A good teacher can broaden a student's horizons and make even the most stubborn student learn. A bad teacher––and there are quite a few out there––will severely impair a student's relationship with the subject they're teaching. For example, I have had many good English and History teachers. They genuinely sparked my interest in those subjects. But I have had a number of terrible Math teachers, and I never took to the subject. (I would later take statistics in college, and while it was difficult and time-consuming, I loved the way it made me think.)
After Redditor GallopYouScallops asked the online community, "Who was the worst teacher you ever had?" people shared their stories.
"Then she has the audacity..."
My 4th-grade teacher often took away my little crafts and drawings, threw them into the trash, and told me that stuff was for kindergarteners. She also tried to suspend me for making paper claws.
Then she has the audacity to question my mom about why I was so depressed in her class.
"The class was..."
Mrs. Ray (3rd grade).
The class was going to have an ice cream party IF all of the students got their timetables right. I ended up missing two as I had a really hard time memorizing information. In fact, many years later it was found that I had a math disability. Anyhow she didn't say anything, our party was scheduled and my mom sent in toppings with me to school the day of. Just before the party started she came over and told me I had missed a few of them and that I needed to go sit in the library during the party, alone. She knew that my mom was sending in toppings and demanded them, I was resistant so she had to pull my book bag from me to get them out.
So I sat alone for about 45 minutes or so in the library while all of my classmates ate ice cream using the toppings my mom provided no less. 35 years later I am STILL angry over it and now that I have kids I couldn't imagine them having to go through that. Honestly, it made me HATE math the rest of my life also. And now at over 40 I still don't know all of my tables.... and I even graduated from college.
"Oh..."
Grade 10 math teacher. Eastern European guy with a heavy accent that was hard to understand. That alone wasn't bad, except when you asked him to repeat something, or for clarification, he'd berate you and call you stupid. At the end of the year, I failed my exam, and he literally said to me "I will pass you if you leave my class and never come back again." I never agreed to something so quickly.
Oh, and my grade 10 french teacher. She had mental breakdowns at the end of every year, and I am not exaggerating. We did s*** all in class until she had her breakdown, then we had a sub who desperately tried to teach us enough to help us pass the exam. We were graded on a curve to make up for our lack of education all year. I remember playing my DS in her class every day, didn't need to hide it or anything. She didn't give a s***. It's a shame, I actually enjoyed french as a subject up until that point, after which I was too far behind to continue.
"I found out later..."
Mrs. Brown. I had her in year 3 (aged 7-8) and my god, she did not like me. I had been a bit of a teacher's pet throughout my earlier years so I was quite taken aback when this lady didn't like me. No matter what I did, I was finding myself in trouble. The slightest whisper to my friend, I would be in trouble, while others around me would get away with having open conversations with their tables. My work was never good enough. She even put me on an IEP (that's kind of a programme you mostly use for additional needs pupils).
My following teacher, Mrs. Harris, was lovely. Openly told me she had no idea why I had been put on an IEP in the first place and I felt myself getting back on track. By the end of the year, I somehow found myself wondering if maybe I'd been the one in the wrong with Mrs. Brown - she had been the grown-up after all so there was always a good chance it had been my fault we hadn't gotten along. But after Mrs. Harris I had Mrs Brown again and realised that no no, it was her problem after all.
I found out later that apparently, I'd met Mrs. Brown shortly before I'd started school and had had a tantrum in her presence - I guess she'd just decided I was a naughty child and it had become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Now that I'm a teacher myself I can understand that the way she acted was extremely inappropriate and you never use an IEP as a form of punishment. Funnily enough, her husband taught PE in the secondary school I went to and he had a school-wide reputation of being a d!ck too so I guess it was just their thing.
I try to remember Mrs. Brown when I'm teaching and make sure my pupils know that every day is a fresh start and any misbehaviours from yesterday won't affect the way they're treated today.
My high school physics teacher. I loved maths, physics, chemistry in my primary school and I was quite good at those too. But that bitch in my high school only accepted the very exact solution to any problem that she had in mind. When asked to solve any exercise or answer a question I would be ridiculed and given a bad grade if I dared to think about the problem and give my own solution. If they were two perfectly good solutions I would be damned if I used the wrong one. It was like writing 'B + A' instead of 'A + B' was enough to fail.
The result was I barely passed. I couldn't make myself learn this by just memorizing things exactly. Using any interesting knowledge sources was pointless. I hardly passed a physics course there and was not able to pass the entrance exam to the university well enough. I ended graduating something else than I wanted.
"I'll preface this..."
I'll preface this by saying I'm autistic and required a few accommodations in school. One of those was the means of a laptop to typewritten assignments on. Some teachers were cool with it, others begrudged it. One of them Really begrudged it. She was a 70-odd-year-old woman who told me if I didn't touch-type, I wouldn't be allowed to use my laptop to write. My handwriting is very poor as is my general dexterity. She starts observing my typing during note taking and slaps my hand with her pointer stick thing. "What did I tell you about your typing?", she snapped.
