rSlash - r/Maliciouscompliance An ENTIRE College Class Reported Their Toxic Professor

Episode Date: September 6, 2021

r/Maliciouscompliance OP gets stuck with an incredibly lazy, toxic professor who refuses to actually teach the subject matter to his students. To make matters worse, he's one of those professors who i...ntentionally fails a certain number of students every semester. OP gets tired of dealing with his professor's attitude, so he orchestrates a secret meeting with his fellow students where they ALL agree to file official complaints against the professor. This causes the dean to personally get involved! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to R-slash, a podcast where I read the best post from across Reddit. Today's subreddit is R-slash malicious compliance, where OP gets revenge against his biased professor. Our next Reddit post is from malformed data. Many years ago, I was a student studying computer science in the Midwest. While most of my professors were okay, there was one that was notorious. Let's call them Dr. J. Dr. J was an old, a-fe feet, lazy professor with a thick Southeast Asian accent who had been teaching for the better part of 30 years. And he had fully embraced the typical, semi-ret that out of the three and a half hours per week of
Starting point is 00:00:46 lecture time, he was actually in the classroom for maybe half of that. And the time that he did spend in the classroom was a complete waste. He would just pass out packets at the beginning of class to contain numerous diagrams and handwritten notes that were indecisive for a bowl. And then meander around class, pointing out various problems to groups of people working on them and mumble in coherently about how to solve them. I THINK! I NEVER understood a word that he said. He never followed his course syllabus or even answered emails. For anyone who's taken an engineering course, especially an upper level one, this won't sound too crazy. But here's the kicker. He would regularly fail half the class for a
Starting point is 00:01:25 required upper level computer architecture course. This is exceptionally rare and completely unfair for a class at this level, especially at a state school that isn't a research university. Typically, the bad students have been weeded out by junior years, so while the rest of the classes are by no means a cakewalk, if you put forth an honest effort to learn the material, you should be able to pass the class with flying colors. Not so with Dr. J. Failing a class at this level could be devastating to your degree path since it was a required course.
Starting point is 00:01:56 Dr. J was the only one who taught it, and he only taught it in fall. But Dr. J couldn't be bothered, despite the class average for his exams being terrible. Not that scores even mattered, because in Dr. J's class, you could get the same score as someone else on every assignment in exam, but you'd still fail the class for who knows why. Here's the malicious compliance. Low and behold, I was one of the 16 out of 31 students in the class that failed that semester. And I failed, having gotten very similar scores to a couple other students, but they passed. I went to Dr. J's office after the scores had been applied to our transcripts online
Starting point is 00:02:34 to discuss the matter. Dr. J wasn't having any of it, it didn't matter that I had similar scores to other students who had passed. He said, there are many ways that I grade my students and you failed. If you don't like it, you're free to appeal the grade, but you won't get it. The fact that that little turd was sitting there in his chair trying to BS me pissed me off so damn much that I decided right then and there that I would try to ruin him. My school had a very well laid out and reasonable grade appeal policy with many avenues towards getting the appeal approved.
Starting point is 00:03:07 I knew that through some of the snide jokes they made, my other professors didn't take kindly to Dr. J. at all. So it wasn't just the students who strongly disliked them. Well, when you appeal a grade, the other professors in the department are the ones who get to decide whether or not you actually passed, given the evidence. One time my faculty advisor told me, it's practically criminal what he gets away with. Now my original plan was for me to just file an appeal and move on because I knew that I'd get it.
Starting point is 00:03:34 But Dr. J had poked the bear, and now I was mad. So I reached out to everyone in class, which was really easy since we were all on a slack channel together. And I set up a meeting in the conference room in the library. I guess I underestimated how much everyone hated Dr. J, because every single person from class showed up, I laid out my plan. Everyone filed a grade appeal, even if you passed because it'll help your GPA. At my school, a grade appeal will replace your letter grade with a satisfactory, which
Starting point is 00:04:03 means that you get credit for the course without a grade that affects your GPA. I had enough appeal forms pre-printed before the meeting so that everyone could fill it out together. It was the happiest that I'd ever seen that group of people the entire semester. I think the final count of students who filed for appeals was something like 22 students. Every student whose GPA could be improved with a satisfactory applied for one. You should have seen the look on the department chair's face when we showed up with a stack of appeals.
Starting point is 00:04:31 No department in the history of the school had ever had that many appeals and complaints for a single course. Let alone for a single professor. I know this because the dean sat us all down and said so. There were so many appeals that they had to bring us into the faculty panel in groups of 3-4, not that it mattered. The whole thing was just a formality as the die was cast.
