said with an undercurrent of sadistic joy to the couple missing their daughter’s wedding. ‘Sorry, no refunds,’ should be your favourite sentence. ‘Nothing we can do, sir,’ should convey your barely-concealed delight. You love working with people. It’s so rewarding.