So I think nothing of it. Figured, just get through this day. Three days later, note-taking again, I'm typing in my quasi-hunt-and-peck style, she slaps my hand yet again and this time says nothing. I say to her "Seriously?", and she forcefully slams my laptop shut, hands me paper and a pencil, and goes "Write. Now."
One phone call from my mother to our guidance counselor later, I'm permitted to use my laptop in that class again. At this point I dread this teacher completely and I am making more of an effort to touch-type, but it feels unnatural and i'm doing it to avoid her reaction more than anything else.
Well, a few more days go by and I'm reverting back to my natural typing style, and this time she sees it and slaps my hand with a metal ruler, which actually really hurt. And at that point, I grab the ruler out of her hand, fling it across the room and I yell "Hit me again! Hit me again!", and when I tell you this woman turned White, like, it looked as if the soul left her body.
So, pretty much every other teacher in the next 4 rooms heard that, and I was taken aside to explain to the principal what happened, and I tell him the whole situation and he calls my mom down there, who is livid at my teacher and demands my removal from that class and that teacher fired -- teacher never got disciplined, I got 3 days of suspension for calling her a bad name, but I did get transferred to another class.
This teacher retired within two years and believe me when I say Everyone was glad to see her go.
"For context..."
A geology teacher in primary school. Still have various forms of nightmares today and angry writing this. Never shared with anyone. I still don't know the reason she threw away my homework right in front of the whole class.
For context, she is checking homework at her desk and calling one student after another. I brought my homework to her when it was my turn. She took it and flung it across the classroom to the door. Not knowing what happened and perhaps naive and confused, i picked it up and handed it to her again. She threw it away again and yelled at me not to pick it up. I cried for the whole day.
One of my "history" professors from back in college. It's a small liberal arts college that averaged 900 total students yearly, and everyone who attended got placed into one of three social categories: Jock, Hippie, and Other.
Other was then divided into about a handful of subcategories, with one of the biggest groups being the LGBTQ+ Alliance members.
Enter the professor. She was relatively new to the college (either her first or second year), and created a spring term class that was essentially Queer 20th Century History. I was a history major and thought of it as a double win.
It wasn't bad a first, actually pretty enjoyable. She didn't quite give off the experienced-teacher vibe, cause it seemed like her eyes were forever glued to the notes she had for that day and every 10 or so minutes we'd get some version of "according to/as per the source..."
About 2/3 through the semester, we get to the Stonewall Riots. As the class was about to end, we get assigned a 3-page "opinions & thoughts" essay on the event.
No big deal. It's a major historical queer event and filling 3 pages would be a breeze.
So, of course, I procrastinate until the night before. I'm looking through my notes for a specific date, but realize I had only written the year. I hop onto Wikipedia, search for the Stonewall Riots page, and start scanning it.
It took a whole two paragraphs to realize that I was reading her entire lecture from that day. Terminology, paragraph transitions, the works. It wasn't true word-for-word, but it must have been 90% identical. I read the rest of the article with my jaw just about on the floor. I texted a couple of my friends that were taking the class with me and told them to read through it. I needed confirmation that I wasn't imagining it.
I wasn't.
The next afternoon, we were back in the class. In all honesty, I cant even remember what that day's lesson was, because I was determined to indirectly call her out. After the second mention of "source", I raised my hand. She acknowledges, and I ask, "What sources are these, in case we need references for later?"
I wasn't expecting her to get as flustered as she did. After staring at the booklet of notes she was reading from and a couple "ummmmm..."s, she finally looked back up at me and said she'd email me her sources later that day (which, by the way, I'm still waiting for 12 years later). For the rest of the semester, we would randomly ask her the same question, and not once were we given an actual answer. Checking Wikipedia after the lessons (and sometimes during) became a common occurrence, and almost like a game for the remaining month or so.
Flash forward to the next semester. I was now a senior and in need of a filler class to fulfill my minimum semester credits. I figured I'd try out the same professor and signed up for her new class.
If it's any indication of how engaging it was, I don't even remember what the class actually covered. Part of me wants to say Medieval Art, because the only thing I remember from that entire semester was a paper that involved looking up the details of various pieces (artist, year created, country, yadda yadda).
Essentially, a waste of a couple thousand dollars for a dud class.
Semester just about comes to a close, and we are looking through our choices to end the year with. Once again in filler desperation, paired with senioritis and the painful need to not have an 830 class, I was left with only one choice: The History of Agriculture. With her.
I made it a full three classes before dropping it and waking up early for a music class that just had enough credits attached to hit the minimum. I felt so bad for the friend who had been taking the class with me; as the prof was signing the form for me to drop the class, the look on my friend's face screamed "please don't leave me here".
Even worse for her, she had two classes with this same prof that semester. One day at lunch, she drops down across from me at the table and starts telling me how she can't take this teacher anymore. In the US History class she taught, she spent all of 20 minutes on Frederick Douglass, then turned around and took a whole week on the importance of grass.
I get it. I went to an Environmental Liberal Arts College. But in my own opinion, someone categorized as a General History professor should probably put the focus on the major events of history, especially when it pertains to the title of the class.
She's still teaching there. I wonder if she's memorized the Wikis yet.
"I could barely read the content..."