Starting point is 00:04:52 Two weeks later, we heard the news. Everyone, literally everyone had gotten their appeal approved. Dr. J was given a formal warning by the university and had most of his courses taken away, and they were now taught by other people. Dr. J was given a formal warning by the university and had most of his courses taken away, and they were now taught by other people. He so holds on to the computer architecture course and some freshman intro classes, but from what I've heard, he hasn't failed anyone for a long time. So if you're a lazy prick of a professor, be warned.
Starting point is 00:05:19 You might get someone like me for a student who foments an insurrection in your class and turns your job upside down. Teachers who do this, just, oh my, it pisses me off so much because if you take this model and apply it to literally any other industry, that industry would absolutely crumble. Okay, so when you go to college, you're paying for a service, right? You're paying them money so they can teach you. Let's apply this to another service industry. Like, let's say, let's say landscaping. Imagine you hire someone to come mo your lawn and like trim your hedges or whatever,
Starting point is 00:05:50 and they send someone and they mo like a fourth of your lawn. And they just don't do the rest, they just don't do it. And then when you complain to the business owner, they say, well, yeah, see, the problem is the guy that we sent to mo your lawn, he has 10 years so we can't fire him. So I guess you're just going to have to accept the partially mowed lawn. Thanks for the money though.
Starting point is 00:06:10 Am I wrong? It's insane, it makes no sense. And then the professors who like intentionally fail half their class, are they make it some point of pride where they grade on a curve and they're like, oh well, most of you will get a C and about 10% of you will fail. That's like hiring a chef to cook you a meal and the chef is like, okay, so on average you should only kind of like this meal.
Starting point is 00:06:33 About 10% of you will find it delicious and about 10% of you will find it disgusting. But the important thing is that most of you only go away going, eh, it was okay, I guess. Our next reddit post is from Waste Isopod. In our mid-20s, my husband and I purchased and moved into our rather modest first house with our infant daughter. I made a big effort to meet and befriend our neighbors, and all of them warned me to be
Starting point is 00:06:56 careful of one particular person, Jane. Jane lived on that street for three years at that point, and she'd earned herself the nickname Big Fat Jane, because she was manipulating, intimidating, and thoroughly awful. Jane ran a daycare from her house and neighbors on both sides reported hearing her scream at the children and leave them unsupervised in the garden. It's important to note that Jane's partner was a police officer, so the neighbors were scared of retaliation if they reported her or stood up to her. It seemed that Jane would take advantage of this to get away with her horrific behavior.
Starting point is 00:07:29 Our house had a driveway with enough space for one car, but you could fit two if you blocked in the first and only use the second car. Parking on the street was very limited, and we had double yellow lines outside of our house that meant that you weren't allowed to stop or park there. During some essential roof work, our driveway was taken up by some scaffolding, so we parked in the street and my husband parked outside Big Fat Jane's house. The next day when he went to his car, Big Fat Jane came running down her path shouting at him.
Starting point is 00:07:56 She screamed about his anti-social parking, saying his car would be towed, and that he could expect it to be scratched up if he left it there any longer. My husband calmly explained that this was a public road and she had no right to police the space. She was screeching so loudly that me and several other neighbors came out to see what the commotion was. Her partner stood at the door during all of this, saying and doing nothing. When she saw me on the pavement with our daughter, she pointed and screamed. You'll have social workers on you if you don't f off. I'll scratch you right up.
Starting point is 00:08:28 At this point, I told my husband to come back and that we were calling the cops. She responded, call the police. I, f-ing, dare you. He, she pointed at her partner, is a police man. He'll f-ing sort you out. You won't know what hit you. At this point, my husband looked at her husband and said, is that right? You're agreeing with what she said? The cop nodded and said, you need to move or accept the consequences.
