Entitled teacher undermines coworkers in front of students, gets herself fired and the entire department investigated: ‘It [brought] me great satisfaction'

Author image for Elna McHilderson
Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor
Oct 31, 2025 8:00 PM EDT

In order for a professional working team to be successful, they need to have mutual respect for each other. If they start playing the power-hunger game and stepping on each other just to climb the ladder individually, the team will crumble. This can happen in all kinds of industries! You can see it even happing here with educational professionals. 

 

You would think that teachers would have more mature behavior when it comes to teamwork, but nope. Like we said, power hunger becomes insatiable in all industries. In the case of these educational professionals, it was a co-worker who undermined them all the time, even in front of the students. They weren't the full-time chaperones of these kids, but they were the ones that planned and took them out for fun field trips. It was a very satisfying job, because they worked at a specialized school and many of these students came from bad situations and these trips made them so happy. One day, these teachers uncovered that the entitled teacher was playing favoritism with the students and the immediately reported it to HR. 

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  • "I Got My Coworker Fired for Favoritism"

    Entitled teacher undermines coworkers in front of students, gets herself fired and the entire department investigated: ‘It [brought] me great satisfaction'
    via Unsplash+ (and Getty Images)

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

  • I just thought I'd share this story as it gives me great satisfaction. A few years ago, I (28F) worked at a facility that specialized in providing troubled young people with some form of education.
    via PureStar8861
  • Sometimes they got their GED, or just classes to learn a skill so they can get a job.
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  • Some of these young people were great, but many were from bad situations, had had issues in school, or just aged out of the foster care system.
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  • Regardless, the place was run very much like a juvenile detention center, though it wasn't technically that.
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  • There was a lot of security, and a big manned gate around the entire place. The students, if they lived at the facility, were not allowed to leave without permission or without being accompanied by a faculty member.
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  • There were strict rules and regulations for everything. I was hired to work in the department that provided entertainment and relaxation for the students outside of their scheduled class times.
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  • We organized events, arranged for special fully funded trips for the students, managed recreational equipment, all that stuff.
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  • I had several coworkers whom I worked with in this department. I'll call them Frodo (M20), Pippin (M26), and Merry (F40+).
    via PureStar8861
  • Entitled teacher undermines coworkers in front of students, gets herself fired and the entire department investigated: ‘It [brought] me great satisfaction'
    via Unsplash+ (and Getty Images)

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

  • It might not have been an immediate karmic reaction, in fact, almost all of the co-workers had quit by the time karma hit, but boy did she come for this entitled coworker. She not only got the can, she got the entire department investigated. 

  • Frodo, Pippin and I got along very well. We did our job, were friendly, and helped each other out.
    via PureStar8861
  • Merry, on the other hand, for some reason considered herself our supervisor, even though she had the same position as the rest of us.
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  • This was probably because she had been working there longer than we had, and was buddy buddy with the department manager-- I'll call him Bilbo (M30+).
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  • Merry was constantly trying to give us orders, berated us for things that were frankly none of her business, and would even contradict us or undermine our authority in front of students (very, very bad because it made them respect us even less than they already did).
    via PureStar8861
  • Merry would even try to call us individually to come into her office for "talks", and lecture us on how to do things or not do things, despite the fact we all had the exact same training and title.
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  • This made me, Pippin, and Frodo very uncomfortable and angry obviously, and each of us (separately) brought our complains to Bilbo.
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  • But Bilbo was a very soft-spoken, mild- mannered guy who didn't like conflict and was basically used to just letting Merry do her own thing, even taking over some of his own duties.
    via PureStar8861
  • Nothing changed, and even got worse, since Merry found out we had complained about her and knew nothing would happen.
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  • After several months of this, Pippin, Frodo and I were preparing for another big student trip, getting all the sign up sheets and paperwork printed and organized while complaining as usual.
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  • That's when Pippin made a discovery; there had been a change to the list of students attending this trip.
    via PureStar8861
  • Entitled teacher undermines coworkers in front of students, gets herself fired and the entire department investigated: ‘It [brought] me great satisfaction'
    via Unsplash+ (and Getty Images)

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

  • Now, for context, the way these trips worked (because we had limited vehicles, drivers, and money), was students could pick and choose from a selection of trips which ones they wanted to go on.
    via PureStar8861
  • Depending on how many wanted to go to what, if there were too many for a specific trip, they got bumped down to their second or third choice of trip, or, if all the trips were super popular and booked, would have to wait until the next round of trips.
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  • If they ended up having to wait, however, they were immediately put on a list of students to get first pick for the next series of trips.
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  • New students were supposed to get priority over older students, since the students who had been there longer had been on many previous trips.
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  • However, according to the logs that Pippin had found, new students were regularly getting bumped to the "wait" list, but never getting to actually go anywhere.
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  • Other students who'd been there a while, had been on the wait list for months, but were always getting bumped down to less popular trips, and their places taken, oddly enough, by the same group of students that were constantly hanging around Merry.
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  • Big amusement park? Names switched by Merry to her fav students. Water park? Same group. Big movie
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  • Same group. Every time. She was literally playing favorites, changing the names last minute so that the students she liked got to go with her on the most fun, most expensive trips.
    via PureStar8861
  • Pippin, Frodo and I debated what to do with this information. We knew Bilbo would do nothing about it, and figured he probably knew about it anyway.
    via PureStar8861
  • Entitled teacher undermines coworkers in front of students, gets herself fired and the entire department investigated: ‘It [brought] me great satisfaction'
    via Unsplash+ (and Adam Winger)

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

  • So, all three of us decided to go to HR. At the same time. With everything.
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  • All our complaints, evidence, the works. The HR person told us that the situation would be investigated thoroughly.
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  • So we went back to work. Days passed. Nothing changed. I got fed up after Merry humiliated me publicly once again, and quit (it wasn't my only job, just a side gig).
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  • Pippin and Frodo quit too, not long after I did, though Frodo stayed the longest. He told us that Merry had been investigated, and then Bilbo had been investigated.
    via PureStar8861
  • And last we heard, Merry got fired, and the entire department was basically shut down. Guess there was more going on than even we knew.
    via PureStar8861
  • Crazy, right? Pippin, Frodo and I are still friends btw and hang out on occasion. Yes you can call me Sam (no these are not our real names, no real names were used).
    via PureStar8861

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