We’ve all wanted to prove a bad policy wrong.

In this story, a college student took a really *hands on* approach to making a point.

Let’s get touchy-feely with this one.

I can’t use classroom resources to charge my phone? Ok, not a problem.

In college, I needed to be able to charge my phone in order to take pictures of the board – I had a Razr V3 at the time.

Ah, flip phones. What technological woes will this tale hold?

Cameras on phones were still quite new, but it was better than trying to copy the contents of the board to paper at the rate the teacher liked to go.

Though this course was held in a computer lab, we weren’t allowed to use the PCs at that point, as they were still being configured – though their USB ports worked fine.

That said, we weren’t allowed to use the outlets, computers (even for charging) or anything else.

Can you imagine no access to outlets? What did people do?! No, really what’d they do…

It was policy to allow cell phones to be used for note taking via cameras, but my ancient little Razr only lasted an hour or so before the battery died when in camera mode.

This particular instructor was sour and generally annoyed about the existence of tools that let his students take notes effectively – as he took apparent pleasure in watching students panic, trying to take down notes as fast as he could copy his own to the board.

I outright refused to play that game, and my phone was the only option left to me.

Hate the professor, not the game. What’s the workaround?

The “Professor” was the one denying the use of USB ports / wall outlets, and while I would have loved a USB power bank, they didn’t exist yet – at least not that I was aware of.

What I did have, however, was a hand-crank USB charger that I had borrowed from my dad – he had bought a few of them for an emergency kit, and had given me one to use in the dorm, should an emergency occur that involved extended power loss.

Does this count as an emergency?

Now, while the rest of the class wasn’t in on what I planned to do – I freely distributed notes in the form of pictures I had taken – note taking in that teacher’s class was infamously terrible, so I was generally popular for sharing so openly.

The next class period I sat right up front so the early-digital-camera could actually capture images well enough to read.

I had been told that while the phone was permitted, any form of charging that used the classroom resources was not, so I brought my own.

Halfway through the class period, in the middle of a lecture, I pulled out the crank, set it up on my desk, and halfway through a sentence…

Apparently, yes.

“…eeeEEEeeEEEeeEEEeeeEEEeeeEEEEEEEEE”

The professor winced and turned around – I was just sitting there, cranking away. My phone was pinned between two enormous textbooks to keep it in place and aimed at the board.

My desk was a mess of cables / plug adapters that were needed to convert from hand crank -> USB power.

After a few moments of just staring at me, he asked, “Can… I help you with something?”

Great question. Maybe with some petty revenge?

I just shook my head and informed him that I was good, I just needed to try to keep my phone charged so I could keep taking notes.

Most of the other students just giggled – the teacher looked around, but no one objected.

Most of us just smiled up at him.

Magically, the power outlets and USB ports alike suddenly became available.

Magic does happen. Gotta hand it to this student!

Let’s see what our commenters think…

Someone says, I salute you!

Another user says, this is the textbook definition of malicious compliance!

Another person says, kind of a weird perspective for this prof to have?

One poster woulda gassed it up even more.

Somebody else just thinks, that’s dumb.

High-five for this handy revenge.

That professor is so out of line.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.