Saved By Petty Revenge

When I was in college, I took a class called Conceptions of Human Existence. I was so, so lost. I like classes with facts, and if it had not been a required class, I would never have gone near this subject.

On the first test, I got a C- and I learned that nobody got a lower grade. This was an ominous sign that I was in trouble. I just could not absorb the vague, nebulous concepts being discussed.

It was like getting a test question, “Does our worldview affect the world or is it the opposite?” and being told my answer was wrong. How the heck should I know? It was complete and total frustration.

Around the halfway point of the semester, our professor was about ten minutes late to class. He came in just at the point when we were all getting up to leave.

Professor: “Please sit. This will be short. I’ve just left a meeting with the department chairperson, and I was denied tenure.”

We could tell he was angry about it. Then, the class was dismissed.

For the rest of the term, our classes just involved chatting about topics in the news and no actual assignments to do. I was left wondering what I could do to pull up my grade. With a week to go before the final exams, [Professor] let us know that we had to do a final exam. Great, should I have been taking notes during our class-wide chats? What the heck were we going to be tested on?

Professor: “Since I didn’t get tenure, I’m leaving the university after this semester. Your final exam will be a take-home essay, and you can choose one of three topics. The first is your feelings about the war on terrorism. The second is your feelings on the American healthcare system. And third, if you don’t like either of those topics, you can make up your own question and answer it. If you turn in anything that shows effort, you will be given an A. I do have to be able to defend my grades, so don’t just turn in a two-sentence piece of crap and think that’s worth an A. Put in some effort and get a guaranteed A. I am doing this for all the classes I teach this semester.”

That was his malicious compliance for being turned down for tenure. We did, in fact, all get an A.

I heard later from a student aide who worked in the office that the department head was mad about it but couldn’t do anything about it.