Power trips might seem harmless to the person in charge, but they usually come with a cost.

What would you do if your boss made it crystal clear that you weren’t important enough to be trusted with responsibility, but then tried to hand you extra work anyway?

Would you just grin and bear it?

Or would you take their own words and flip the script?

In the following story, one near-retiree finds himself in a similar position.

Here’s what he does.

Fiscal responsibility – all right then

About 20 years ago, I worked for a small state agency where supervisors, quality reviewers, and trainers were all on the same pay scale, and you could transfer from one area to the other.

One of the supers was promoted to area manager (4 areas in the state), and our office dynamics changed.

Normally, these 3 classifications were back ups for the security system (manager was fully responsible) and if the manager and all the sups were out of the office, one of us (slightly lesser) reviewer/trainer was ‘in charge’.

Fast-forward six months.

Upper Management scheduled a two-day training for the manager and the supers.

I made the mistake of asking who was in charge while they were gone.

The new manager looked at me and said, “None of you are in charge since you don’t have the fiscal responsibility that I and the supers have.”

The supervisor’s quote came back to bite him.

It was said in a put you in your place voice.

Me, nearing retirement, thinks – Cool, one less headache for me .. what I said was, “Glad to know that.”

Fast-forward four months, and it’s time to rotate the security system backup team (team).

The manager looks at me and my partner and says that it’s QR’s turn.

I look at the manager and say, “It would seem that if QR doesn’t have fiscal responsibility and can’t be ‘in charge’ when management is out, then QR can’t be responsible for security backup.”

My manager opened her mouth, shut her mouth, and turned a interesting hue of red.

We get out of the meeting and my partner and the trainers are all happy as am I.

The 4 sups, not so much.

Wow! He saved that for the perfect moment.

Let’s see what the folks over at Reddit have to say about people like this.

Here are some great thoughts.

This would actually help.

Great question.

Oh, so true!

Bet he didn’t see that coming!

Next time, he should watch his words a bit more carefully.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.