In far to many cases people who are bad at their job and disliked by their subordinates end up getting promoted higher and higher within an organization.

What would you do if a person like this threw you under the bus for a mistake he causes, and then took your position after you were let go.

That is what happened to the school board member in this story, but she managed to keep her job on the corporate board so that she could eventually get her revenge.

Check it out.

Blame me for your mistake, lose your job

First, some background.

The principal of my school (we’ll call him Matt) had been with the school since it started up in the early 2000s.

He worked his way up from a regular teacher to the principal, and then assistant superintendent, although he spent most of his time at the high school.

His immediate superior, who we’ll call Katie, was pretty much a figurehead while he did all the administrative stuff for not just the high school but the rest of the district.

The thing was that Matt was a narcissist.

He constantly belittled and berated students.

He once publicly told an entire graduating class that he would make sure that none of them graduated and they were all the worst the school had ever had.

There were also numerous other instances of him doing this stuff to students in private, especially with the kids who did the school announcements which he also ran.

I had two friends on there.

This just seems petty.

One was dismissed (student volunteer) out of nowhere for literally no reason.

The other was fired (she chose to work for the school after graduating) after calling him out for saying she was worthless.

Despite this, all of our teachers assured us that Matt wasn’t as bad as we thought he was.

We never believed them because we thought they were just covering for him.

After we graduated, we discovered that he was indeed not as bad as we thought.

He was worse.

Matt frequently told the teachers that they were worthless, dumb, that he could fire them, and that anyone could do their jobs.

From what we saw over the years, it didn’t take a lot for him to fire anyone.

Now, at this point, you may wonder why Katie didn’t step in and at least try and tell him to knock his attitude off.

Well, again, he did all the admin stuff.

They also were friends from back in the day.

So while she heard numerous complaints about him, she never acted on them.

Now onto the revenge:

Like everywhere else, the state mandates that we take their standardized test.

The state was always VERY clear about when the deadlines for the tests were, what portions were to be taken by each grade, and what the penalties were for not making the deadlines.

A few weeks prior to the deadline, the school gets issued all parts of the test except for the science portion.

Matt says he’ll talk to the Department of Education and get it squared away.

After a couple weeks, they still don’t have the portion they need, and Katie asks where it is.

Wow, he is going to cause some huge issues.

Matt informs everyone that the State said they didn’t have to take it.

Some of you might be wondering why the State would say they didn’t need to take it after making a big deal about it.

The answer is simple: they didn’t.

Matt, in his infinite narcissistic wisdom, decided not to get them.

Because of this, the State opened an investigation and held meetings about revoking the charter for the entire district, essentially shutting them down.

But Matt didn’t get in trouble.

Since Katie was superintendent, it was her job to make sure those tests were ordered.

The story ended up going public and Katie took full responsibility for the screw up.

Matt also berated her in private like he did with everyone else.

She later steps down from her position as superintendent, but maintained her positions on the school board and the corporate board (remember this for later).

Matt takes over as superintendent of the entire district.

Matt could have stopped there, but, being a narcissist and a dictator, he doesn’t.

He publishes a scathing open letter on the school’s website blaming her for the whole ordeal and the fallout.

He then has the principals of the other schools do the same.

She was just biding her time.

As far as the media, the public, and the Department of Education are concerned, the whole affair was due entirely to Katie’s utter incompetence.

Matt also continues berating her in private.

After two months, the State decides that they aren’t going to shut down the district, much to everyone’s relief.

Some months later, they go back to not giving any attention to what a small charter district does.

Now that there are no eyes on them, Katie starts making moves.

She wanted to get control of the district back from Matt now that she knew that all the claims that students, parents, and employees made over the years were true.

As I mentioned earlier, she did maintain her position on the school board and they could theoretically remove him.

The problem was that the other two people on there were put on there by Matt, so she’d always be on the minority on any vote.

I’m surprised they let her keep that role.

But also as I mentioned earlier, she had a position on the corporate board; a body whose decisions and authority superseded that of the school board.

She goes about gradually restaffing the corporate board.

When Matt asks her why, she says it’s to make sure that a similar mistake would never occur again.

Matt believes her and thinks nothing of it.

After a about a month, she added seven people, including her husband, onto the corporate board.

They hold their first meeting and then call in Matt to inform him of their first order of business:

He was being given the option to resign. And if he didn’t resign, he’d be fired.

Matt, not really having a choice, resigns.

The next day, the high school’s principal, a friend of his, also resigned.

The day after that, the athletics director for the high school, Matt’s son, followed suit.

Katie then takes over in the interim and begins looking around for people to fill all the positions that Matt had consolidated (I think that there were seven or eight total).

The teachers and faculty all breathed a sigh of relief knowing that they didn’t need to be afraid of being fired at the drop of hat anymore.

That’s good that she didn’t let it impact the students.

As for the students, they hardly noticed.

My old English teacher put it as “not even a ripple”.

Outside of those differences, the only thing anyone noticed after Matt and his cronies left was that a lot of really nice furniture went missing.

It is sad that people like this can get into power, but satisfying when it all crashes down on them.

The comments below offer some interesting insights on this story as well.

Indeed, this story is a perfect example of that.

This was excellent.

Yeah, too bad she didn’t see it sooner.

This guy got exactly what he deserved.

And we love to see it.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.