April 29, 2025 at 12:40 am

Boss Tells English As A Second Language Teachers To Write Reports In The Language They Would Speak At Home, But Now She Can’t Understand The Reports

by Jayne Elliott

woman writing in notebook next to laptop

Shutterstock/Reddit

Sometimes bosses make decisions without thinking through the consequences.

In some cases, bosses quickly realize their mistake and retract the decision.

In other cases, bosses refuse to admit defeat no matter how much they suffer due to the consequences.

The boss in today’s story is the second type of boss, and the consequences she brought on herself are pretty hilarious!

Let’s read the whole story.

Write our reports using the language we speak at home? You got it boss

For background I teach English as a second language (TEFL).

At the end of each semester we’re required to write class reports.

Previously we had to write our reports in English or Chinese so that they could be read easily by management (we’re in China).

Management changed the rules.

Management decided that we shouldn’t do this and instead write them “using the language you would speak at home.”

Cue malicious compliance: several of my colleagues are now writing reports in French, Russian, German, and Spanish.

English is my first language so I still write in English, however to meet my boss’ request I”m now writing in British slang.

This is hilarious!

Instead of writing “Class A is very good” I now write “Class A are the dogs bollocks.”

For bad classes I no longer write “Class B is struggling with writing” I would write “Class B couldn’t write their way out of a wet paper bag.”

My boss is now struggling but refuses to admit defeat. She’s instead spending a lot of time using translation software to understand what we’re writing.

The boss really needs to just admit defeat on this one.

Translation software isn’t 100% accurate, and that sounds pretty time consuming.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person suggests another type of slang to use.