High school teacher with hearing impairment gets job stolen by colleage, gets to watch her struggle to adjust to the new position: ‘What has taken me minutes is taking Tenny sometimes hours’

Author image for Ely Bulnes
Ely Bulnes • Writer and Editor
Aug 26, 2025 4:00 PM EDT

Being a teacher is incredibly tough, and I'm not even talking about the usual teacher stuff. Yes, lesson planning, grading mountains of assignments, dealing with concerned parents, and essentially being a second parent to hundreds of kids throughout you life are difficult to manage, but they are the expected job requirements. Anyone who's worked in education knows that there's a whole other side to the job: staff dynamics. The teacher cliques and petty rivalries can have many teachers feeling like they're back in high school in more ways than one. 

I was a teaching assistant for a few months after college and witnessed firsthand just how tense the workplace can get behind-the-scenes at a place of education. Thankfully, no drama was directed at me, but the teacher I was assigned to assist gave me so much second-hand stress from constantly dealing with deliberate miscommunication and near-sabotage on the part of her fellow educators. This is around the time I learned that the kids are definitely the least problematic aspect of working in education.

This is the sort of tension that is at the center of this story, wherein in a teacher with both hearing challenges and a talent for data and parent communication is totally undermined by her new boss and colleague. Eventually, she is replaced, despite being very competent at her job. Despite the loss of her official title, what happens next is the best type of comeuppance a teacher could ask for. 

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  • 01

    Colleague stole my position and now I get to watch her struggle worse than I did in it

    Teacher looking through paperwork
    via Monkey Business Images

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 02
    k TL;DR: Fellow teacher says I s at my job and gets my new boss to agree with her. She gets my position and realizes things weren't as easy as she thought they were. I get to sit back and watch her struggle to even do half of what I was capable of.
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    I'm a teacher at a decently affluent public school. For the most part, I love my job. I've made genuine friends among staff members and the students make the hard work worth it.
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    There are, of course, the negative parts of teaching you always hear about: low pay, grading on off hours, etc. But for the most part, the deal has been good.
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    A few years back, I was recognized by my old boss as a potential leader in the building. He stressed to me that I was very data oriented and likeable among my colleagues. I know my way
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    around Google Sheets and Excel when it comes to collecting and organizing student data and am really solid with parent communication. I was hesitant but eventually I agreed
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    and became a "leader" for a group of teachers and students at the school, in charge of organizing meetings, overall student educational success, etc. That old boss who promoted me left and I was stuck with a new boss who I didn't know well.
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    Here's where things get messy: I have sensory processing disorder and mild hearing loss. It's hard to explain but sometimes I genuinely do not hear things correctly. Think if you said "I'm
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    going to pick up Stacy", I might hear something like "I'm gone just wait and see". This happens at least once a day and usually isn't that big of a deal. Unfortunately it isn't curable but I manage.
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    In meetings with my new boss, my new boss would push strategies that were based around focusing on students whose state test scores were almost passing. The idea was that you would focus on all students but give extra attention to these guys.
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    These initiatives were never written down and I would find out later that was because the legality of such a thing is iffy at best. When these ideas were shared with me, I would
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    constantly ask the boss after the meeting to repeat herself and then check my notes to make sure I heard her correctly. I noticed at the time that she was passively frustrated that I would do this, even though I explained I had a hearing disorder.
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    Looking back, I wonder if she felt pressured knowing what we were doing wasn't kosher and if I made a bad impression.
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    Now to introduce the main character of the story, who I'll call Tenny, since she's the coach of the tennis team. Tenny is well liked by staff members
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    for her years of service toward our community in a particular area. I also liked Tenny a lot and figured she'd be a great team member. Tenny,
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    however, like my boss, became repeatedly frustrated when I would miss things she would say to me, especially in crowded high school hallways. Sometimes she would even
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    shout something to me as she walked past me. This led to many gaffs and mistakes. I asked her repeatedly to pause and make sure I got what she was saying or just to email me. Nothing changed.
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    A tennis team of children
    via andresr from Getty Images Signature

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

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    There were at least five or six big moments that my hearing wasn't accommodated for when a simple email could have solved the problem. Just as one example, my new boss came into the hallway to let us know that an assembly location was being changed. We were to take the
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    students to a new area, not the old one. Of course, I heard a change but I didn't hear the location. Tenny was the only one nearby. I tapped my ear (which I usually do to indicate I didn't hear something) and asked where we were going. Tenny quickly responded and walked away and I, once again,
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    didn't understand. Cue me and my students walking into the assembly five minutes late after walking them around the building in confusion. My new boss asked what happened and I told her simply that I didn't hear her correctly.
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    Woman pointing to her ear
    via Africa images

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

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    Weeks later, I was called into a meeting with my new boss and she told me that I was going to lose my leader position due to inconsistency and "disrespect toward colleagues". I asked her which colleagues and she told me that that was private. I asked her how I was disrespectful and she
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    said that "sometimes you get frustrated when you say you can't hear things and tap your ear". I said that that was the ASL sign for "hear", as in, "I can't hear you". She said that I should have communicated that. I said that I've asked for written communication constantly. She said I shouldn't always expect it. I knew it
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    was a losing game and any explanation I would provide would just be shot down. I loved the school and the community and fighting new boss was only going to lead to more problems.
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  • It's crazy that no one bothered to ask her about the ear tapping thing or bring it up to her in any way and that they just assumed it was some sort of passive-aggressive gesture. 

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    I shouldn't have been surprised when a school wide email went out that Tenny was getting the leader position. Tenny was praised by colleagues in Reply Alls and it was frustrating to say the least. I know that she was the one who complained and it was extremely bitter for me to see her rewarded for it.
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    Cue the next school year. Tenny comes into my room and asks me for the student data sheets that I created with Google Sheets. I told her, truthfully, that even if I did share them with her that there wasn't anything she could do with them. I brought her over to my computer and showed her the formulas I worked with and how I
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    needed to adjust them every time a new student, section, etc. was added to the roster. She then asked me if I could just continue updating these sheets outside of my leader position. I told her as professionally as possible that I would love to teach her how to do all of these things but would need a stipend to do so. She asked if any of
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    the other leaders were doing what I did. I said they weren't. I was the only one and always had been. I'm a bit ashamed I didn't take joy in seeing
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    Tenny's face go cold when she realized I wouldn't fold and there was nothing she could do except cope with hours of data work per year or become proficient with Sheets/Excel, something I knew she wasn't going to do.
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  • Sounds like she was so good at her job that she made it look easy, then when Tenny tried to do the same, she realized it wasn't! I really hope she finds a better school that appreciates her talents. 

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    Woman stressed out by a message on her phone
    via Alex Green from Pexels

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

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    And the real kicker: the parents. Parents of students 99% of the time are a joy to work with. I really mean that. It's so fun to work with the parents of the people I care the most about. But it's the 1% that make your life a living hl. I have overheard
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    Tenny complaining about being on the phone with a 1% parent for 45 minutes, losing her entire grading time. A call like that would have taken me about 5 minutes tops since I have the experience of knowing how to stop circular arguments and get the parent on my side for an issue.
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  • 34
    What has taken me minutes is taking Tenny sometimes hours. Yes, she's getting my 1.5K stipend now but I no longer have to deal with extra meetings, extra parent phone calls, miscommunication, etc. She's getting all the pain I got and more. I feel ashamed that I'm taking so much joy for this but Tenny made my life h_l in a place I otherwise love. Have fun, Tenny!
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