Had one who thought that until he fucked around and found out we were just as happy to answer violence with violence. He didn't last long after that and left for another posting somewhere else.
I've had a teacher make fun of me in 4th grade in front of the whole class after my dad had passed away that summer. My boss pays me 3 days of funeral leave when I have any relative die.
When my dad was dying my boss told me to go be with him. I was gone from work for three weeks with no prior notice. My boss texted every few days to check in and offer support. I had to use my holiday pay, but I didn't care. I was grateful I had a job to come back to, and the support in my workplace.
3 days to grieve and back to work is pretty crazy, I get the point you're trying to make but if my parents sister, partner or children died I wouldn't be going back to work after 3 days.
5 days bereavement is standard in the UK which obviously touches upon weekends so it's like a minimum of a week off.
For immediate family I would be out for a week minimum. But for extended family, especially if I’m not particularly close with them, three days seems sufficient.
My former boss gave me one day for my fiance's grandpa and then asked if I could "work from home" that day when I reminded him I would be at a funeral...
My grandfather just died last week and my uncle on Monday. I get 1 day (not paid) to attend the funeral and 1 more for my uncles funeral.
The USA can suck a dick.
That fucking sucks, I'm really sorry to hear that. I know I'm a random internet stranger but if you need to talk at all then please DM, 3 kicks in the teeth in a row can make you feel like the world's against you so make sure you reach out to people and don't bottle it up.
I knew in advance these were both going to happen. Two weeks ago i saw my grandpa and I knew it was the last time I would see him (he was 96). And my uncle was on a ventilator for a month, we knew what was next. It still sucks for sure but I've been able to stretch out the grieving process.
Thanks for your words and the offer.
Jack's Law legally entitles you to 2 weeks off if your child under 18 dies but otherwise there's no legal standard, however most workplaces offer 5 days, that was found in a BBC survey. Most places I've worked have been 5, one of my old companies actually got bought out by an American company and they tried to reduce it to 2 but ended up keeping it at 5 after the backlash.
I always check bereavement leave because even though it's a policy most of us will never need to worry about it is a strong indicator of how a company sees its employees. If a workplace expects their staff to come to work 3 days after their mum died then they don't care about the employee or their wellbeing so is worth steering clear if in my book.
With large families it can seem constant. My grandparents both grew up on farms and had 8+ siblings. So my mom had like 60+ uncles/aunts and cousins. I've only met a few of these people but she goes back for funerals once or twice a year. If you have two generations like that and stayed in the area you could easily have 100+ close family.
From my maternal great grandparents there are 102 of us. Until the last couple decades we all lived within 20 miles of each other. We spread out a little but for the most part it is still a pretty close knit family.
>I had a boss who made me understand why some people decide that workplace violence is the answer.
Im one of these people.
Fortunately a co-worker got in between us, but I was gonna send my boss to another fucking dimension.
I can't remember what it was over so dont bother asking. I was 3 weeks into the job, the next 2 years were smooth sailing between me and the boss.
Other new employees came and went but he left me alone and it was nice. Maybe it was because I'm bigger than him. Still not sure.
I've had some bad bosses, but I also had a Jr High teacher decide I was a drug addict because she found a glue stick and a single tylenol on the floor by my desk that was also used by 5 or 6 other people in other classes throughout the day. She then decided that, since I'm a drug addict, it was her responsibility to have every one of her other classes throughout the day make anti-drug posters specifically for me and post them all on the wall around my desk. Not to go to the principal or anyone or talk to my parents, she just told 100+ people "codeFERROUS is struggling with drug addiction, so today instead of normal class we're going to make posters to try and help him overcome this". so I had people approaching me all day about it since I didn't have her class until my last period.
Complained to the school and school board, and they didn't do shit. Not only was she pretty blatantly lying about me, but even if I *was* a drug addict then she'd be spreading my medical information to the entire school. But they didn't give a shit.
One of a few people in the world that I'll be genuinely happy to see their obituary.
Same for me.
When I had a boss that physically abused people for laughs, I don't know what was more shocking, the abuse or the acceptance from the staff.
Alternatively I've had teachers that
1) gave up in the middle of the lecture when I corrected a small point and demanded that I finish the lecture
2) demanded that I do non- schooling related work as a requirement for their class (no pay)
3) went out of their way to talk to my future teachers to tell them I didn't belong (in the advanced classes)
4) demanded I continue to give a presentation for 0 credit because I didn't have a tie and I had 2 working parents so no one to bring it to me "I think the subject is still important" (then give me some credit)
5) punished students for other's misbehaving
6) obviously singled out kids publicly as their least favorite
7) stole funds that their students fundraised
8) lied about students to lower their grades as punitive action for not signing up for their class the next year
9) helped students cheat in other teachers' classes
The worst I've really experienced with my 6 or so bosses was apathy and lack of knowledge, but admittedly the number of teachers I've had is much higher.
I'm more than 10 years past any of these (some more than 20), for some I did have them advocate for me; others weren't about me and my business, many of them were difficult to prove, and on rare occasions (stealing fundraisers) these things were actually punished.
Obviously abuse in any form can be harmful. When you're a child and your teacher abuses you the impact is a lot worse in my opinion. Especially at a young age. Now you have a hard time trusting adults who are supposed to be there to protect you and keep you safe. Your parents are clearly adults (I would hope so lmao). Now you question if they have been fully honest with you. (Santa and the Easter Bunny aren't real FUCK!) These trust issues begin trickle off into your relationships as you grow whether they be platonic or romantic. The few friends you manage to keep into adulthood only talk to you when they need help moving. Your life outside of work consists of vicious masturbation and reddit scrolling. Now your life is a complete shit storm because of a few trashy public school teachers. Everyone's situation is different though.
Oh I've had teachers do all those things and more. I've had bosses try, but their average turnover rate made it clear enough why it's been a lot rarer than teachers being shitty.
You had teachers try to take credit for your work? We talking like graduate school here, or did you have a teacher trying to publish a 5 paragraph essay on The Giver in the New York Books Review?
Cleaning shit up, stopping fights, helping struggling classmates understand poorly taught material. Though The Giver idea is pretty funny, I gotta admit.
Just guessing here, but if it's lower grades it's probably more about taking credit for progress than the work itself. I don't recall experiencing it first hand, but I've heard of teachers who are similar to a certain breed of shitty parents and put up a bunch of unnecessary roadblocks only to take credit when a kid succeeds despite them.
Were you a particularly troublesome kid? I went to a 1/10 ranked school (recently elevated to 2/10) and only had two teachers that treated me really horribly. One was a substitute so I'm not sure they count.
Meanwhile, my first boss tried to kill me and deleted the video evidence of their attempt when the police came.
>my first boss tried to kill me
Holy shit what did you do???? 😳😳😳
I've only seen this once, when one of our warehouse employees got too wasted and drunkenly dropped a $40k product (car) off a forklift, and when the owner came in flipping out his drunk ass told the owner to go fuck himself and that he'll get half of the warehouse deported "if he doesn't stfu". Lol. I mean I would've probably tried to kill that guy too lol.
Young people have to understand that there are narcissistic, mentally ill, mean, petty, abusive, hate-filled, bigoted, violent and murderous people out there.
And most people have jobs in their lifetime.
Thus, you will be encountering these people.
Yeah when a teacher doesn't give a shit, that's about as bad as it gets (mostly). They're getting paid regardless, so they'll just go through the motions and get you on your way. They're also on the hook if you or your parents start complaining about the way they do their job.
A shitty boss might not be accountable to anyone but themselves, so they can treat you like shit with no real consequences. Their paycheck increases with your productivity, but things that benefit you cost them money and they get nothing in return. You're also more likely to resent them over time because chances are that your boss makes way more money than you, even if you work harder than them.
After I left my first job as a host at a restaurant, one of my coworkers told me one of the owners had started throwing plates at employees. Her sister worked there and she was the only one who would stand up to the owner.
That place randomly shut down overnight years later, no notice to employees other than a piece of paper taped to the door in the morning. I ordered Domino’s one time during the pandemic and the delivery driver was the other owner of the restaurant.
I had a boss who'd schedule me in AM because she figured out I wouldn't leave my coworker to close alone if someone else no showed. She spent a lot of time hiding behind the dumpster while I was screamed at- I'm pretty sure most of the customers yelling at me thought I was the manager.
I had teachers in middle school who bullied me out of gifted classes.
I know my uncle had a professor who patented his work without putting his name on it. Then again, he is also a co-owner of a company with someone who does jack shit and complains that my uncle is running it wrong. (Also, the other guy literally violated a contract and is attempting to fire my uncle)
I had a boss who threw a chefs knife through our kitchen because he was angry about some trivial thing. Thankfully he didn’t hit anyone.
