How respond to implied "lower rank" in casual chats?

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I randomly see an acquaintance from the library on the street.

I make a joke about "breaking the 4th wall" etc.
Then i was thinking about something I wanted to ask, and she says

"you can go now".

This suggests a "authority-disciple" structure, and while I am willing to brush this
off as a joke, this has happened with another woman who said
"you are dismissed".

i just find this kind of weird, and wonder if and how I should counter this.

I'd assume that they do not want to chat or be friends with you for whatever reason. I would just say By & leave & in the future not initiate chit-chat/random conversation with them. Trying to respond to those statements could upset them & it's not worth having an argument.

I've noticed patronising behaviour from casual acquaintances, but never as blatantly as those examples. I'm tempted to think they were joking, and I guess if it happened to me then I'd have laughed, and if that upset them, I'd know I'd been dealing with an elitist pig.

I once tried a similar kind of humour myself, at work. I can't remember the exact context, but I put on a snooty accent and said "well, I am senior technician." To my surprise and dismay, they took it seriously and called me out for thinking myself above them. I still don't know why they didn't see the joke.

I did get away with telling a lawn-mowing man in the USA, "Get on with your work," but he was very into taking the mickey out of British snobbery, and continued the joke by saying something very subservient. I remember feeling I was taking a bit of a risk when I made that remark to him.

My general advice for dealing with patronising behaviour is to subvert, ridicule and undermine it, as long as you don't particularly need that person's co-operation, and even if you do, it might be worth the risk.

There was a guy at work who lampooned the manager's patronising words with an impression of Igor from the Frankenstein movies and the remark "yes, master." I laughed out loud, couldn't help it. He was in a high enough position to get away with it. Technically I wasn't, but AFAIK I got away with it too. I was a valued worker, though the manager never admitted it to me. She was unusual - often condescending to your face but if she approved of you she would speak highly of you behind your back. It took me a while to find that out. My respect for her went up when I did.

Unfortunately given the off-hand nature, and pervasiveness here I sadly just think they are all
obsessed with hierarchy and being narcissists.

Sorry this just gave me Hogan's heroes vibes. I'm wondering if we are losing something in translation from German? is this the equivalent in English of a senior staff member saying "ok that's all for now, I've got another meeting". Or is English a little more refined in niceties but effectively similarly dismissing a lower ranked individual?

They know what it means. They even use english expressions sporadically in between German. I spoke to a local and she said she would also be offended and told me to see it as a "no" to the relationship, and forgive them. Then she told me about her good friend dumped her for "better friends" and she had to forgive her friend also. It's just a fairly toxic hierarchical social environment where people treat friends as a scarce commodity, but also only have a few friends.

Sadly most of the workplaces are abusive and this is where it comes from. Left over from soviet times. I have heard "I want to murder my boss", and "I would have killed myself if I hadn't found this job", on several occasions.

Last edited by __Elijahahahaho on 26 Feb 2025, 4:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Can you share a video or describe what you mean by this?

Ah, Germany.......it does kind of remind me of the stereotype - the love of hierarchy and order. But I doubt that's a good explanation. Stereotypes rarely have much truth in them.

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