My 9th-grade science teacher. I could barely read the content he wrote on the board so I had to copy notes from one of my friends half the time. He had bad handwriting and also handwrote all of our tests/quizzes and I never got above a C- on any of his tests or quizzes the entire year. I had good grades in my other classes except for his.
Also once when I was feeling sick, I had to use the bathroom before class started so I asked to go and he asked me if it was actually an emergency. I said it was so he let me go. Not even fifteen minutes later, I felt my stomach turn and I literally ran to the bathroom like my @ss was on fire. After I was done, another girl who was in the same class as me got me some water and walked with me back to class so I could get my stuff to go home. We get to the door and it's locked. She knocked and he unlocked the door and let us in. Then he asked me what I was doing and I said I got sick so I was going home.
The next year when I switched over to the public school, I got a way better science teacher and my grade went up to an A.
"My whole school..."
Bit late to this, but in Year 7 (11-12 years old), my maths teacher was giving us our class test, I had a pencil that rolled across the desk and me being only 11 didn't see the issue with standing up to take my pencil back. Teacher saw me doing this, comes across the classroom takes my test and throws it in the bin at the front of the room.
For clarity, there were two students to each desk, one on the end of the table and the other at the other end but on the long edge - my pencil had rolled towards this other student. I see how it may look like I was cheating, but to throw my test in a bin on a test I actually was confident on ruined any further maths for me and I still can not stand it.
(From that binned test I went from set 1 - highest in the year - to set 4. Still a bit miffed at that.)
I also had an art teacher in Year 9 (13-14 years old), who gave me a detention for telling him the white box (in the white to black gradients we had to paint) had already been painted white and continuously putting more white in the box would be pointless.
The same man gave my friend two weeks of detentions in the same class for something equally as stupid - our head of year wasn't able to take the detentions away for either of us, but she allowed both of us to leave class for lunch 30 minutes early so we still had a lunchtime and my friend wasn't lonely on the days she had detentions.
My whole school was mainly filled with teachers who didn't care about you and many that told me I shouldn't be what I wanted to be because I was too bad at things, which only made me not want to do the work for their class more. Can safely say for every single one of those classes, I aced at higher levels when I had teachers who actually believed in me.
(All classes I was told I shouldn't do, triple science at GCSE, I didn't do well in. Not only was I already anxious over my decision in the first place, the advisor who told me I was too bad to take them made it worse, on top of the teachers continuously saying it during class. I took it at a higher level, after getting decent grades without revision and got high 90's marks in everything and studied it at university.)
"The honorable mentions..."
Either my 4th-grade math teacher, or my 7th-grade art teacher.
4th-grade teacher was a douche, and often yelled at every student for no reason. A friend of mine, let's call him Michael, was hated the most by her. She would constantly berate him 24/7. She also got me suspended because I was defending myself from a bully.
7th-grade teacher was homophobic and discriminated against me because I have autism so I can't understand and think the same as other people. He openly called me the R word right in front of the whole class. Friends of mine were definitely pissed off. I ended up leaving the class and cried to the principal's office. He got fired about 1 week later.
I had a substitute teacher back in the 6th grade who is hated by universally everyone in the entire school. Reasons? She discriminated against my friend, who is Korean, and called him racial slurs, and said he has no friends. He got LIVID. A bunch of us were upset as well, and eventually, 4 months later, she got fired because a student finally complained to her.
The honorable mentions are my 5th-grade science teacher and my 6th-grade math teacher.
5th-grade teacher made life a living hell, when I was bullied, I often got in trouble, without the bullies. She tried every excuse in the book to find a reason to get me in trouble.
6th-grade math teacher pushed and fought a student in the hallway. It ended with the kid pushing her to the floor and the kid was suspended for several days. Karen was never suspended or fired.
F*** you to the following teachers:
Mrs. Weaver. Mrs. Kays. Mrs. Oglesby. Mr. Alligood.
"The worst?"
The worst? Blanche Brown, sixth-grade horror. She was old. She had several knit skirt sets, ALL the same, ALL in brown. She looked like a giant yeti, her head topped by a crown of frizzy white hair, and she had a high forehead. She had it out for me from day one, every day she'd pick at me. I had a learning disability, she put me in the accelerated learning groups, then she would berate me for falling behind.
She stopped me from going to art class and said, "You're good enough at that, you need to focus on math." And she did that without telling my parents, my dad had it out with the principal. Finally, at mid-year she made me miss the bus and she called me stupid, sloppy, and lazy. When my mom found that out, it was all-out war. My parents pulled me out of public school, went into a Catholic School for a semester, and excelled. I have two college degrees, I have chair statewide organizations in historic preservation and history. I enjoyed a long term career. I have had book contracts, and my books are best sellers in their categories. Every time I get those residual checks from my publisher, it proves Mrs. Brown wrong. It wasn't until reunions later on that I understood how pervasive her abuse was. But we all survived, and our successes as a vindication of her malevolent ways.
"It wasn't that I hated him..."
Had a band teacher in middle school. It wasn't that I hated him necessarily, but he hated us. Whenever a student would slightly piss him off, he would knock down his chair and break sh!t. I specifically remember a time of him snapping his glasses in half and throwing a chair at the wall while dropping multiple f-bombs. That was an interesting day lol.