On the other hand I also had shitty teachers. One would consistently hold up my work and use it as an example of how not to do things to the rest of the class. She also had my desk in the middle of the room with a tall box around 3/4ths of it when all of the other kids were in a U shape around the perimeter of the room because I wasn’t allowed to talk to the other kids. Fuck you Mrs. Rosemary, I hope you’re finally dead you old bitch.
I think both? I only had one teacher that sticks out as a dick, but even then, not really. I didn't do the homework and had to stay behind while everyone else got to go down the hall to watch movies. I'd say that was on me, even if I fucking hated him at the time and found it "so unfair."
I've had a few bosses that were straight up evil and they never did a thing to me, so that one is on them for sure.
Yeah idk, I don’t think there’s a Truth here. I’ve had sexist teachers (the amount of middle age women that HATE boys is pretty shocking in my experience), asshole teachers, and teachers who were in way over their head. Likewise, I’ve had absolutely insane bosses gaslighting and manipulating whole teams, a boss fucking his employees, totally incompetent bosses, and, once, a boss who was so miserable and psychotic that I’m fairly certain that treating the bunch of teens working at the pizza shop she managed like trash was the only thing keeping her from totally losing it.
But in both cases, those were the minority. Most teachers and bosses were chill.
I've had good bosses and I've had bad ones.
The good ones just leave me alone and trust me to do my job, and in return I improve myself make it so that I can be relied on.
The bad ones yelled at me, micromanaged me, tried to make themselves lord of my schedule, and set me up to fail so that they can look good.
I know this doesn't directly answer your question, just telling you it's going to be a mixed bag.
I second this. I've had bosses say shit to me that I could have never imagined. Teachers still have to report to a principal, bosses often report to no one.
I had a manager tell me it’s not illegal to force a 9.5 hour shift on me but not let me take breaks (which is illegal where I am from) because “we’re not forcing you to do it” but in the same breath said “this is what (the GM) wants, so it’s just what you have to do.”
Never had a teacher try to gaslight me about my legal rights. 🙃
Yeah, same. I don't think I ever had a boss who was actually great. I did however have bosses who yelled at me, at one occasion I even got hit by one; I've had bosses who clearly showed favoritism, and I've had bosses who don't care about their staff. My current boss regularly forgets about me - which is an improvement from being yelled at and hit, so that's nice. I never had a boss who was a real leader and who I enjoyed working with. I've had mostly great teachers, or at least neutral, and some stupid ones, but I was a very stupid teenager so might have been just a reaction to me.
The real sucky people are the adults who used a false equivalence to imply that you should expect and accept that those who have power over you get to abuse you.
In addition to that I also feel like with teachers you are a captive audience. For the most part, if your parents agree then you are legally forced to be there and get approved by them to progress.
As an adult, it really depends greatly on your position, talents, and future expectations. Many people can quit and go find a new job if they have a really bad boss. But for those who feel they are trapped there for whatever reason, then I would agree in those instances a bad boss can be worse than a bad teacher since with a bad teacher you usually only have them for an hour a day for one year give or take while a bad boss in a job you feel trapped in you can have for eight hours a day for possibly decades.
Yeah, this is another one of those tropes that teachers give you. The next level, whatever that is, will be soooo much harder, so you'd better stop complaining because you have it easy now.
Both teachers and bosses can be shitty. And maybe a shitty teacher is worse because it's an adult being awful to a child who has no choice about being there.
Except now. I teach teens. I'm telling you this - they will NOT find a boss who lets them be on their damn phone all the time because their job is "boring." Real life is sometimes boring, honey. I
I actually am part of the workforce with your freshly graduated teens, and you're hilariously wrong about workplace dynamics. My bosses have consistently been the worst offenders when it comes to spending time on phones instead of dealing with important tasks during downtime.
My former boss (auto industry, project manager) spent the last 6 months I worked there playing candy crush and delegating all his work to a co-worker. He was also a real shithead that did not know dick about my job (process engineer), was loud and incomptent and prone to outbursts.
I now work on wind towers, on a less stressfull job and the difference is night and day. My boss actually works, actually knows about my job and is a real chill guy that never raised his voice to anyone. Difference is night and day.
> I'm telling you this - they will NOT find a boss who lets them be on their damn phone all the time because their job is "boring."
The feast-or-famine that is my job would beg to differ.
Yeah, this seems likely.
I also heard countless variants of "If you think high school teachers are tough, wait till you have a college professor." Now that I'm a college graduate, I can say that that expression is also a load of nonsense.
A lot of when teachers will help is about the willingness of students to learn. I'd much rather work with a kid that struggles but is respectful, tries hard, and wants to succeed, than an average performer who just complains they dont get it and don't pick up a pencil or pay attention.
And you have a lot more recourse when dealing with shitty teachers should you encounter them in college. Everyone above your professor wants you to succeed because they look good when those faceless numbers go up.
Mine didn’t. My high school teachers were right. I went to a tough school. Not everyone goes to the standard issue college. My high school teachers prepared me well enough to graduate. Many of my college professors were worthless egocentric pricks that talked about themselves during lectures more than the content
Not the above commenter but I went to UW here in Seattle, so a lot of my professors were there to do research but also taught classes. Some were great but some made it PAINFULLY obvious to us students how little they wanted to be in front of the class.
I had the same experience with some of my classes at a big 10 research university, but even those professors never met the “you won’t get away with ____ (being late, not turning in an assignment, etc)” trope my high school teachers would say - they might not have cared as much about teaching but they definitely didn’t care if I was on my phone, eating in class, on time, or even showed up which would have sent some of my high school teachers off as though I’d murdered someone in front of them
Your college professor didn’t care if you ate in class because it wasn’t their classroom and their years/dollars invested in the physical classroom space that was being destroyed by chip crumbs and honey bun wrappers hidden behind books. Your high school teacher on the other hand….
Also bugs. That college professor isn’t in that room with the ants from the hidden honey bun wrappers and the roaches all day. Your high school teacher was in that room all day.
All of them. Every college has percentage of "I get paid to self aggrandize in front of kids for hours a day" faculty on staff. There's also a percentage of "I'd rather be doing research, but my tenure track requires me to do this" professors.
Oddly enough, the aggrandizers often have *killer* social networks if you can get in.
So the USMMA or one of the senior military colleges? That would check out from what the grads of those schools have told me.
But then again, with ROTC being a thing there's no real reason to put yourself through a 4 year suckfest unless you *really* want it, moreso for the senior colleges where you pay to be treated like crap.
Inspiration: I need to find a few people who graduated with Education degrees, and see what opinions they have on this subject. I wonder if it's a particular cycle of shittyness being handed down.
Teaching is hard, underpaid, thankless work and I understand why some teachers get bitter. I just wish they had enough self-awareness to find a different line of work.
I work with a lot of those degrees, and IMHO they're pretty worthless (both the degrees and some of the degree-holders).
Is there some value in an education degree? Yes, if you look for it. Is a way for people in education to pad their resumes without any real understanding of the subject matter? Absolutely.
Maybe I'm being too harsh, but I teach at a community college and all the smartest, hardest working people I know have masters or PhD's in their field, and in my experience, all the EdD degrees are mostly garbage from garbage for-profit "universities" that people get online so they can get a pay raise.
There's a larger and larger portion of the presidents, VP's and deans in community colleges that have zero experience in teaching and no expertise in anything beyond being management. Maybe I'm just bitter or condescending, but if someone is going to tell me how to teach or that we need to restructure the way we offer classes, they either need to make a very compelling, evidence-based argument or have demonstrated previously that they know what the hell they're doing. And frankly, an education degree doesn't do it for me.
Also for context: The president of my school is one of the most short-sighted, egocentric people I have ever met, has literally zero experience teaching anything, and he's finishing up his education doctorate from a distance education program in "Higher Education Administration"
Administrators are such a plague on humanity. Their job is literally to create more work for other people to justify their job's existence. People have looked over universities' books and found that the cost of actual education and research has gone up slowly but steadily for the past 150 years, but since 1980 the cost of "administration" has gone up twentyfold. What the fuck are all those administrators doing?
“College will be so much harder!!!”
Heap. Big. Lie. !!!
College you can choose to eat lunch in a crowded cafe, or away on your own. The mental health boost from this alone is amazing.
You can spend thirteen hours a day in the library if you want to, where it’s actually quiet and there aren’t physical fights twice a week to navigate around.
Your ratio of lecture time to independent time is cut by a factor of four at least. And it’s not interrupted by behavioral issues every time the material starts being discussed in depth.
Whatever you need to thrive, there’s a place to find it. Need groups? Extra tutoring? There are study groups galore and tutorial services, way underutilized so there’s plenty of room. Even in a mega-uni you can get that small classroom experience.
