I cannot find a good equivalent of the Russian "Watchman's syndrome" in English. It refers to someone who thinks he's very important, but isn't.
For example, this guy has "Watchman's syndrome":
This expression is often used in Russian IT.
I cannot find a good equivalent of the Russian "Watchman's syndrome" in English. It refers to someone who thinks he's very important, but isn't.
For example, this guy has "Watchman's syndrome":
This expression is often used in Russian IT.
There is no word-for-word translation, and no single word that aptly encompasses the idea, color, and register of the Russian original. Rather, you have to step a bit back and translate your sentence as a whole.
The English equivalent to "у него синдром вахтера" is
That's the tiniest/smallest amount of power I have ever seen go to anyone's head.
This closely matches the Russian idiom in every respect, and is a perfectly idiomatic retort in the situation that you've quoted.
I am not aware of any English idiom that closely matches the Russian one you mention. Somewhat similar is the idiomatic set phrase paper tiger, which Merriam-Webster's Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary (2003) defines as follows:
paper tiger n (1850) : one that is outwardly powerful or dangerous but inwardly weak or ineffectual
On the topic of inflated self-regard, Wolfgang Mieder, A Dictionary of American Proverbs (1992) points to several English proverbs that seem on point:
Conceit is nature's gift to small men to make up for that which they don't have.
Conceit is God's gift to little men.
Every man has a right to be conceited until he is successful.
There is also an Aesop's fable that delivers a related moral. From "The Gnat and the Bull," in The Aesop for Children:
A Gnat flew over the meadow with much buzzing for so small a creature and settled on the tip of one of the horns of a Bull. After he had rested a short time, he made ready to fly away. But before he left he begged the Bull's pardon for having used his horn for a resting place.
"You must be very glad to have me go now," he said.
"It's all the same to me," replied the Bull. I did not even know you were there."
[Moral:] We are often of greater importance in our own eyes than in the eyes of our neighbor.
[Alternative moral:] The smaller the mind the greater the conceit.
The nearest I can think of is delusions of grandeur:
the belief that you are more important or powerful than you really are
This is used as a term in psychology but also informally for someone who is a bit above themselves. The dictionary page gives a few synonyms that might be relevant (eg officious, smart-alec, tin god, throw your weight. around ...)
Close, also, is jobsworth:
someone who always obeys all the rules of their job even when they cause problems for other people or when the rules are silly
This one is, I think, British English (only?)
Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder with a long-term pattern of abnormal behavior characterized by exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of empathy