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Important Lessons People Have Learned The Hard Way
Reddit user IndianaC0NES asked: 'What’s an important lesson you learned the hard way?'
We've all had to learn something the hard way or at a super inconvenient time.
But because we're always learning new things, of course there will have to be some things that we learn later, rather than sooner, no matter the consequences of learning it too late.
Redditor IndianaC0NES asked:
"What's an important lesson you learned the hard way?"
Money Management
"Do not spend like there’s no tomorrow. Tomorrow will come and it won’t be pretty."
- cpu5555
Permanent Partner
"Never have kids with someone you don’t want in your life forever."
- pntszrn74
Make It Official First
"Money doesn’t exist until the deposit hits your bank account, and business promises mean nothing until legal documents are signed."
- FriscoFrank98
Know Your Limits
"Learn when to stop drinking and call it a night."
- Gadrilor
Trust Your Gut
"If something feels wrong, it likely is."
- drzed47
"This is closely related to, 'If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.'"
- remag_nation
The Importance of Dental Health
"Dental care is expensive!! Never be lazy with oral hygiene."
- the_rice_life
"And dental problems are EXTREMELY PAINFUL."
- Next-Confection3261
Be Careful Who You Share It With
"Not everyone has the same heart as you do."
- Accomplished_Hat2770
Be Wary of Bullies
"Not everyone is a good person. Some people actually want to see you fail. Stop oversharing. These nasty people will use it against you."
- Ko_ogs72
"My brain still can't comprehend someone being a d**k for no reason."
- Arny520
Recognize the Red Flags
"Don't let love blind your eyes, red flags are real."
- Fxk07
"And: No one is worth sacrificing your self-respect for."
- Waltzing_Methusalah
"It sucks when you’re halfway to learning this lesson before you even realize it. It’s so important to know your boundaries and respect yourself with the diligence required to walk away from people creating toxic patterns in your life, even or ESPECIALLY before you have the full picture to work with."
"We all know it’s heading south long before these things have terrible consequences on oneself/life. At a certain point, it’s too late to escape unscathed. Self-respect and what amounts to the ‘sunken-cost dilemma’ NEVER go together in relationships."
- brashbabu
The Likelihood of Success
"It's possible to make no wrong moves and still lose."
- Tropicsenshi
Family Ties
"Your family doesn't always have your best interest at heart."
- OhMyGodBearIsDriving
"Sometimes, family are just a bunch of bad people who are biologically related to you."
- noorofmyeye24
Wear the Helmet
"WEAR A HELMET."
"It's an easy safety precaution you can take when rollerblading, biking, skateboarding, scootering, etc. And it can literally save your life."
"I went all through the 90s thinking helmets were lame... I Fell while rollerblading in my 30s and got a subdural hematoma. I wasn't going fast but the momentum from how I fell just slammed my head into the concrete."
"HELMETS SAVE LIVES."
- Shortiie5115
Proper Eye and Ear Care
"Here is my PSA about eye protection. You only have two eyes and many injuries are not repairable. I have a completely s**t vision in one eye because of an injury and I'm constantly paranoid about something happening to the good eye. Wear safety glasses folk, it's important."
- ipsok
"And ear protection. You do not want Tinnitus."
- farmerofstrawberries
Love Your Loved Ones
"Always take a chance to tell someone you love them. To give them a hug."
"Never end a conversation with a harsh word."
"Both for the same reason. You never know if you will get to see that person alive again."
"I learned both those lessons from each of my parents."
- Edgezg
Self Advocate
"Stand up for yourself. If you get in the habit of letting people walk all over you, it'll be extremely difficult to reverse. Even if you're not confident, just fake it till you make it!"
- MISTERDIEABETIC
As humans, we will never stop learning and taking in new information, but there are, of course, some things that we wish we could have learned sooner or through an easier path.
But at least now that we've learned these lessons, we can share them with others, so they might not have to take the same path we did.
From a young age, we've all had it drilled into us the importance of finding a good job that we can work at for the rest of our lives.
But sometimes those jobs don't work out for one reason or another, and sometimes all of the fault gets pinned on the employee.
Redditor DankGamer135 asked:
"What one mistake ended your career?"
A Scam Order
"While working at a builders’ merchant's, a customer called to place an order over the phone (not unusual) and wanted to give me the card details, there and then (red flag)."
"I initially refused, but another member of staff vouched for them as they were regulars. I put the order through, knowing that whoever came to collect would need to come into the office for their paperwork before loading, so we would have them on CCTV if it did turn out to be suspect…"
"Except the yard crew didn’t follow the process. When a van turned up for the goods, they loaded it all up and sent them away without asking for any kind of ID or manifest."
"The payment card was later reported as stolen, and the staff member who vouched for the customer denied even being in that day, which was a f**king lie as she never took time off. I got fired and everyone else got to keep their jobs."
- Shas_Erra
"That sounds like a setup. They should’ve been easily able to verify whether the person that vouched for them was working that day (check her clock in/out times, CCTV, etc)."