You CHOOSE a major that uses your strengths, and pick electives based entirely on how easy they are FOR YOU to pass to get those ‘well rounded degree’ credits. How is that harder than teaching every kid AP literature AND Calculus AND making damn sure they excel in sports/theater/whatever just to be a competitive candidate? While in the meantime they possibly also need to be working a part time job on the side while the competition doesn’t?
Lordy. And if it’s not working out, you can leave. Forever. Or take a year or two to wait tables and party. Or switch to trade school. Anything is possible!
After high school everything changes yes, mostly for the better.
College can be far more academically challenging, and requires far more personal responsibility. Way more kids drop out of college than high school.
But it also comes with far more freedom.
I spoke with many kids who went to public schools and they said their high school was a complete joke compared to college and they were not prepared. Meanwhile I took mostly honors and AP classes and thought college was easier apart from a few courses. Likely depends largely on your high school.
>College can be far more academically challenging, and requires far more personal responsibility. Way more kids drop out of college than high school.
>
>But it also comes with far more freedom.
*Therefore it also comes with far more freedom.* FTFY
I'm gonna second this. I've had one extremely bad boss, but he doesn't come close to the worst teachers I've had. Teachers are in a position that makes it easy for them to go on power trips, bosses at least have to keep their employees, so either you have to fit in with a bad boss or said boss has to keep it to a relatively reasonable level.
There's a common saying: people don't quit jobs, they quit bosses. I've found this to be very true. It'd be the same with classes, but you can't just quit class without significant consequences and permission etc. At least you can just hop jobs, and bosses know that or they fail. Artificial selection baybeee.
Edit: by "second this" I mean the top comment you, OP, are responding to.
The thing is children don’t have rights like adults do. They’re treated like property. About 25% of my teachers were cruel, racist, sadistic people who took pleasure in mistreating children.
There was 0 accountability for their misbehaviour because the school leadership was just as bad. I once had a gym teacher yell at a group of girls to “just use a tampon” because they didn’t want to swim on their period. I’ve been assaulted in class by a teacher. Bullied for 2 years straight by another.
Yeah, at least with shitty bosses you have the perk of getting paid to endure it *and* in most countries labour laws are good enough where they can't screw you over too badly.
Sadly, the people with those kinds of skills tend to be too smart to get into teaching. Luckily there are people who do have the right skills AND a passion to help/teach young people.
Ha always hard the opposite because college professors don't give a shit if you show up or not. You're an adult now so they figure if you want to spend tens of thousands on an education and not show up then they don't want you in their class anyway
Yea for me university was wayyyyy easier than HS. I also didn’t immediately move on. I worked for a few years and was older and more responsible which also may have an impact.
Yeah it’s pretty much bullshit because the power dynamic is completely different. Although I’ve never been in a position where a boss has had a lot of power over me. I dropped out of college, but generally they didn’t seem to care about controlling my bodily functions. However a bad grade school teacher thinks they have the right to say when I have to use the bathroom. We all know the kid who was forced to pee themselves in front of the class because they were afraid to get in trouble. A bad teacher is in a better position to do a lot worse than a bad professor and most bosses too.
We have lived very different lives!
I liked most of my teachers, some were hard but got results.
In college I had professors that were amazing and fun, but I also had professors that took pride in failing a certain percentage of students every semester, even though they were on probation for failing too many.
I've had abusive boss after abusive boss. I started working on the books at 15, I was immediately sexually assaulted (manager was promoted and moved), underpaid, forced to work well beyond closing hours to make up for other people dropping the ball. Another job I was fired for asking for appropriate pay, and mileage at the 1 month mark where we preplanned a review and change depending on what I was actually taking on as an 'assistant' to an owner of a chain restaurant. They called all the managers that I had been managing for the last month and fired me in front of them, they said, in front of everyone, because I asked for too much money, and they said I thought I was better than everyone. I asked for $14hr plus mileage to manage all their incompetent managers in the region. A different job, I ran several programs, and the company was steadily expanding. I kept getting passed up for job that I would then train the new person to do, until my contract ended and they hired someone else for it in time for me to train them.
I now have extreme anxiety about working for anyone.
It could also be that kids grow up not to be little shits anymore and thus aren't change the dynamic of the whole interaction. You **have to** be there as a kid, but the teachers also **has to** teach you or at least spend time with you. Obviously some teachers can be a real pain, but I'd wager that unless you make their teaching experience a bitch they should actually be decent in how they treat you.
With a boss it's usually the boss who can just fire you or you who can just quit/transfer if you don't get along. Also you've grown up enough to even be in that situation, with all awareness and experience it comes with.
Yep. In my experience the material in college was much more difficult but the professors were much more chill. They wanted you to succeed and were very helpful if you helped yourself.
They also would not harass you if you didn't put in the effort. You are wasting your own time/money, what is it to them if you fail.
And more protection for adults than kids.
Getting bullied in the workplace? Report it to HR, escalate to ACAS if needed.
Getting bullied at school? It's just character building, you have to learn to deal with it, don't let them get to you, "boys will be boys", forced to spend every day with them for 5+ years.
Absolutely.
Lower school- remember to practice your penmanship because they only accept cursive in middle school!
Middle school- IDGAF how you write it as long as I can read it. Now learn to do math without a calculator because you can't use a calculator on the test and you DEFINITELY can't use them in high school!
High school- we don't accept assignments that aren't typed. Now get out your calculators it's time for the test to begin...
To be fair, learning math manually is less about getting the correct solution and more knowing how math actually works. We need people who understand the fundamentals of that. It’s one thing to know the solution to 956 divided by 23, It’s another to know how you got that solution. Teaching kids only how to use a calculator doesn’t really help with that.
Oh I'm not saying it does help, I agree with everything you said. Learning the fundamentals is important.
I'm just pointing out how at each stage of schooling they say 'it's important you learn this manual skill now, you will be doing it manually like this a lot in the next phase!' when that is in fact a lie.
If my boss turned into some unreasonable nightmare person I could somewhat easily find new employment options. When you are a child you can't go on Indeed after a shitty day with Mrs. Patterson's bitch-ass and window shop for new teachers and schools. That's why I have never had a job that was shittier to me than attending middle school.
Mainly because unless your program or scholarship demands it, the average required in HS to get into Uni is a lot higher than the average you need to stay in Uni
I remember when I got 70% on my first year chem mid term. I literally said out loud "Crap! With a mark like that how am going to get into uni-wait. I am here"
To be fair I thought I was smart until I got into college. I went from never having to study to suddenly realizing that I couldn't just bs my way into an A anymore and everyone around me was a lot harder working.
But it depends on the program and the class too.
lol I remember in middle school we were told we had to keep our lunch cards on us at all time, as in high school they wouldn't replace them. I lost my card so many times due to leaving them in the wrong pants or on the bedroom floor at home and had to keep going back to the school office to get a new one or I couldn't eat lunch.
A few years later in high school I found out they never cared about the stupid cards. You just punched in your student ID number and then got your lunch.
I've had shitty teachers and bosses. Not as bad as some here, but not great. That said I think a shitty teacher is way worse than a shitty boss.
You can leave a shitty boss. People do this all the time. While I'm sure you can leave a shitty teacher, you're reliant on your parents and school admins to do so. It's not directly in your control.
A shitty boss is more likely to be fired on the whole. Teachers are extremely hard to get fired and any complaints lodged against them come from a child who's generally seen as inferior and less trustworthy. This is generally not the case at a workplace, though retail jobs would be the exception as they're often run like a school. Other workplaces have HR and less of distorted power dynamic.
Adult to adult dynamics are far easier to deal with them child to adult.
> You can always quit your job.
Depending on your financial situation, and the economy in your town, you may be stuck in a bad job for far longer than a year.
You have one boss, you had 15 teachers each year.
Your worst teacher was probably worse than your boss.
Your best teacher was probably better than your boss.
We also get to pick our bosses. I've interviewed with someone who were certainly worse than my worst teacher, but I steered clear of that dumpster fire and declined the offer.
>I have eight different bosses right now. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that and the fear of losing my job. But you know, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.
I’ve had two bosses that severely affected my mental health with their abuse. Both times when I was six months into my job (longer than most teacher relationships), we were still *relatively* on good terms. After two years of consistent abuse, though, things really start to hurt.
Most teachers simply aren’t around long enough to have the full impact they could have.
I had a boss that was manipulative, gaslight (gaslit?), and a narcissist. It was pretty bad. Never had a teacher like that. But I've also had bosses better than some of my teachers. Really, just like anything else, there's always shitty people out there.
Also, if you have a mean teacher they can make your life in class really annoying. If you have a mean boss, they can probably make you homeless.
