Against "blankfaces"

Another reason someone might stick to the rules is if they think the rules carry more wisdom than their own judgement. Suppose you knew you weren't great at verbal discussions, and could be persuaded into a lot of different positions by a smart fast-talker, if you engaged with the arguments at all. You also trust that the rules were written by smart wise experienced people. Your best strategy is to stick to the rules and ignore their arguments.

Someone comes along with a phone that's almost out of battery and a sob story about how they need it to be charged. They ask if they can just plug it in to your computer for a bit to charge it. If you refuse, citing "rule 172) no customer can plug any electronics into your computer. " then you look almost like a blankface. If you let them plug the phone in, you run the risk of malware. If you understand the risk of malware, you could refuse because of that. But if you don't understand that, the best you can do is follow rules that were written for some good reason, even if you don't know what it was.

Yes, I think some web portals, and some software, are designed poorly because of malice. Not (usually) malice against users, but malice against managers and those setting requirements, when those people and their instructions are perceived as stupid and unreasonable.

One reaction to such demands is to deliver exactly what was requested - something stupid and unreasonable, in order to vividly demonstrate the stupid and unreasonable nature of the managers and requirements.

Sometimes professionalism, ethics, and dedication to user experience manage to overcome the natural human reaction to unreasonable requests. The more the developers are in an organization that rewards obedience over quality, the more likely the result will be due to malice.

I think the Umbridge version is uncontroversial: someone who uses existing rules or creates new rules (like the lifeguard in the Scott's description, or the agencies making it intentionally hard to get reimbursed) to disguise their real intentions, that have nothing to do with following the rules and everything with achieving nefarious goals, be it torturing HP, getting rid of a kid they don't like, or maybe getting a bonus for minimizing expenses. 

I'm guessing that the purpose of including the internal "they enjoy it" qualifier is the implication that that is the only motivation and that they have no "good" reason for their behavior. If someone chooses to uphold the stated rules because of liability or because they'll be fired if they don't or because they don't trust themselves to not be persuaded by clever arguments, then they're not a blankface.

Rather it's that I would have enjoyed punishing her, specifically, for acting in ways that I endorsedly think are bad to act in.

I think this mistakes what the discourse is about. You wouldn't give the refund because you believe that the women didn't deserve the refund. 

The woman didn't make an appeal to facts, logic or deserved compassion from your point of view. 

You would have rejected the demand of the woman out of courage and judgement and not out of bureaucratic indifference.

The biggest sin on the blankface is the disconnect what they claim affects them and what actually affects them.

My brain pretty quickly made 3 comparisons to similar sounding distinction. In the game Detroit: Become Human androids are by default "designer aligned" but few become "deviants" and there "being a machine" is seen as a state of low autonomy and moral inferiority (althougth also a social stability risk). In scenes where the "cop that does the mission at any cost" is paying heavy costs, flinching and anguishing about paying them is potrayed as the "good" option.

One could think that surprising and rigid reliance on structure could be an autistic trait that neurotypicals find alien and unpleasant. However a strong sense of justice and taking things literally points away from autism. An isolateds higly technical nitpick is likely to land which is opposite for blankfaced immunity.

In finnish culture there is pretty well known comedy sketch that might be pointing to this thing pretty squarely. It is the "thousand mark note expression". Paying a grand for a coffee and getting dollars in return with no aknowledgement that something has gone awry.

Note that in this instances it is a lack of rule adherence that is the unexpected part rather than rule adherence. It would not be comedic if pressure on the thing the person would sweat. One could also imagine that a typical person would break character either for nervous or amused laughter or out of shame. But this character here shows zero signs of effort to keep a "pokerface". It is as if they are exhibiting negative symptoms of absense of healthy emotions whos work would be needed in this situation. Handling cash there is no paper trail so what happens in a situation like this is pretty much word against word.

So I would say it is not about lack of empathy but more about exercising power because you have the position and ability to do so with low or zero accountability or regard for impact. With great power coming great self-expression instead of responcibility.

My impression is that the fact that it is hard to objectively determine why someone is enforcing the rules is part of the point. The effect on the woman in your example is the same either way, but I think the employee's internal state does matter in terms of how it affects the future health and functioning of the organization. The employee warned the woman of the risks, she took them anyway, then chose to complain. If she hadn't been warned, she'd have a point, and in that case refusing to give a refund just because it's the rule instead of making an exception, without giving a reason like "I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to, or I'll be fired," would be justifiably called blankfacing. It's worse if the employee knew about the crowdedness and deliberately chose not to say anything, than if they were unaware or just didn't think of it in time. It's much worse if the manager also refuses to bend the rules, because that should be part of what managers are for. In that case it would also be appropriate to refund the popcorn, or offer free tickets to a future showing.

I'm curious what you make of this example from my own life. After graduating college I got a job, moved in with my girlfriend, and leased a car. As a result, my name wasn't on the apartment lease (we were not in violation of zoning rules due to me living there, and the landlord knew I was moving in) or any of the bills (the accounts were already set up), and the car registration listed the leasing company's address, not mine. To park on the street I needed to get a town permit. I went to the police station and was told I wasn't allowed to get a resident permit because I couldn't prove residency. The RMV told me there was no way or need to change the address on my license, I just needed to write the new address on a sticker and put it on the ID; this wasn't good enough for the police station either (reasonable enough so far). I asked what I could do to prove residency under these circumstances, and the person at the police station said she didn't know. No one else in the apartment had a car, so it wasn't an amount-of-parking issue. We had a visitor's parking permit, and I used that for lack of a better option. I got a ticket for being a resident using a visitor's permit. I went back and explained this to the person who issues the permits, and she noted that yes, that's how the system works, and no I still can't have a permit, and yes I will keep getting and have to pay tickets. She admitted that the rules are set up that way to make it hard for students to prove residency and get parking permits, in order to preserve spots for non-student residents, and this was catching me even though I was not a student. So I went back at other days and times until a different person was working, and then I was able to get a permit no problem - same documentation. I think "blankface" describes the permit-refuser's behavior extremely well, at least after I got the ticket.