Authority over you
Back in 2017, when I was working at redacted, I had this incident in my life that rubbed me the wrong way about culture and people in that company. The structure in that company was such that my manager was this distant person that used to barely interact directly with the team and the team had a so-called "team lead", who would be the manager in action. With no authority on paper but much in action the lead would call most of the shots. I had been working in the company for little over 7 months and mostly in the same team about 5 months with the same team lead. But the lead was also involved in a lot of traveled and we had become rather asynchronous due to time-zone differences and just the nature of my work.
The way life was back then, I used to live about 30km away from the office, which isn't much in terms of office distance but this being in redacted, it would take me 2-2.5hrs one way. Insane thinking I was doing this crazy commute. To make life slightly easier, the company would provide a means of transport, a common bus for all the folks in that area. The bus would leave sharp at 6:30pm. When meant for me I would have to leave at 6:30pm if I wanted to be ferried home. If I missed the bus and tried to make it home on my own the commute would be north of 3 hours plus a bunch of local train changes and what not. Yes, I should have just moved closer to office but that was how things were back then.
One fine evening I wrap up everything at work and head home. Just like any other day and any other persons life, there are items pending for the next day - which I would look at in the morning. These items were not critical by any means. I sit in the bus and go on my own way home. Life is alright until I receive a call from my team lead. I pick it up and he's furious about some item still being worked on. I say I'll get it done first thing in the morning, I was done for the day. And he knowing all these commute complexities, says no. He says get off the bus right now and take a ride back to office and work on this right now and get it done right now. Wow. I never take nicely to such uncalled for authority. I say no. He say's he'll make life hell for me if I don't do it right now.
I didn't.
That makes me wonder how can people have the feeling of having such authority over you? How can someone feel like they can dictate your actions without any reason? All of this was just a power trip. There had been few other incidents in the past but this was just a power trip and a means of displaying authority over me.
There were stupid consequences (mostly just for me). Life was not really great in the company after that. I did tell management about the incident - no actions were taken for the lead, AFIK. I eventually left the company for greener pastures.
But to this day, I think about the idea of a persons authority over someone else. What makes someone feel that giving a threat would make the other person act in a certain manner? Maybe at that time in life, I didn't have too much to lose from non-compliance, but would I act differently today, with so much more to lose? Would that act of power, be effective on me today?
I don't know. I won't know until something life that happens, fortunately something such hasn't happened to that degree since.