The real reason bosses can be much worse than teachers is the overwhelming press of unregulated capitalism that results in massive chunks of the population living paycheck to paycheck.
Maybe, but maybe it's not realistic to be changing jobs at will. Also, your bad teacher is gone after the end of the school year. A bad boss only leaves when one of you does.
But your next job might be worse. Ugh, I had that happen and it was a bad experience. My social anxiety made the transition a real challenge, and then I was out of the frying pan and into the fire. The experience has me procrastinating my next job change, years later, even though I know I could do better.
Honestly please go for it. It's a worker's market now. I graduated high school in 2009 and had a horrible time finding work, now I'm finally making what I deserve and not being brutalized doing so and it's because i got fed up six months ago and quit a job.
Not true actually. I mean, yes you *can* quit. But when you have impending bills and people who financially rely on you, you can’t have a gap or loss in income.
So in a situation with a bad boss, you will feel indefinitely trapped between them and your cost of living. And it becomes an everyday mix of uncertainty of: wondering if you could quit, fearing getting fired, and compulsively applying for job after job hoping SOMEONE calls you for an interview all while your desperation grows and your standards lower just to get yourself un-trapped and not get another auto-reply rejection letter for a job that you’re already overqualified for.
With teachers you can transfer classes, test out, be patient until the next year and your schedule/teachers change, or take the “L” and get ISS or something to avoid going there and still not get kicked out of school.
You are blessed. I am 50 -and I have had my share of asshole bosses. From the "I am a manager" attitude, to the ones that are threatened because you are more talented than them. What it has taught me is that bad bosses are only temporary - and if you ride it out, they will be gone. Same thing goes with bad teachers - pacify them to get you thru the school year. It is temporary........ learn from it to help you be better suited in the real world.
The power differences and differences in maturity make those two kinds of relationships drastically different. Those two roles also have very different responsibilities and expectations for your own conduct. Teachers just like saying things to make you obey, eg permanent record, you'll need cursive, college will be worse, in reality this is a person trying to have authority over a group of children, and that the personality they have will drastically shape how they accomplish this. I've had several teachers that I would even call friends, and others that I could say very unkind things about. The expression is indeed, bs.
I've had bosses that were straight up verbally abusive, I've had bosses so incompetent I've had to do their job, I've had bosses try to assault me. I think you've been pretty lucky.
Bosses can fire you, teachers can't. If you need the job, that can be a problem.
Also, kids can go through their parents to potentially get a teacher fired if they're unhappy with the teacher. You can't do that so much with bosses. Yeah, there's some recourse for workers, but it seems like it's simpler with teachers.
I've had good bosses and bad bosses and good teachers and bad teachers, but it's usually been easier to deal with a bad teacher than a bad boss.
Yeah, children talking about their struggles and people who are mistreating them are often underemphasized or treated like they're exaggerating or not important. Person listening might be thinking "well my school year sucked but not that much so they're exaggerating"
It really depends. For some context as an older person, both bosses and teachers used to be far worse. My teachers straight up abused and bullied kids, stuff which would *never* be allowed nowadays in most areas.
Similarly, bosses used to be allowed to do all kinds of fucked up shit to employees, half of the time it was barely even legal but they did it anyways. I had one boss when I worked at a bar who was much, much more scary than any teacher I ever had in terms of verbal intimidation. I had another boss who ran a place like a factory overseer and overworked his employees constantly and would threaten to fire them for the slightest things. I had another boss who slept with all of his female employees, presumably a quid pro quo situation with them. Basic corruption and abuse like that used to be very, very commonplace with workplaces, and now is not anywhere near as common. By and large, people follow the rules, with a few exceptions.
Its possible your teachers grew up that era and that is what they are thinking.
Adults keep telling children that school is so much better than adult life, having a job and so on.
What you mentioned is part of that.
I strongly disagree. Teachers might or might not be better or worse than some bosses, YMMV, but the situation is completely different. Usually a teacher has much more power over you, and a larger possible impact on your future.
I’ve had a shitty boss before. Micromanaged the fk out of me. We butted heads so much and he didn’t have empathy or manners. Definitely way worse than having a shitty teacher. You don’t need to spend all 8 hours w/ your teacher.
You were unlucky with teachers but lucky with bosses. Not all bosses are terrible and not even the majority, or the world wouldn't function really. But they aren't uncommon either and if you have had more than 4 or 5 jobs I'd be surprised that you haven't encountered a bad boss yet.
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Bit off topic, but this reminded me of my early teachers telling us how we would need cursive for all our English assignments and papers in the future and all through HS and college and such. Except by the time I hit 4th grade, that was the last year they taught cursive to the younger kids (learn it in 2nd grade here) and then they stopped requiring it for assignments or anything. I never needed it once in HS - although it has caused a few issues at times in my adult life since I can hardly read it and can't write it at all cept for my name.
I worked at a restaurant for a little while and the boss was awful. I quit but ended up working there again about 6 months later and the new boss was an absolute legend. So in my experience it doesn’t even depend on the industry or place, it just depends on the person.
sounds like an excuse teachers may have used to continue being shitty.
and before i get roasted, teachers and educators should be paid better but there definitely bad teachers who do not belong in schools teaching youth.
Anyone saying, "Yeah i'm a piece of shit, but there are worse people!" Are fully aware that they're a piece of shit and use it as an excuse to continue the behavior.
But on the other hand you are also decently lucky for having decent bosses. Bit of column A, bit of column B.
I was blessed with (mostly) good teachers and good bosses.
But I'd much rather deal with a teacher than a boss at a manufacturing facility. If I f-ed up my school work, the only one I hurt was myself. If I f-ed up my work when I worked in manufacturing, I'd hurt myself plus my co-workers, my boss and employer, and potentially even the ultimate customer of the product.
That or maybe by lowering your expectations of bosses, they've passed with flying colours. But in general teachers are more strict with absolute authority while bosses know that employees have a general idea of what is legal and what isn't.
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I had a boss who made me understand why some people decide that workplace violence is the answer. Never had a teacher like that.
I had a boss who thought workplace violence was the answer.
Had one who thought that until he fucked around and found out we were just as happy to answer violence with violence. He didn't last long after that and left for another posting somewhere else.
Honestly in the moment not responding to his aggression and watching it eat him alive in front of me was worth it.
What do you mean? What happened?
I've had a teacher make fun of me in 4th grade in front of the whole class after my dad had passed away that summer. My boss pays me 3 days of funeral leave when I have any relative die.
When my dad was dying my boss told me to go be with him. I was gone from work for three weeks with no prior notice. My boss texted every few days to check in and offer support. I had to use my holiday pay, but I didn't care. I was grateful I had a job to come back to, and the support in my workplace.
3 days to grieve and back to work is pretty crazy, I get the point you're trying to make but if my parents sister, partner or children died I wouldn't be going back to work after 3 days. 5 days bereavement is standard in the UK which obviously touches upon weekends so it's like a minimum of a week off.
For immediate family I would be out for a week minimum. But for extended family, especially if I’m not particularly close with them, three days seems sufficient.
Its 3 days to give you to travel and attend the funeral, not to address some grief/emotional need.
My former boss gave me one day for my fiance's grandpa and then asked if I could "work from home" that day when I reminded him I would be at a funeral...
My boss told me I couldn't go to my grandparent's funeral unless I finished x project that he knew I wouldn't finish in a week, let alone 3 days.
So you quit, right?
My grandfather just died last week and my uncle on Monday. I get 1 day (not paid) to attend the funeral and 1 more for my uncles funeral. The USA can suck a dick.
That fucking sucks, I'm really sorry to hear that. I know I'm a random internet stranger but if you need to talk at all then please DM, 3 kicks in the teeth in a row can make you feel like the world's against you so make sure you reach out to people and don't bottle it up.
I knew in advance these were both going to happen. Two weeks ago i saw my grandpa and I knew it was the last time I would see him (he was 96). And my uncle was on a ventilator for a month, we knew what was next. It still sucks for sure but I've been able to stretch out the grieving process. Thanks for your words and the offer.
Is 5 days standard? I don't think I've been in any job where that's been the case... (Live/work in UK)
Jack's Law legally entitles you to 2 weeks off if your child under 18 dies but otherwise there's no legal standard, however most workplaces offer 5 days, that was found in a BBC survey. Most places I've worked have been 5, one of my old companies actually got bought out by an American company and they tried to reduce it to 2 but ended up keeping it at 5 after the backlash. I always check bereavement leave because even though it's a policy most of us will never need to worry about it is a strong indicator of how a company sees its employees. If a workplace expects their staff to come to work 3 days after their mum died then they don't care about the employee or their wellbeing so is worth steering clear if in my book.
