“Power without Status”

Sounds about right to me:

“A new study shows that people holding positions of power with low status tend to demean others. The research reveals why clerks can seem rude or why Abu Ghraib prison guards humiliated and tortured inmates.”

Possibly the nastiest people I ever met were the two women who used to run the driver’s license place close to where I grew up. They put absolutely everyone through the pettiest humiliations imaginable, until finally the number of letters to the editor of the local newspapers increased, and someone must have laid down the law, because after years of this behavior I went in one day and they were smiling and helpful.

I also knew someone who worked in a Post Office, whose co-worker enjoyed telling customers they were out of stamps, even though they had hundreds still available.

Another one of the most vicious reactions I ever received: a Greyhound bus driver who became so contemptuously angry at me for handing him my ticket still in the envelope (oh no!) that you’d have thought he was a cop catching me driving drunk down the wrong side of the street near a children’s playground.

Dealing with the IRS [NOTE: that’s the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. taxation authority] is often horrific for the same reason, even if you’re just phoning to ask them a simple question.

But that’s a nice formula: “power without status.” Definitely bad news anytime someone has it.

Where are the pockets of power without status in the intellectual world? I invite you to speculate for yourself.