It’s Never Too Late To Quit

I work as a substitute teacher before finding a full-time teaching job. One day, I get my first subbing job at a school I have never subbed at. The instructions in the confirmation email say to arrive at school at 8:00 am to sign in.

As it’s my first day at this school, I make sure to leave plenty of time to get to school, and I end up arriving at about 7:50 am. I sit in my car for ten minutes playing on my phone to kill time, and I walk into the building and up to the reception desk at 8:00.

When I tell the receptionist my name, she starts yelling at me for being late and tells me that the principal is supervising the class until I show up.

Apparently, the school starts class at 8:00 am, and actually expected subs to arrive at 7:45. I point out that the confirmation email I received when I accepted this subbing job clearly instructed me to arrive at school at 8:00, but the receptionist will hear none of my attempts to point out this false logic. I finally give up trying to reason with her, go up to the classroom, and take over the class from the principal.

During the teacher’s free period, I am sitting in the classroom on my phone as I have no other tasks. The principal comes up to the classroom and asks why I was late, so I tell him about the misleading instructions in the confirmation email. He tells me that even though that’s what the email said, I still should have gotten to school before 8:00 am because “that’s what smart people do.”

I never took another job from that school again.

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