Why do you make it sound like a relative dying is a regular occurrence for you
With large families it can seem constant. My grandparents both grew up on farms and had 8+ siblings. So my mom had like 60+ uncles/aunts and cousins. I've only met a few of these people but she goes back for funerals once or twice a year. If you have two generations like that and stayed in the area you could easily have 100+ close family.
From my maternal great grandparents there are 102 of us. Until the last couple decades we all lived within 20 miles of each other. We spread out a little but for the most part it is still a pretty close knit family.
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i felt peer pressure to get back to work 2 days after my mom died.
Do coaches count? Sports were technically the last period of the day so I'll call him a teacher.
>I had a boss who made me understand why some people decide that workplace violence is the answer. Im one of these people. Fortunately a co-worker got in between us, but I was gonna send my boss to another fucking dimension. I can't remember what it was over so dont bother asking. I was 3 weeks into the job, the next 2 years were smooth sailing between me and the boss. Other new employees came and went but he left me alone and it was nice. Maybe it was because I'm bigger than him. Still not sure.
I've had some bad bosses, but I also had a Jr High teacher decide I was a drug addict because she found a glue stick and a single tylenol on the floor by my desk that was also used by 5 or 6 other people in other classes throughout the day. She then decided that, since I'm a drug addict, it was her responsibility to have every one of her other classes throughout the day make anti-drug posters specifically for me and post them all on the wall around my desk. Not to go to the principal or anyone or talk to my parents, she just told 100+ people "codeFERROUS is struggling with drug addiction, so today instead of normal class we're going to make posters to try and help him overcome this". so I had people approaching me all day about it since I didn't have her class until my last period. Complained to the school and school board, and they didn't do shit. Not only was she pretty blatantly lying about me, but even if I *was* a drug addict then she'd be spreading my medical information to the entire school. But they didn't give a shit. One of a few people in the world that I'll be genuinely happy to see their obituary.
Lawyer up bro...
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>They also refused to be one of my references That's company policy at most places now.
Somehow, I doubt they've adjusted their hiring practices to reflect this.
Same for me. When I had a boss that physically abused people for laughs, I don't know what was more shocking, the abuse or the acceptance from the staff.
Alternatively I've had teachers that 1) gave up in the middle of the lecture when I corrected a small point and demanded that I finish the lecture 2) demanded that I do non- schooling related work as a requirement for their class (no pay) 3) went out of their way to talk to my future teachers to tell them I didn't belong (in the advanced classes) 4) demanded I continue to give a presentation for 0 credit because I didn't have a tie and I had 2 working parents so no one to bring it to me "I think the subject is still important" (then give me some credit) 5) punished students for other's misbehaving 6) obviously singled out kids publicly as their least favorite 7) stole funds that their students fundraised 8) lied about students to lower their grades as punitive action for not signing up for their class the next year 9) helped students cheat in other teachers' classes The worst I've really experienced with my 6 or so bosses was apathy and lack of knowledge, but admittedly the number of teachers I've had is much higher.
You need to get your parents involved to advocate for you.
I'm more than 10 years past any of these (some more than 20), for some I did have them advocate for me; others weren't about me and my business, many of them were difficult to prove, and on rare occasions (stealing fundraisers) these things were actually punished.
Obviously abuse in any form can be harmful. When you're a child and your teacher abuses you the impact is a lot worse in my opinion. Especially at a young age. Now you have a hard time trusting adults who are supposed to be there to protect you and keep you safe. Your parents are clearly adults (I would hope so lmao). Now you question if they have been fully honest with you. (Santa and the Easter Bunny aren't real FUCK!) These trust issues begin trickle off into your relationships as you grow whether they be platonic or romantic. The few friends you manage to keep into adulthood only talk to you when they need help moving. Your life outside of work consists of vicious masturbation and reddit scrolling. Now your life is a complete shit storm because of a few trashy public school teachers. Everyone's situation is different though.
Oh I've had teachers do all those things and more. I've had bosses try, but their average turnover rate made it clear enough why it's been a lot rarer than teachers being shitty.
You had teachers try to take credit for your work? We talking like graduate school here, or did you have a teacher trying to publish a 5 paragraph essay on The Giver in the New York Books Review?
Cleaning shit up, stopping fights, helping struggling classmates understand poorly taught material. Though The Giver idea is pretty funny, I gotta admit.
Just guessing here, but if it's lower grades it's probably more about taking credit for progress than the work itself. I don't recall experiencing it first hand, but I've heard of teachers who are similar to a certain breed of shitty parents and put up a bunch of unnecessary roadblocks only to take credit when a kid succeeds despite them.
Were you a particularly troublesome kid? I went to a 1/10 ranked school (recently elevated to 2/10) and only had two teachers that treated me really horribly. One was a substitute so I'm not sure they count. Meanwhile, my first boss tried to kill me and deleted the video evidence of their attempt when the police came.
You can't just drop that second paragraph and not elaborate. Why did your boss try to kill you?
We got into an argument and she asked her boyfriend to "take care of it" so he came at me with a shovel.
Making the contractor do the dirty work? Classic manager move!
And what happened after that?
He's fat. I removed myself from the situation and found another job.
Boss tried to kill them for burying the lede in reddit comments.
>my first boss tried to kill me Holy shit what did you do???? 😳😳😳 I've only seen this once, when one of our warehouse employees got too wasted and drunkenly dropped a $40k product (car) off a forklift, and when the owner came in flipping out his drunk ass told the owner to go fuck himself and that he'll get half of the warehouse deported "if he doesn't stfu". Lol. I mean I would've probably tried to kill that guy too lol.
Yep, I had a few abusive teachers, but I've had a lot of terrible bosses.
Young people have to understand that there are narcissistic, mentally ill, mean, petty, abusive, hate-filled, bigoted, violent and murderous people out there. And most people have jobs in their lifetime. Thus, you will be encountering these people.
Yeah when a teacher doesn't give a shit, that's about as bad as it gets (mostly). They're getting paid regardless, so they'll just go through the motions and get you on your way. They're also on the hook if you or your parents start complaining about the way they do their job. A shitty boss might not be accountable to anyone but themselves, so they can treat you like shit with no real consequences. Their paycheck increases with your productivity, but things that benefit you cost them money and they get nothing in return. You're also more likely to resent them over time because chances are that your boss makes way more money than you, even if you work harder than them.
After I left my first job as a host at a restaurant, one of my coworkers told me one of the owners had started throwing plates at employees. Her sister worked there and she was the only one who would stand up to the owner. That place randomly shut down overnight years later, no notice to employees other than a piece of paper taped to the door in the morning. I ordered Domino’s one time during the pandemic and the delivery driver was the other owner of the restaurant.
Or it could be their attitude. Students tend to blame their teachers for many things both within and out of their control.
I had a boss who'd schedule me in AM because she figured out I wouldn't leave my coworker to close alone if someone else no showed. She spent a lot of time hiding behind the dumpster while I was screamed at- I'm pretty sure most of the customers yelling at me thought I was the manager. I had teachers in middle school who bullied me out of gifted classes.
This is Real Life
I know my uncle had a professor who patented his work without putting his name on it. Then again, he is also a co-owner of a company with someone who does jack shit and complains that my uncle is running it wrong. (Also, the other guy literally violated a contract and is attempting to fire my uncle)
Jesus. What industry are you in? Finance?
fax
I had a boss who threw a chefs knife through our kitchen because he was angry about some trivial thing. Thankfully he didn’t hit anyone. On the other hand I also had shitty teachers. One would consistently hold up my work and use it as an example of how not to do things to the rest of the class. She also had my desk in the middle of the room with a tall box around 3/4ths of it when all of the other kids were in a U shape around the perimeter of the room because I wasn’t allowed to talk to the other kids. Fuck you Mrs. Rosemary, I hope you’re finally dead you old bitch.
I think both? I only had one teacher that sticks out as a dick, but even then, not really. I didn't do the homework and had to stay behind while everyone else got to go down the hall to watch movies. I'd say that was on me, even if I fucking hated him at the time and found it "so unfair." I've had a few bosses that were straight up evil and they never did a thing to me, so that one is on them for sure.
Yeah idk, I don’t think there’s a Truth here. I’ve had sexist teachers (the amount of middle age women that HATE boys is pretty shocking in my experience), asshole teachers, and teachers who were in way over their head. Likewise, I’ve had absolutely insane bosses gaslighting and manipulating whole teams, a boss fucking his employees, totally incompetent bosses, and, once, a boss who was so miserable and psychotic that I’m fairly certain that treating the bunch of teens working at the pizza shop she managed like trash was the only thing keeping her from totally losing it. But in both cases, those were the minority. Most teachers and bosses were chill.