"At the very least, someone on the yard crew should’ve gotten fired too because they didn’t follow procedure either (and it’s even worse because if they had, it could’ve been stopped dead in the tracks)."
"I’m sorry, man."
- princessleyley
Lifting Wrong
"I lifted wrong. 14 years of arboriculture coming to an end now, and I'm not sure of the next job."
- Spaghettitrees
"14 years might be enough to move into a supervisory/managerial role if one exists in the field. It would allow you to still utilize your experience to some degree."
- srentiln
A Screaming Match
"I worked retail pharmacy for 10(ish) years. One day in the drive-thru, we had a belligerent patient. The guy's doctor sent his script to our other chain about 1.5 miles down the road. We were on the same street, and addresses get mixed up all the time. No biggie, give me 10 minutes and I'll have it ready..."
"But the dude just starts laying into me for no reason. Calls me an id**t. Calls me incompetent. Says he knows where his doctor sent it and I'm a lazy, lying piece of s**t. Etc, etc."
"After a few MINUTES going back and forth, with this guy yelling loud enough in my drive-thru that other staff inside the store can hear him, I tell him he needs to leave and find a new pharmacy."
"The guy lays into me again. Refuses to leave. I tell him, 'F**k off or I'm calling the police.'"
"Apparently, that was over the line for my company. No interview with HR. No discipline. No suspension. They just straight up fired my a** about three weeks later after an 'internal investigation.'"
- frithjofr
Physical Space
"One of the Directors wasn't happy with some work I'd done and started poking me hard with his finger to punctuate his comments."
"I punctuated back considerably more forcefully."
- jonnymars
The Angel of Death
"I called the HR lady the 'Angel of Death' to a coworker on chat. (HR was in a different state, so any time they came to town we all knew it was most likely to lay off people.)"
"The Angel of death came to get me shortly after, lol (laughing out loud)."
- michaudra2
"I once worked in a company as the help desk tech that would come collect tech while people were in with HR getting fired. I got the nickname Grim Reaper, because if I showed up with my cart and nobody in that department called, then one of their colleagues wouldn't be coming back from their meeting with HR."
- Houseplantkiller123
Home Sweet Home
"I built a castle out of Christmas chocolate biscuit boxes in the warehouse of a major retailer on a night shift and proceeded to fall asleep in it for a few hours."
- masontraining
The Wrong Recipient
"I sent a scathing email about my boss directly to my boss. It wasn't meant for him."
"To this day, I still have no idea what possessed me to put his name in the address bar. I noticed his name the exact moment I hit send."
"You have never felt that much panic."
- Happy1327
A Brand New Car
"I was a part-time intern making $9 an hour (USD) and my boss asked if I had any plans for the weekend."
"I had said I was going to buy a new car (very much old and used as that's what I could afford) and he asked if I was buying a brand new car. My response was that my budget isn't big enough for a new car."
"A couple of weeks later during my one-year review, my manager said they didn't have the work for me and that I was disrespectful for telling the boss I didn't make enough money."
"At the time I was living comfortably as a college student who just needed different transportation. I tried not to be disrespectful but apparently I was."
- Kulee43
Fired in Retaliation
"I got security responsibilities added to my duties as a sysadmin at a small university. I was asked by my boss' boss, the IT director, to do a security audit. He asked me to report on the audit at a department meeting."
"I asked if I could present my results to him privately instead and have him present at the meeting, but he insisted I could take care of it."
"My report showed major security holes, demonstrations of tests of said holes, and recommendations for patching said holes. Many of the patches were at the level of 'change the administrator password from 'password' to something less obvious.'"
"As my political acumen was near zero at the time, I didn't realize how the report on major security problems made the IT Director look completely incompetent in front of the entire department. He had built and configured the campus computer system pretty much on his own, at least in his mind, and was quite proud of his accomplishment."
"He suspended me on the spot, demoted me, and tried to convince the university to fire me and try to bring me up on criminal charges for hacking into the university's computer systems."
- firelock_ny
A Terrible Accident
"I had a workplace accident, a fall from an extreme height. I didn't get fired but broke enough bones that I'll never work in that industry again."
- Malromen
Out of Context
"I was opening my packages in the mailroom, using a pocket knife to slice open the packing tape. The secretary came in and chatted. We’re both Italian so we gesture a lot while talking."
"Sometime after the conversation, the Ops manager came down from his office and escorted me out of the building. I had forgotten the knife was in my hand while talking with the secretary, and she made an accusation that I had threatened her with it during our conversation."
"I was fired three days later."
"I had worked with this woman for almost a decade. I helped her children with their homework, etc."
"Years later, I learned corporate wanted to take down my boss and started the process by going after his biggest supporters. I was the third domino to fall. After I was railroaded, almost 40% of the branch’s staff left the company. I guess the secretary was in on it and leaped at any excuse to take me out."
"Shame. Really loved that job. And got fired when my first child was due in only four weeks. It was very demoralizing for quite a while."
- Bokuden101
Stolen Cigarettes
"This isn't about me, but a guy I worked with was caught stealing two cigarettes from a colleague's bag. He was on a six-figure salary. Not anymore!"
- Rude-Scholar-469
"How can anybody be so dumb? Especially as a smoker, he should be aware how other smokers are very likely to share their cigarettes with you if you just ask them."
