Yeah, my reading of this is that this poster took particular personal satisfaction from denying an application, but it didn't cross my mind that there was any element of actual control or decisionmaking.

It's like when someone cuts you off and then crashes their car. You didn't cause the crash, and a crashed car is a much more severe punishment than simple rudeness would deserve, but you can still derive satisfaction from the sequence of events.

That is definitely not true. But that’s not the context I meant.