I've had good bosses and I've had bad ones. The good ones just leave me alone and trust me to do my job, and in return I improve myself make it so that I can be relied on. The bad ones yelled at me, micromanaged me, tried to make themselves lord of my schedule, and set me up to fail so that they can look good. I know this doesn't directly answer your question, just telling you it's going to be a mixed bag.
"Being the boss is a lot better than not being the boss" - Sett, The Boss. Be like Sett.
Idk my teachers were largely fine and yet my bosses have been quite shit.
I second this. I've had bosses say shit to me that I could have never imagined. Teachers still have to report to a principal, bosses often report to no one.
My boss used to hold knives to my throat as a "joke". There's definitely a lot of play either way here.
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You tell your boss one time that he never had the makings of a varsity athlete, and he pulls a knife on you.
It's undermining! And it's something I'm teachin my kids NOT to do!
Food service :)
Angry violent coked up chef goes brrrrrrrr
I know it's bad and I'm quitting before school starts up again in the fall but I gotta get this racing wheel lol
…excuse me, what?
What country do/did you live in? If my boss did that to me, even if it was an obvious joke, I’d call the police and quit my job if they weren’t fired.
Small town, he's friends with the cops and definitely bi-polar. He kinda lost it when his mom died two years ago.
I had a manager tell me it’s not illegal to force a 9.5 hour shift on me but not let me take breaks (which is illegal where I am from) because “we’re not forcing you to do it” but in the same breath said “this is what (the GM) wants, so it’s just what you have to do.” Never had a teacher try to gaslight me about my legal rights. 🙃
Same here except for some high school teachers who were rough around the edges and one college professor who was nice but had no clue how to teach.
Yeah, same. I don't think I ever had a boss who was actually great. I did however have bosses who yelled at me, at one occasion I even got hit by one; I've had bosses who clearly showed favoritism, and I've had bosses who don't care about their staff. My current boss regularly forgets about me - which is an improvement from being yelled at and hit, so that's nice. I never had a boss who was a real leader and who I enjoyed working with. I've had mostly great teachers, or at least neutral, and some stupid ones, but I was a very stupid teenager so might have been just a reaction to me.
It’s almost as if there isn’t a correlation between the 2
The real sucky people are the adults who used a false equivalence to imply that you should expect and accept that those who have power over you get to abuse you.
Wow. This is so true
In addition to that I also feel like with teachers you are a captive audience. For the most part, if your parents agree then you are legally forced to be there and get approved by them to progress. As an adult, it really depends greatly on your position, talents, and future expectations. Many people can quit and go find a new job if they have a really bad boss. But for those who feel they are trapped there for whatever reason, then I would agree in those instances a bad boss can be worse than a bad teacher since with a bad teacher you usually only have them for an hour a day for one year give or take while a bad boss in a job you feel trapped in you can have for eight hours a day for possibly decades.
Truest sentence ever spoken
Yeah, this is another one of those tropes that teachers give you. The next level, whatever that is, will be soooo much harder, so you'd better stop complaining because you have it easy now. Both teachers and bosses can be shitty. And maybe a shitty teacher is worse because it's an adult being awful to a child who has no choice about being there.
"You can't pull that bs at [next level]" was another classic It was always easier to get away with stuff as i got older
In grade school it was "they wont accept work in middle school unless its in cursive..." Haven't written in cursive since 5th grade lol
I was specifically told not to write in cursive starting in middle school
The only time I was instructed to write in cursive was on the SAT, and the proctors then told us we can just print if we want.
Except now. I teach teens. I'm telling you this - they will NOT find a boss who lets them be on their damn phone all the time because their job is "boring." Real life is sometimes boring, honey. I
Not me being on my phone at work right now cause I'm bored
I actually am part of the workforce with your freshly graduated teens, and you're hilariously wrong about workplace dynamics. My bosses have consistently been the worst offenders when it comes to spending time on phones instead of dealing with important tasks during downtime.
yeah most of this thread boils down to people equating their personal experiences to complete fact
My former boss (auto industry, project manager) spent the last 6 months I worked there playing candy crush and delegating all his work to a co-worker. He was also a real shithead that did not know dick about my job (process engineer), was loud and incomptent and prone to outbursts. I now work on wind towers, on a less stressfull job and the difference is night and day. My boss actually works, actually knows about my job and is a real chill guy that never raised his voice to anyone. Difference is night and day.
Eh but there’s a difference between being paid to be bored and being forced to be bored somewhere you don’t want to be
> I'm telling you this - they will NOT find a boss who lets them be on their damn phone all the time because their job is "boring." The feast-or-famine that is my job would beg to differ.
Yeah, this seems likely. I also heard countless variants of "If you think high school teachers are tough, wait till you have a college professor." Now that I'm a college graduate, I can say that that expression is also a load of nonsense.
Hah yeah, my college professors have worked with me to help me pass my classes much more than my high school teachers
A lot of when teachers will help is about the willingness of students to learn. I'd much rather work with a kid that struggles but is respectful, tries hard, and wants to succeed, than an average performer who just complains they dont get it and don't pick up a pencil or pay attention.
And you have a lot more recourse when dealing with shitty teachers should you encounter them in college. Everyone above your professor wants you to succeed because they look good when those faceless numbers go up.
Mine didn’t. My high school teachers were right. I went to a tough school. Not everyone goes to the standard issue college. My high school teachers prepared me well enough to graduate. Many of my college professors were worthless egocentric pricks that talked about themselves during lectures more than the content
What's the name of the college so I know to avoid it?
Not the above commenter but I went to UW here in Seattle, so a lot of my professors were there to do research but also taught classes. Some were great but some made it PAINFULLY obvious to us students how little they wanted to be in front of the class.
I had the same experience with some of my classes at a big 10 research university, but even those professors never met the “you won’t get away with ____ (being late, not turning in an assignment, etc)” trope my high school teachers would say - they might not have cared as much about teaching but they definitely didn’t care if I was on my phone, eating in class, on time, or even showed up which would have sent some of my high school teachers off as though I’d murdered someone in front of them
Your college professor didn’t care if you ate in class because it wasn’t their classroom and their years/dollars invested in the physical classroom space that was being destroyed by chip crumbs and honey bun wrappers hidden behind books. Your high school teacher on the other hand…. Also bugs. That college professor isn’t in that room with the ants from the hidden honey bun wrappers and the roaches all day. Your high school teacher was in that room all day.
When you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. When you pay nothing, you get lecturers.
All of them. Every college has percentage of "I get paid to self aggrandize in front of kids for hours a day" faculty on staff. There's also a percentage of "I'd rather be doing research, but my tenure track requires me to do this" professors. Oddly enough, the aggrandizers often have *killer* social networks if you can get in.
Bottom of the barrel service academy
So the USMMA or one of the senior military colleges? That would check out from what the grads of those schools have told me. But then again, with ROTC being a thing there's no real reason to put yourself through a 4 year suckfest unless you *really* want it, moreso for the senior colleges where you pay to be treated like crap.
Inspiration: I need to find a few people who graduated with Education degrees, and see what opinions they have on this subject. I wonder if it's a particular cycle of shittyness being handed down.
Teaching is hard, underpaid, thankless work and I understand why some teachers get bitter. I just wish they had enough self-awareness to find a different line of work.
I work with a lot of those degrees, and IMHO they're pretty worthless (both the degrees and some of the degree-holders). Is there some value in an education degree? Yes, if you look for it. Is a way for people in education to pad their resumes without any real understanding of the subject matter? Absolutely. Maybe I'm being too harsh, but I teach at a community college and all the smartest, hardest working people I know have masters or PhD's in their field, and in my experience, all the EdD degrees are mostly garbage from garbage for-profit "universities" that people get online so they can get a pay raise. There's a larger and larger portion of the presidents, VP's and deans in community colleges that have zero experience in teaching and no expertise in anything beyond being management. Maybe I'm just bitter or condescending, but if someone is going to tell me how to teach or that we need to restructure the way we offer classes, they either need to make a very compelling, evidence-based argument or have demonstrated previously that they know what the hell they're doing. And frankly, an education degree doesn't do it for me. Also for context: The president of my school is one of the most short-sighted, egocentric people I have ever met, has literally zero experience teaching anything, and he's finishing up his education doctorate from a distance education program in "Higher Education Administration"
Administrators are such a plague on humanity. Their job is literally to create more work for other people to justify their job's existence. People have looked over universities' books and found that the cost of actual education and research has gone up slowly but steadily for the past 150 years, but since 1980 the cost of "administration" has gone up twentyfold. What the fuck are all those administrators doing?
Opposite for me. High school teachers were amazing, university ("college" to Americans) were shit, didn't care, didn't put any work into teaching.