- SherifGames
The Stolen Lunch
"This didn't happen to me, but I remember a coworker of mine getting fired because he put laxatives in his own lunch bag. Some d*ckhead kept stealing parts of our lunches. Turned out, it was our supervisor."
"I'm not too keen on the specifics since that coworker and I weren't exactly friends or anything. I just kind of had simple conversations during lunch and whatnot."
"Apparently, it is illegal to poison food with malicious intent. And some of my friends who worked there said he got into some legal trouble because of it. Nothing came of it from what I heard. But that's about all I know."
- DeicideandDivide
A Slanderous Date
"I went on a first date with a girl who turned out to be a horrible person 20 minutes in."
"I did what I could to get out of it because she was telling stories about crazy things she’d done and was proud of. I didn’t pull anything to get out of it, just dodged land mines and asked a ton of questions about her so I could get out of it sooner."
"Then I said I wasn’t feeling the connection and I wanted to be honest so we didn’t waste each other's time."
"I found out a week later that she contacted my previous employers, because she found my LinkedIn, told them all stories about how I talked a ton of s**t about them all. And now I can’t get a reference from my previous three jobs… and people I was on good terms with."
"All because I went on a date with a psychopath."
- FirstFlight
Taking Sides
"I sided with the peeps under me as their manager."
- ThunderClap449
"It's more important to have the back of the people you represent. In my experience, you get better production out of people who know you go to bat for them. Then your numbers and team performance look good and they figure, well, he must be doing something right."
- A_Vile_Person
While it is always terrible to lose a job, these stories make it clear that sometimes we lose jobs for reasons that really should be no fault of our own. From fraud to accidents to false charges, people have been fired for things they certainly shouldn't have been.
And for those who were fired for reasons that wholly were their fault, well, at least that was a learning experience.
Emotions are high at weddings, with the bride and groom going through various stages of anxiety and excitement.
During those stages, seeing how well a newly wedding couple interacts with each other as well as with other family members and friends under pressure can indicate how well they work together as a team.
If professional wedding photographers had years of experience capturing one of the most monumental milestones for couples, they would be able to identify if a couple can make it for the long haul.
Curious to hear from them, Redditor Arknight40 asked:
"Wedding photographers of Reddit, what was your 'they're not gonna last long' moment?"
Some marriages had problems before saying "I do".
The Last Session
"Bride looked visibly miserable the entire ceremony. While photographing the men’s 'getting ready' portion, the groom repeatedly kept joking about killing himself."
"During the toast, the bride ran off to the bathroom for about 30 minutes and came back wiping her tears with her eyes red and puffy. Neither of them had any chemistry at all, it made no sense why they were together to me. That was the last wedding I shot."
– Majestic_Storage_563
Groom's Wandering Eye
"I'm a videographer and the groom called me a couple days after the wedding. He wanted me to make sure I didn't include any footage of him checking out the women at the wedding."
– Tim0281
Party Bride
"One of those hotel venues that can run two weddings at the same time. Bride from our wedding is found in a hotel room with the groomsmen from the other wedding doing drugs before the first dance. End result was we got paid and were told no need to edit or deliver pics. Safe to say It didn't last the night."
– mysticsika
Red Flags Galore
"The engagement session."
"The couple was in from out of town because she had just taken the bar exam to become a lawyer. At the end of the session, I gave them a prompt to share with each other what they were proud of each other for. He couldn't think of a single thing."
"Somehow they still got married, complete with: the groom drinking 11 IPAs + several shots before the ceremony, mother of the bride so drunk for family photos she pretended to strip, and the groom and all the groomsmen wearing camo hats with neon orange letters that said 't*tties and beer.' For the entire wedding day. Including sunset couples photos where he refused to do anything I suggested, nearly spat chew right on my feet, kept farting on purpose, and loudly complained about how all he wanted was to go have sex."
– V-Savage
Demanding clients indicated how difficult they might be as a spouse.
Once More From The Top
"Wedding was on a golf course. Bride had a vision she wanted of her husband driving up on a golf cart to see her for a first look."
"He got one look at her from the top of the hill and vaulted the cart, ran down the hill, picked her up and twirled her around to tell her how gorgeous she was. We caught it all. It was the best first look ever."
"Once he set her down she straightened herself and looked back to us. 'Okay, I don’t want that. Let’s do the golf cart now.' And she sent him back up."
– Pancakes_Whisperer
More Photoshop Please
"I did a wedding for an acquaintance and her husband. Day goes great, I’m really happy with almost everything I took, everyone was feeling it and having fun. But, (and this is one of the reasons I quit photography) the bride sees some of the photos I had sent her, and immediately is calling me. 'I need you to do the editing magic and make me look skinny, John was saying I was going to look too fat in my dress and wanted me to lose weight but I knew you could just edit it, so haha I didn’t'. So I have to explain (this is like 2010) I can only photoshop so much, I.e. I can make you look a tad slimmer in certain photos without making it noticeable. But I can’t do it to all of them, and if I was to, the editing would be noticeable, and I will have to charge you a lot of money to edit you in all the photos. She tried to convince me to edit hundreds of photos for a couple hundred bux, and I have other jobs going and had given them a great deal already so explained I couldn’t. So she insist I do at least some of her main pics, I tell her when people see the rest of the pics they will see the difference, she didn’t care and insisted more. So I do, and a couple weeks later when I thought it was all done and history calls me and leaves me a voicemail of how I ruined her wedding, her new husband is upset at how she looks in the pics and keeps making remarks about her weight. So didn’t seem like they were in a great place from the get go."
