'Oh I’m not allowed to clean up early? Have it your way': University TA schools professor over unreasonable demand

Brad Dickson • Managing Editor

Apr 20, 2023 6:00 PM EDT

Sometimes the student becomes the teacher—and sometimes, the student-teacher becomes the teacher of the teacher-student. Funny how life works like that, isn't it?

The moral here is that you shouldn't ever assume that you know everything just because you're in charge; in fact, you'd do best to assume the opposite… A great leader is constantly learning themselves—after all, everyone has something to teach you—and identifying and utilizing other people's strengths is how you build a successful team.

This Master's student, who works as a TA, was embarrassed when the professor of the class rudely and publicly humiliated them in front of the class. They had made a habit of cleaning up early in order to streamline an intensive set-up and tear-down operation for the class's lab. When they happened to miss one student's question, the professor lost it and insisted that they not clean up early—even though the other TA and professor themselves weren't doing anything to move things along. This set things up for a classic and well-deserved case of malicious compliance.

Read on for the story, as it was shared to Reddit's r/MaliciousCompliance subreddit by u/Material-Egg7428. Next, check out