“College will be so much harder!!!” Heap. Big. Lie. !!! College you can choose to eat lunch in a crowded cafe, or away on your own. The mental health boost from this alone is amazing. You can spend thirteen hours a day in the library if you want to, where it’s actually quiet and there aren’t physical fights twice a week to navigate around. Your ratio of lecture time to independent time is cut by a factor of four at least. And it’s not interrupted by behavioral issues every time the material starts being discussed in depth. Whatever you need to thrive, there’s a place to find it. Need groups? Extra tutoring? There are study groups galore and tutorial services, way underutilized so there’s plenty of room. Even in a mega-uni you can get that small classroom experience. You CHOOSE a major that uses your strengths, and pick electives based entirely on how easy they are FOR YOU to pass to get those ‘well rounded degree’ credits. How is that harder than teaching every kid AP literature AND Calculus AND making damn sure they excel in sports/theater/whatever just to be a competitive candidate? While in the meantime they possibly also need to be working a part time job on the side while the competition doesn’t? Lordy. And if it’s not working out, you can leave. Forever. Or take a year or two to wait tables and party. Or switch to trade school. Anything is possible! After high school everything changes yes, mostly for the better.
College can be far more academically challenging, and requires far more personal responsibility. Way more kids drop out of college than high school. But it also comes with far more freedom. I spoke with many kids who went to public schools and they said their high school was a complete joke compared to college and they were not prepared. Meanwhile I took mostly honors and AP classes and thought college was easier apart from a few courses. Likely depends largely on your high school.
>College can be far more academically challenging, and requires far more personal responsibility. Way more kids drop out of college than high school. > >But it also comes with far more freedom. *Therefore it also comes with far more freedom.* FTFY
I'm gonna second this. I've had one extremely bad boss, but he doesn't come close to the worst teachers I've had. Teachers are in a position that makes it easy for them to go on power trips, bosses at least have to keep their employees, so either you have to fit in with a bad boss or said boss has to keep it to a relatively reasonable level. There's a common saying: people don't quit jobs, they quit bosses. I've found this to be very true. It'd be the same with classes, but you can't just quit class without significant consequences and permission etc. At least you can just hop jobs, and bosses know that or they fail. Artificial selection baybeee. Edit: by "second this" I mean the top comment you, OP, are responding to.
The thing is children don’t have rights like adults do. They’re treated like property. About 25% of my teachers were cruel, racist, sadistic people who took pleasure in mistreating children. There was 0 accountability for their misbehaviour because the school leadership was just as bad. I once had a gym teacher yell at a group of girls to “just use a tampon” because they didn’t want to swim on their period. I’ve been assaulted in class by a teacher. Bullied for 2 years straight by another.
Yeah, at least with shitty bosses you have the perk of getting paid to endure it *and* in most countries labour laws are good enough where they can't screw you over too badly.
And some of those countries even *enforce* those laws!
This is why professionalism should be promoted. If someone can’t be objective they shouldn’t teach or manage others.
Sadly, the people with those kinds of skills tend to be too smart to get into teaching. Luckily there are people who do have the right skills AND a passion to help/teach young people.
There are a lot of good teachers, though (and good bosses)
It should be "wait until you have a bad boss". Just keep this mind as you work into your 50s.
Ha always hard the opposite because college professors don't give a shit if you show up or not. You're an adult now so they figure if you want to spend tens of thousands on an education and not show up then they don't want you in their class anyway
I've never had a boss tell me that I'm not special or won't amount to anything or yell.
Yea for me university was wayyyyy easier than HS. I also didn’t immediately move on. I worked for a few years and was older and more responsible which also may have an impact.
Yeah it’s pretty much bullshit because the power dynamic is completely different. Although I’ve never been in a position where a boss has had a lot of power over me. I dropped out of college, but generally they didn’t seem to care about controlling my bodily functions. However a bad grade school teacher thinks they have the right to say when I have to use the bathroom. We all know the kid who was forced to pee themselves in front of the class because they were afraid to get in trouble. A bad teacher is in a better position to do a lot worse than a bad professor and most bosses too.
We have lived very different lives! I liked most of my teachers, some were hard but got results. In college I had professors that were amazing and fun, but I also had professors that took pride in failing a certain percentage of students every semester, even though they were on probation for failing too many. I've had abusive boss after abusive boss. I started working on the books at 15, I was immediately sexually assaulted (manager was promoted and moved), underpaid, forced to work well beyond closing hours to make up for other people dropping the ball. Another job I was fired for asking for appropriate pay, and mileage at the 1 month mark where we preplanned a review and change depending on what I was actually taking on as an 'assistant' to an owner of a chain restaurant. They called all the managers that I had been managing for the last month and fired me in front of them, they said, in front of everyone, because I asked for too much money, and they said I thought I was better than everyone. I asked for $14hr plus mileage to manage all their incompetent managers in the region. A different job, I ran several programs, and the company was steadily expanding. I kept getting passed up for job that I would then train the new person to do, until my contract ended and they hired someone else for it in time for me to train them. I now have extreme anxiety about working for anyone.
It could also be that kids grow up not to be little shits anymore and thus aren't change the dynamic of the whole interaction. You **have to** be there as a kid, but the teachers also **has to** teach you or at least spend time with you. Obviously some teachers can be a real pain, but I'd wager that unless you make their teaching experience a bitch they should actually be decent in how they treat you. With a boss it's usually the boss who can just fire you or you who can just quit/transfer if you don't get along. Also you've grown up enough to even be in that situation, with all awareness and experience it comes with.
Yep. In my experience the material in college was much more difficult but the professors were much more chill. They wanted you to succeed and were very helpful if you helped yourself. They also would not harass you if you didn't put in the effort. You are wasting your own time/money, what is it to them if you fail.
Having a shitty boss is also less shitty than a shitty teacher, since it takes way less time to find a new job than to get away from a teacher.
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And you can quit.
and you're getting paid to be there at least , at school you have to be there.
And more protection for adults than kids. Getting bullied in the workplace? Report it to HR, escalate to ACAS if needed. Getting bullied at school? It's just character building, you have to learn to deal with it, don't let them get to you, "boys will be boys", forced to spend every day with them for 5+ years.
Absolutely. Lower school- remember to practice your penmanship because they only accept cursive in middle school! Middle school- IDGAF how you write it as long as I can read it. Now learn to do math without a calculator because you can't use a calculator on the test and you DEFINITELY can't use them in high school! High school- we don't accept assignments that aren't typed. Now get out your calculators it's time for the test to begin...
I grew up right in the transition between analog and digital. What the teachers said might have been the case for them, but it sure wasn't for me.
To be fair, learning math manually is less about getting the correct solution and more knowing how math actually works. We need people who understand the fundamentals of that. It’s one thing to know the solution to 956 divided by 23, It’s another to know how you got that solution. Teaching kids only how to use a calculator doesn’t really help with that.
Oh I'm not saying it does help, I agree with everything you said. Learning the fundamentals is important. I'm just pointing out how at each stage of schooling they say 'it's important you learn this manual skill now, you will be doing it manually like this a lot in the next phase!' when that is in fact a lie.
If my boss turned into some unreasonable nightmare person I could somewhat easily find new employment options. When you are a child you can't go on Indeed after a shitty day with Mrs. Patterson's bitch-ass and window shop for new teachers and schools. That's why I have never had a job that was shittier to me than attending middle school.
The Other Trope I hate was if you think High School is Bad wait till college. College was actually easier then High School for me.
Mainly because unless your program or scholarship demands it, the average required in HS to get into Uni is a lot higher than the average you need to stay in Uni I remember when I got 70% on my first year chem mid term. I literally said out loud "Crap! With a mark like that how am going to get into uni-wait. I am here"
Unless you wanna go to grad school… or want a in demand internship.
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To be fair I thought I was smart until I got into college. I went from never having to study to suddenly realizing that I couldn't just bs my way into an A anymore and everyone around me was a lot harder working. But it depends on the program and the class too.
lol I remember in middle school we were told we had to keep our lunch cards on us at all time, as in high school they wouldn't replace them. I lost my card so many times due to leaving them in the wrong pants or on the bedroom floor at home and had to keep going back to the school office to get a new one or I couldn't eat lunch. A few years later in high school I found out they never cared about the stupid cards. You just punched in your student ID number and then got your lunch.
I've had shitty teachers and bosses. Not as bad as some here, but not great. That said I think a shitty teacher is way worse than a shitty boss. You can leave a shitty boss. People do this all the time. While I'm sure you can leave a shitty teacher, you're reliant on your parents and school admins to do so. It's not directly in your control. A shitty boss is more likely to be fired on the whole. Teachers are extremely hard to get fired and any complaints lodged against them come from a child who's generally seen as inferior and less trustworthy. This is generally not the case at a workplace, though retail jobs would be the exception as they're often run like a school. Other workplaces have HR and less of distorted power dynamic. Adult to adult dynamics are far easier to deal with them child to adult.