– Jadedsatire
A Secret Arrangement
"While shooting video, I attached a microphone to the groom for audio and proceeded to prepare for the ceremony. Just as I was about to adjust my audio settings, the groom stepped into another room with a friend. As I put on my headphones, I overheard the groom confiding in his friend, describing the wedding as a 'wedding of convenience' and reassuring them not to be concerned about what would happen in their relationship."
– NoodleMaps
The best man shouldn't have too much to drink. They might overshare.
Cold, Hard Truth
"Went to a wedding during college to my friends that got married who graduated 2 years prior to me. They had a beautiful wedding on a boat off the Keys and as the best man gave his speech, he was really drunk by this point, just shouted out, 'You don't deserve her, you literally got a bj from a stripper no make that two strippers at your bachelor party. Peace out.' He dropped the mic and tried to do a dramatic exit but by this point we were all stuck on this boat in the middle of the ocean. It took an hour to get back to port, and it was the most awful and awkward hour of our lives for everyone on that boat."
– breakitupkid
A Harsh Roast
"in another life, i worked catering shifts. loads of saturday weddings. i'll never forget the best-man's toast of the groom. it was a shameless roast. he spoke openly about the groom's willingness to shag anything when he's drunk. he then went on and on about the groom's deadly gambling habit and his short fuse when he doesn't win. he asked the stone-faced groom 'how many thousands of dollars in golf clubs have you destroyed or lost in countless ponds?' nobody was laughing. the bride had tears in her eyes and the groom's parents sat in stunned silence."
– dys_p0tch
Some people aren't marriage material.
Disasterous
"This was 15 years ago or so, I left wedding photography a few months later."
"The reception was at their home, they didn't want photos at the ceremony, and didn't want wedding party/family photos between the ceremony and reception triggering the first raise of the eyebrow on my end. At the reception the groom didn't want his brother, the best man, in the photos. Other eyebrow goes up. The mothers of both the bride and groom both scolded me to let them be and told me to eat instead of take photos. The groom and the best man got unholy drunk and had a weird by play of brother making way too many toasts and the groom making grossly inappropriate speeches of what he's going to do to the bride on the honeymoon."
"As the newlyweds were making their grand departure the bride tosses the bouquet, everyone cheers. The groom shouts 'I knocked the b*tch up so hard she's got two babies in her c**chie"' Guest react in various ways of shock and happiness about the pregnancy test but the best man lunges at the groom shouting and swearing. Family holds the best man back as the couple runs out to a car. The groom flipped off the spectators, and pulled out of the driveway. Two houses down the car stops, the groom gets out and pukes on a neighbor's lawn, the bride gets in the driver's seat and takes off, leaving her husband yurking into a flower bed, and the best man ran down the street trying to flag down the car."
"Divorced four months later."
– OmicronPerseiNate
These are but a mere sampling of weddings gone wrong or couples that should never have gotten together in the first place.
Do you have any stories to share? Let us know in the comments below.
We've all found ourselves in a position where we simply couldn't contain ourselves and found ourselves putting someone in their place owing to something they said which was either wrong or just plain stupid.
When it comes to the latter category, though, it's often worth taking a minute to wonder if fighting that particular battle is even worth it.
As many people who are about to shoot down their current conversation partner might take a minute and really examine the person they're talking with before remembering the old saying: "Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience."
Sadly, some people remember this conversation too late, and find themselves falling down a conversational rabbit hole from which they may never escape.
“'Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience'.” What's your best real life example of this?"
They Literally Won't be "Shut Down"
"When I tell people to just reboot your computer and it will fix all their problems and yet they won't because they said if you wait long enough it will shut down, when in reality it only goes to sleep."
"Then when I tell them they have to completely shut it down they look at me like I'm an idiot and say they did."
"I tell them it seems like it but it only went to sleep."
"They argue back."- niallaa
Some People Just Don't Get It...
"I used to argue a lot with my sister when we were kids."
"She would do this thing where she would say something, and then I would reference back to it literally a minute or two later to prove a point and she would say 'I never said that' or 'that’s not what I said'."
"Absolutely impossible to argue with someone who will just deny having said things that could hurt their argument."
"Also, trying to change the course of an argument if they feel like they are 'losing'."
"A coworker once called me an idiot for doing something 'incorrectly' when I was actually doing it the right way."
"When I politely explained to them that the way they suggested doing the task didn’t actually work, they started asking 'why are you getting so angry?? I was just trying to help' etc."
"So now we’re arguing about whether I’m angry or not instead of the right way to complete the task."- themightypianocat
Facts Are Facts...
