People who pretend they're warning you about rules as a way to establish dominance over you

So if someone warns you about others at work (or what the rules are), and it kind of seems like they're giving out to you while doing it, it may be difficult to stand up for yourself, because after all, they're giving you helpful advice! Has anyone noticed this with other staff when new on the job? Or did you ever get the feeling that that person would be the person who'd actually end up reporting you? and that they want to make you afraid of the higher-ups in order to get you to obey the rules. I find it patronising, and it leaves you wondering do they introduce it like that to everyone.

I first noticed this when I was working security. I was new and one guy at the same level as myself ended up showing me the ropes for a few hours. We were a sub-contracted company, and he was telling me about how we could get reported and fired very easily. He was saying stuff like "oh they're all watching us" and that they'd make mince meat outta you if you don't walk on the designated walking path, etc, etc. At one point he told me something (forget what) and he said "keep your mouth shut about that now". Interestingly, when he said it we were walking and he was slightly in front, and he stopped in order to emphasise the point, and gave the index finger gesture too, I think... I couldn't have ignored him and kept walking because I didn't know where we were going.

Later on in the day back at the main office where I met someone else, that topic came up again, and he said his "keep your mouth shut about that now" comment again. I said "I heard you the bloody first time". He didn't like that but I wasn't going to role play as the naive youngster. I could sense from him there and then that he was always going to treat me like the new guy, and that he was using this as a way of establishing dominance. If I ever end up training someone who I end up explaining some company rules to, and if I later see that person break those rules, then I couldn't care less.

Anyway, as I learned more about him in that job I found out that he was an absolute a-hole. I used to use my laptop for the 12 hour night shift. When he was taking over from me in the morning he said "and you've you're laptop up there for everyone to see from outside... I wouldn't do that, you know what they're like" with the finger waving. I told him to mind his own business. I wish I'd said "I know what you've told me they're like; the question is what are YOU like... I see that finger waving at me and I don't like it"!

Please share your experiences of people who've done the like of this to you.

 

What do you work as?

 

Franz Kafka dealt with this issue quite a bit in his stories---dominance and authority.

Coincidentally I just watched a movie on Roku----Corner Office, which, after watching 5 minutes of it when my wife had it on in the bedroom---I thought it must be a Kafka story. It turns out it was from the book, The Room, written by a Swedish author, who's books are very Kafkaesque.

The main character, who looks and sounds like someone you'd expect to be in a Kafka story, tries to assert his own dominance in a new job over the other characters, all of whom you'd expect to be secondary characters in a Kafka novel. It definitely presents and then exaggerates the alienation in the modern corporate world. For those who are unfamiliar with Kafka, and want to know what it 'feels like' to read Kafka----this movie nails it.

And by the way, "Keep your mouth shut about it now," also sounds like something the main character would be told in a Kafka story...