Unfortunately, when you are an airline passenger, you essentially forfeit all of your rights the minute you step onto the aircraft. If you are lucky, you will get a great flight crew. If not.......just keep (silently) repeating to yourself over and over again that a well-written complaint letter after-the-fact will ensure that any power-tripping FA will be........re-trained.
I once had an FA tell me that I could not keep my under-the-seat bag stowed under 21D (I was sitting on 22D on a 321), because 22D was an exit row seat, and it was a Federal Regulation. My bag was fully stowed, by the way. After dozens of times sitting in that very seat, I knew that she was wrong (or if she was correct, US and other airlines never enforce the regulation)........but I silently complied. The only reason why I did not report her after-the-fact is that at some point during the middle of the flight I went to the rear galley and we started chatting, and she was actually very nice. She got off easy that day!