Starting point is 00:08:54 Go ahead and call the cops. It won't get you anywhere. Funnily enough, when I then took out my phone and dialed the non-emergency police number on speakerphone and made a police report, they both looked a lot less confident. Big Fat James stood there open mouth, then grabbed her partner and slammed the door, and we haven't heard from her since. Her partner was placed on suspension due to the allegation and further allegations from our neighbors. He then returned to an admin role. After our confrontation, Big Fat James was given a warning for a public order offense. Additionally, due to a number of reports, her daycare closed down and she was no longer
Starting point is 00:09:31 able to watch over kids. Their house is now up for sale. However, since she made a number of modifications without getting the proper permits, its price is significantly lower than they expected, and they're in negative equity. All because of a parking space. Our next replies from Obi. I started getting items in the mail, like headphones or whatever, with a note that offers free stuff and $10 gift cards in exchange
Starting point is 00:09:54 for writing a five-star review on Amazon. I'm a fairly big reviewer. Over the years, I've written more than 2,000 legit reviews. To me, reviews are the most useful aspect of Amazon and nothing pisses me off more than fake reviews to promote a sucky product. So I said FIT and wrote a review. I emailed the scammer with a link to my review, got my $10 gift card, then I
Starting point is 00:10:17 edited the review to explicitly explain how the scammer is trying to rig the system. There is absolutely nothing to prevent you from doing this. Not only do you waste their time and money, but your review can help raise awareness of this BS. Our next Reddit post is from Magerin. Years ago, I worked as a cocktail bartender in a waiter. A group of suits came in and sat down and I went to take their order. I got a bad vibe off them from the get go, and after I finished the order and went to leave, this 30-something sleazy guy said loud enough for everyone to hear. Walk away slowly, babies, so we can watch. I smiled at him, and I started to do an over-dramatic, slow motion backwards walk, keeping eye contact
Starting point is 00:10:59 with him and smiling the whole time. I told the other waiters about it, and everyone started doing these slow motion walks whenever they walked past their table. The best one was a busboy who deliberately dropped something next to their table, then did a very slow and sexy pickup like the bend and snap from legally blonde. They left pretty quickly. Down in the comments, Carrie Bell asks, did the bus boy maintain eye contact and OP replies? He tried to. They were all doing their best to ignore him. Our next reddit posted from Direct Sheeperter. My very first job was working fast food at Wendy's. I was 16 and most of my co-workers were also teenagers.
Starting point is 00:11:43 There was always work to be done. If you have time to lean, you have time to clean. But working afternoons and evenings with a bunch of teams, there was also plenty of screwing around. Work wasn't the greatest, but it wasn't really that bad either. It was tolerable. Then we got a new manager. This guy was in his 40s, and he was a lifer.
Starting point is 00:12:03 He was super strict, and was not about having fun at work at all. Unfortunately, I quickly became his favorite work vessel because I was easier to control than some of my co-workers. He leaned heavily on me to pick up slack that others left. It got real old, real fast. Why should I work more than everybody else for the same pay? Why should I be stuck doing more tasks than my coworkers who get to continue to goof off? I voiced my concerns
Starting point is 00:12:30 to the manager, but nothing changed. He was usually busy hiding in the office with the mirrored glass window, just watching everybody. He'd only surface on occasion to tell me to work harder and give everyone else a free pass. Eventually I had enough. One day I marched into his office and demanded that either I get a raise or for him to hold everybody else to the same standards he did me. He did not go for that. I told him to consider that conversation my two weeks notice then. He said he needed my two weeks notice in writing. I ripped his sheet of paper out of a notebook on his desk and wrote, This is my 2 weeks notice, signed O.P. I walked out of his office, spit on the paper, and stuck it to his mirrored glass window. He could look at it all he wanted to that way.
Starting point is 00:13:16 I felt amazing. For the next 2 weeks, the manager kept letting me know that it wasn't too late to change my mind about quitting. He kept alluding to a raise, but never actually offered it. Duh, down in the comments, I loved this reply from the blonde bird. You should have said, sure, I've changed my mind and I'll stay. Then on the last day, say, no, I'm not staying. I never said I would in writing, right? Our next word it poses from Morgan Lee. My wife teaches a lovely group of kids in an area where parents are incredibly strict.
Starting point is 00:13:48 The kids are almost all operating within the A grade range, and the parents overwork them to ensure the A+. Anyways, the new school year has some parents pestering my wife for extra credit assignments. She insists that it's optional for her to assign extra credit, and they've raised the issue up through administration to force her hand. Another teacher, who teaches the same class, gives tons of extra credit, and they want their kids to be on an even level. With the news that she would have to match the amount of given extra credit opportunities, she decided to involve the children's parents.
Starting point is 00:14:20 So for example, the kids would have to write a 5-page handwritten and legible essay about a historic event that they were part of. Or they would have to do a 20-minute video interview of their opinions and experiences about a certain political event while growing up. A whole of my wife's extracredit assignments take lots of time from the parents each day for just a couple of points on the next exam. Whenever my wife assigns extracredit assignments like these, the participation rate has been zero.
Starting point is 00:14:47 So the thing to keep in mind about extra credit is that it's not just extra work for the kids, it's also extra work for the teacher too. But when we waste the parents' time, suddenly extra credit is much less important. That was our slash malicious compliance, and if you like this content, you can listen to my podcast on your smart speaker. All you have to do is say, hey, device, play the latest episode of the our slash podcast. Also, be sure to follow my podcast because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.

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