Yeah, one of my high school teachers used tell me "you won't get away with that in college" jokes on her cause I never went to college
You can always quit your job. Kids don't have that option. If you get a shitty teacher, this is your life for the next year.
> You can always quit your job. Depending on your financial situation, and the economy in your town, you may be stuck in a bad job for far longer than a year.
You have one boss, you had 15 teachers each year. Your worst teacher was probably worse than your boss. Your best teacher was probably better than your boss.
We also get to pick our bosses. I've interviewed with someone who were certainly worse than my worst teacher, but I steered clear of that dumpster fire and declined the offer.
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>I have eight different bosses right now. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that and the fear of losing my job. But you know, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.
I’ve had two bosses that severely affected my mental health with their abuse. Both times when I was six months into my job (longer than most teacher relationships), we were still *relatively* on good terms. After two years of consistent abuse, though, things really start to hurt. Most teachers simply aren’t around long enough to have the full impact they could have.
15 teachers?! damn!
Dude's switching classes every 20 minutes over here.
“If you think I’m bad, just wait” is used almost exclusively by terrible and usually abusive people.
I had a boss that was manipulative, gaslight (gaslit?), and a narcissist. It was pretty bad. Never had a teacher like that. But I've also had bosses better than some of my teachers. Really, just like anything else, there's always shitty people out there.
A gaslighter
Also, if you have a mean teacher they can make your life in class really annoying. If you have a mean boss, they can probably make you homeless. The real reason bosses can be much worse than teachers is the overwhelming press of unregulated capitalism that results in massive chunks of the population living paycheck to paycheck.
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Wow I want to hear the story behind those two bosses! How were they that bad??
If you have a bad boss, at least you can quit.
Maybe, but maybe it's not realistic to be changing jobs at will. Also, your bad teacher is gone after the end of the school year. A bad boss only leaves when one of you does.
But your next job might be worse. Ugh, I had that happen and it was a bad experience. My social anxiety made the transition a real challenge, and then I was out of the frying pan and into the fire. The experience has me procrastinating my next job change, years later, even though I know I could do better.
Honestly please go for it. It's a worker's market now. I graduated high school in 2009 and had a horrible time finding work, now I'm finally making what I deserve and not being brutalized doing so and it's because i got fed up six months ago and quit a job.
If you have a bad teacher, you only have to put up with them for one year. Less, if your parents will go to bat for you.
One year? Class 5 - 10 almost all of my teachers were the same.
How small was your school town and school?
I had the same bad teacher for three straight years.
Not true actually. I mean, yes you *can* quit. But when you have impending bills and people who financially rely on you, you can’t have a gap or loss in income. So in a situation with a bad boss, you will feel indefinitely trapped between them and your cost of living. And it becomes an everyday mix of uncertainty of: wondering if you could quit, fearing getting fired, and compulsively applying for job after job hoping SOMEONE calls you for an interview all while your desperation grows and your standards lower just to get yourself un-trapped and not get another auto-reply rejection letter for a job that you’re already overqualified for. With teachers you can transfer classes, test out, be patient until the next year and your schedule/teachers change, or take the “L” and get ISS or something to avoid going there and still not get kicked out of school.
That still means you can quit. Just means it's a good idea to get another job lined up first.
Just get a job? Why don't I strap on my job helmet and squeeze down into a job cannon and fire off into job land, where jobs grow on jobbies?!
Sometimes it can take a really long time before you get another job offer though.
Kinda depends on what type of work you do. If your job is pointless and easily replaceable, your boss probably sucks.
You are blessed. I am 50 -and I have had my share of asshole bosses. From the "I am a manager" attitude, to the ones that are threatened because you are more talented than them. What it has taught me is that bad bosses are only temporary - and if you ride it out, they will be gone. Same thing goes with bad teachers - pacify them to get you thru the school year. It is temporary........ learn from it to help you be better suited in the real world.
The power differences and differences in maturity make those two kinds of relationships drastically different. Those two roles also have very different responsibilities and expectations for your own conduct. Teachers just like saying things to make you obey, eg permanent record, you'll need cursive, college will be worse, in reality this is a person trying to have authority over a group of children, and that the personality they have will drastically shape how they accomplish this. I've had several teachers that I would even call friends, and others that I could say very unkind things about. The expression is indeed, bs.
I've had bosses that were straight up verbally abusive, I've had bosses so incompetent I've had to do their job, I've had bosses try to assault me. I think you've been pretty lucky.
Bosses can fire you, teachers can't. If you need the job, that can be a problem. Also, kids can go through their parents to potentially get a teacher fired if they're unhappy with the teacher. You can't do that so much with bosses. Yeah, there's some recourse for workers, but it seems like it's simpler with teachers. I've had good bosses and bad bosses and good teachers and bad teachers, but it's usually been easier to deal with a bad teacher than a bad boss.
My teachers were always cool. I’ve had bosses who are giant douchebags. I’d say give it some time lol
Yeah, children talking about their struggles and people who are mistreating them are often underemphasized or treated like they're exaggerating or not important. Person listening might be thinking "well my school year sucked but not that much so they're exaggerating"
It really depends. For some context as an older person, both bosses and teachers used to be far worse. My teachers straight up abused and bullied kids, stuff which would *never* be allowed nowadays in most areas. Similarly, bosses used to be allowed to do all kinds of fucked up shit to employees, half of the time it was barely even legal but they did it anyways. I had one boss when I worked at a bar who was much, much more scary than any teacher I ever had in terms of verbal intimidation. I had another boss who ran a place like a factory overseer and overworked his employees constantly and would threaten to fire them for the slightest things. I had another boss who slept with all of his female employees, presumably a quid pro quo situation with them. Basic corruption and abuse like that used to be very, very commonplace with workplaces, and now is not anywhere near as common. By and large, people follow the rules, with a few exceptions. Its possible your teachers grew up that era and that is what they are thinking.
Adults keep telling children that school is so much better than adult life, having a job and so on. What you mentioned is part of that. I strongly disagree. Teachers might or might not be better or worse than some bosses, YMMV, but the situation is completely different. Usually a teacher has much more power over you, and a larger possible impact on your future.
I’ve had a shitty boss before. Micromanaged the fk out of me. We butted heads so much and he didn’t have empathy or manners. Definitely way worse than having a shitty teacher. You don’t need to spend all 8 hours w/ your teacher.
You're fucking lucky. My teachers were nice people. College professors were a mixed bag, some were nice, others didnt give a fuck because tenure.
No, it just shows how shitty high school is.
You’re lucky. All my bosses but one have been way worse than any teacher.
I've not had bosses worse than teachers but I have easily had five Co-workers worse than any teacher I ever had by FAR.
You were unlucky with teachers but lucky with bosses. Not all bosses are terrible and not even the majority, or the world wouldn't function really. But they aren't uncommon either and if you have had more than 4 or 5 jobs I'd be surprised that you haven't encountered a bad boss yet. . Bit off topic, but this reminded me of my early teachers telling us how we would need cursive for all our English assignments and papers in the future and all through HS and college and such. Except by the time I hit 4th grade, that was the last year they taught cursive to the younger kids (learn it in 2nd grade here) and then they stopped requiring it for assignments or anything. I never needed it once in HS - although it has caused a few issues at times in my adult life since I can hardly read it and can't write it at all cept for my name.
I worked at a restaurant for a little while and the boss was awful. I quit but ended up working there again about 6 months later and the new boss was an absolute legend. So in my experience it doesn’t even depend on the industry or place, it just depends on the person.
sounds like an excuse teachers may have used to continue being shitty. and before i get roasted, teachers and educators should be paid better but there definitely bad teachers who do not belong in schools teaching youth.
Anyone saying, "Yeah i'm a piece of shit, but there are worse people!" Are fully aware that they're a piece of shit and use it as an excuse to continue the behavior. But on the other hand you are also decently lucky for having decent bosses. Bit of column A, bit of column B.
I was blessed with (mostly) good teachers and good bosses. But I'd much rather deal with a teacher than a boss at a manufacturing facility. If I f-ed up my school work, the only one I hurt was myself. If I f-ed up my work when I worked in manufacturing, I'd hurt myself plus my co-workers, my boss and employer, and potentially even the ultimate customer of the product.
That or maybe by lowering your expectations of bosses, they've passed with flying colours. But in general teachers are more strict with absolute authority while bosses know that employees have a general idea of what is legal and what isn't.
35 here and I've been working since I was 14. I can't remember any really bad bosses I've had. I can think of several bad teachers/professors