'Most of us simply ignored her...But a dozen of us decided to comply': Principal ignores teacher's schedule, ruins her own Friday

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jan 31, 2023 5:00 PM EST

School testing is an important part of a student's year, and these tests have to be administered with exact time measurements. This teacher shared their experience with this on r/MaliciousCompliance – they got to talk to their boss in a way that most people only dream of!

As u/Djorgal shared, they work part time as a math teacher in France. Since they only work part-time, they kept telling their principal that they wouldn't be able to cover the entirety of the student's upcoming tests. With the teachers having to come in early for the testing, this teacher wouldn't be able to stay the entire day without breaking the rules of their employment. And of course, after giving the principal ample notice about their part time status, this teacher got to tell her off in a very epic way.

Next, read this hilarious saga of Kevin the grocery store manager who was determined to catch the thief stealing his precious tuna sandwich lunch. 

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  • 01
    Purple - X 3 18 5 x 5 63 6 3 X 4 'I look at her face while she gathers her thoughts. In three seconds, she went from confusion, to realization, to anger. X 07/0 x 9 0 AO AN
    via Chris Liverani on Unsplash
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    Font - r/r/MaliciousCompliance Posted by u/Djorgal 2 days ago The principal of the school asked everyone to be 30 min early for the exam. 30 or so hours of overtime were paid, and she had to monitor students herself.
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  • 03
    Font - (I'm not a native English speaker, I apologize if I make mistakes) I'm a teacher. The principal we had at our school was the kind who got to this position because it was a way to escape teaching students (she was a teacher before taking the exam to be principal, which is common) and to flaunt the little authority it got her.
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  • 04
    Font - One of the issues I had with her was about punctuality. She was especially a hard a about it, which would have been fine if she weren't herself systematically late to everything. I loathe hypocrites, and it makes our job especially difficult to ask students to be on time at classes when the principal was half an hour late at a meeting she scheduled herself with their parents. Come the end of year and with it, time for the Baccalauréat (final exam of high school). The students start to rec
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  • 05
    Font - A few days later, the teachers received their own convocations to monitor the tests (it's usual to get them after the students, though it was particularly late this year). For us, the scheduled time of the test is correct, but it was mentioned on each of our convocations that we had to be present 30 minutes before the start of each test. I mean, we aren't going to be present at 8:00 exactly if the test is scheduled to start at that time. We don't want to screw the students over. We need a
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  • 06
    Font - Most of us simply ignored her and came to the exam on time as usual. But a dozen of us decided to comply and we sent her emails tallying up the total number of hours we'd be working that week adding that half hour before each test. She answered some bulls that our tallies were wrong because she wasn't counting the half hour. We let that pass, we complied and my colleagues declared their overtime. In the end that came to about 30 hours of overtime total for doing jack s that had to be paid
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  • 07
    Font - Comes Friday. I sent a new email, reminding her about the upcoming issue. No answers. The last 4-hour test of the week starts at 13:00. At 14:25, I ask my colleague monitoring the next room over (who was in on the plan) to cover for me for 5 min. There's a door between the exam rooms, we can stand there and watch both rooms to let the other take a bathroom break or something like that. I go to the principal's office. I remind her that there is a room full of students with 2h30 left and I
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  • 08
    Font - Now, as a teacher, I take pride in my punctuality and my ability to finish my speech exactly on time. I also purposefully timed this one. Just after I told her I was leaving, I look at my watch, it's 3 seconds to 14:30. I look at her face while she gathers her thoughts. In three seconds, she went from confusion, to realization, to anger and just as she's about to answer, it's time, so I turn around and walk away.
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  • 09
    Font - "What are you doing! Stay here! We're not finished!" I answer without looking back, "Sorry, it's 14:30. My work is done. I'm not being paid to listen to you." I leave while I hear her half coherent threats. She followed me, of course, but couldn't really talk loudly in the corridors while the exam was taking place. Plus, she still knows that loudly berating a teacher in public in full view and hearing of students would be extremely unprofessional, and she's the one who'd get in trouble fo
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  • 10
    Font - I leave as he greets her, thus intercepting her for me. I learned that she had to monitor the students herself, which must have pi her off something fierce because she leaves early on Fridays.