"Arguing is pointless if you do not agree on a set of facts."- niallaa
Facts GIF by Judge JerryGiphyYou Can't Have It Both Ways...
"For a short while, I worked as a line cook at a Cracker Barrel, and there was a little saloon style door that led to the staff section (kitchen, bathroom, etc)."
"There was a staff only sign on the door, above the doors, and on the wall behind the doors at eye level."
"Usually if someone from the customer side comes in, they said, 'Coming in' before opening the door, so they didn't hit anyone, but of course customers didn't know that."
"So when this dude opened the door and hit a waitress carrying a ton of drinks, we were reasonably upset with him."
"He said, ;You should really put a sign up'."
"We showed him all the signs, and he goes, 'That seems a bit excessive'."- GreyFoxHound1
So Wrong.
"Had an employee sign an NDA about an upcoming art installation that had investors."
"He told everyone."
"He argued with me the NDA only meant he couldn’t disclose anything with the people in the company."- BosskHogg
He Knew What He Was Talking About
This was best said:
“'Never wrestle with pigs'."
"'You both get dirty and the pig likes it'.― George Bernard Shaw"- Zerowantuthri·
pigs GIFGiphySome Outdated Inventions Are Definitely Not Missed...
"I’m showing my age here but I used to work for an estate agency, and we had sales offices set up at the site of large new housing developments."
"Our primary method of communication was fax."
"One of the sales associates telephoned our office to say that the fax machine had run out of paper."
"No problem, I said, one of the guys is coming your way later for a house tour, I’ll give him a box of paper to give to you."
"We then had an almost 20 minute long argument when they kept insisting 'NO, YOU JUST SEND ME A BLANK FAX BECAUSE I NEED THE PAPER, IT WILL JUST COME OUT OF MY FAX MACHINE'.”
"It was like trying to nail jelly to a tree."
"Difficult, irritating, and it achieved nothing."- BettieKat
Very Few Hills Are Worth Dying On...
"I had a friend in university who was a world-class high school debater."
"Over meals, she liked to pick a ridiculous proposition and then talk circles around people until they had to concede to her point, no matter how absurd."
"When she tried it with me, I just stonewalled her."
"Met every point with a solid 'I don't think that's true'." or 'That doesn't make sense'."
"Eventually she gave up and never tried it with me again."
"It was the only time I've ever used the tactics of the stupid to win an argument."
"But, to be fair, if you're not arguing with me in good faith, I feel no obligation to respond in good faith."- kitskill
IS The Customer Always Right?...
"Working retail."
"Especially when I worked in the tech shop or a computer store."
" Trying to convince someone their $500 laptop is never going to be a gaming system no matter how many of the very few replaceable parts we throw at it can be exhausting."- MOS95B
happy episode 7 GIFGiphyEducation Only Matters If You Learned Something....
"Was arguing with this dude about something math-related."
"He didn’t know how to read a study that involved statistics. claimed he was in multiple AP math classes."
"Tried saying that I 'probably don’t even know basic integration'."
"Gave me a common integration problem."
"He wrote it but forgot the minus sign, making it unsolvable."
"I pointed it out and he edited the comment to make it correct."
"Told him that some people can see when you edit comments."
"He claimed that he just capitalized a letter. on and on and on."- SaturdayNightCity
Good Legal Counsel Might Be Worth The Splurge...
"I asked a representative from the Friend of the Court to explain something she said and she told me that I understood what she was saying."
"I replied that I wouldn't have asked her to explain if I had understood."
"She said if I was going to be difficult, she would hold me in contempt."
"My X chimed in that she didn't quite understand what she had said and was greeted with a smile and an explanation."
"From that point on I always disagreed with the Friend of the Court on EVERYTHING, so that I could be seen by the 'Actual Court' and a Judge."- PURPLEPEE
Season 4 Episode 21 GIF by The SimpsonsGiphySore Winners Are No More Attractive Than Sore Losers...
"Once worked with a guy who, by his own admission, got his rocks off by picking fights."
"He'd start an argument over the smallest thing."
"If you said it was white, he'd say it was black, just to try to start something."
"The one that always stood out for me was the weather app competition."
"One day he asked me what temperature it was, so I read it off my weather app."
"He got all offended, because his weather app said it was a couple degrees warmer."
"So he decides we're going to have a weather app competition."
"He was going to chart what our apps said the temperature was, and at the end of the week, whichever one was closest to that day's high would be the winner."
"And the loser would have to start using the winner's app."
"To which I said, "What is your f*cking problem?'"
"So, yeah."
"For the first few days, he'd make a big performance about marching into my office, recording the temperature off my app, jotting down some notes, and walking off."
"This started on a Monday."
"He gave up after Wednesday."
"Either because I was winning, or he was disappointed because, despite his best efforts, I just did not give a f*ck about weather apps."
"Or maybe the boss told him to stop because I filed a complaint that this was bordering on harassment."- originalchaosinabox
Im Always Right GIF by ZionGiphyIt should perhaps be said calling someone an idiot, or even thinking it, is not a particularly nice thing to do.
Even so, if you're tempted to do so when you're in the presence of a particular individual, probably best not to provoke them.
After all, if you're so determined to "win," does it really make you any better than them?