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  • 11
    Font - Next week, obviously, she requested that we had a talk in her office. I went with my union representative. We explained to her that it was not difficult to prove that she was the one in the wrong and that if she wanted to escalate the issue, we would have no problem getting it to the administrative tribunal. My union representative also made the open threat of a strike, that I and those who declared their overtime had the support of the union and teaching staff.
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    Font - TLDR: Principal asked all teachers, in writing, to be there 30 min early for exams. Most ignored it, some did and declared it as overtime, I left early on exam day, forcing her to monitor the students herself.
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    Font - (B) SlumberousSnorlax - 1 day ago I love France so much u guys know how to stand up for workers rights
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    Font - desertrock62 +3 - 2 days ago Sometimes we all gotta abandon our principals. 3.1k Reply Share Djorgal OP 2 days ago In French, she's a "proviseur", but saying that she was only provisional ("provisoire") works. It's true too, she didn't stay very long after that (but for other issues). "Principal" is also a French word, but they are the head of a "collège", which is a middle- school. A "college" is "université". That makes translations fun.
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    Font - Milkshake Boy78 +1 2 days ago principals should always have good principles.
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    Human body - Raydnt 1 day ago They certainly werent a princi-pal
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  • 17
    Font - The Fox Confessor 1 day ago Why is it that when non-native English speakers apologise in advance for poor English it is normally better than most native English speakers.
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    Font - Djorgal OP 18 hr. ago To be honest, in my case I also used it as a way to preface that my story was not happening in the US. But I'm not really worried about grammar or spelling mistakes. Proofreading and a spellchecker mostly remove that issue. I'm worried about mistranslation of idioms and technical terms. For example, I talked about students and teachers receiving their "convocations" when it should have been their "summons". It's a weird mistake for a native speaker.
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    Font - Professor OfEyes . 2 days ago That's wild. Where I live teachers literally aren't legally allowed to strike or have a proper union or they can take away teaching licenses. And of course teachers are always expected to work more hours than theyre paid (basically only paid for the actual school hours, coming to school early and staying late and grading hours not being counted).
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  • 20
    Font - Djorgal OP 2 days ago In France it's a bit different because teachers have a specific status. We don't even have an employment contract, our working conditions, perks and duties, are defined by statutes. We're not really paid for working a number of hours. We have "missions" that we have to accomplish. Missions such as giving class 18 hours per week (or 15 hours per week depending on which exam you passed to become teacher), grading, preparing, interacting with parents, a few statutory me
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  • 21
    Font - So, yeah, for us as well, we're expected to work way more than just giving class. But it is accounted in the fact that working full-time is 18h (or 15) of giving class. If we are being technical, we are not even really being paid to work. What we receive is called a treatment, not a salary, and we receive it as a perk of our status. In theory, both perks (such as being paid) and duties (such as having to work) stem from our status, one is not reward for doing the other. Though in practice
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  • 22
    Font - tmobmem 1 day ago I was literally reading this going "overtime for teachers... amazing..."
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    Font - redditreader_aitafan 2 days ago . She had to have been part of the union as a teacher, there's no way she didn't know better.
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  • 24
    Font - Djorgal OP 2 days ago She wasn't a teacher then, she used to be, but that was long before and those who take the exams to become principal are very rarely the kind to be in a union. Plus, there are quite a few different unions. Teachers' unions are national organizations, but union representatives in a school can help organize local, communal, departmental or national actions. It's also very rare for a school staff to be on strike specifically against their principal. They're ultimately m
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  • 25
    Font - danktonium 1 day ago This entire block of text had that oh- so delightful Frenchness to it. That stick everyone has up their a, only to be taken out when using it to beat whoever wears the jackboot to death. 31 Reply Share Djorgal OP 1 day ago Fair enough. ...
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  • 26
    Font - +3. 2 days ago She must not've been a math teacher. CoderJoe1 24 Reply Share Djorgal OP 2 days ago No, I believe she used to teach history/geography. I am a math teacher.
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