Imagine having a job where you’re sometimes expected to do another job that’s technically above your pay grade. Would you do if even if it meant extra stress and working late, or would you insist on only doing your actual job?

In this story, one employee is in this position and had been perfectly happy to take on the extra work of training new recruits even though they technically weren’t a trainer. That all changed when one group of trainees pushed too far.

Let’s read the whole story.

Treat me badly, then expect me carry on as if nothing happened? Uh, ok…

I work in the public sector and although the pay grade for trainers is one grade above me, I have occasionally stepped in and delivered training for many years because of my experience and knowledge.

Each time I have had a small financial reward.

A recent restructure, in which my department was going to be selected as a central hub meant that several new recruits were employed and I was called upon to deliver group training.

The trainings didn’t all go very well.

The first group training session was successful. My recruits were engaged, hard working and pleasant to train.

The next group, however, were a nightmare. Trainees rolled in late, others were disruptive and I caught two messing with their mobile phones on several occasions.

I reported this all to my manager, who basically said ‘oh they’re just young – keep going, you’re doing fine’.

Great. Thanks for your support, boss.

She finally couldn’t take it anymore!

After a particularly trying week with them, where I’d had to restart sessions due to lateness, stop them looking at their phones and repeatedly call the damn room to order, I was reaching the end of my tether.

Then when two of the recruits decided to argue with me about something I was teaching them, telling me that, despite my in-depth knowledge of the subject, I was wrong, I snapped.

I’m not proud for losing my temper, but it was ridiculous. I shouted at them that I was the bloody trainer and at the same time I slammed the training materials I was holding to the floor.

It made an impressive bang and the room went silent.

The trainees also sound like tattle tales.

Then two of them accused me of ‘behaving inappropriately’ and stormed out of the room.

I apologised to them as they left, angry with myself for letting them get to me.

I then decided to see my manager to update him, but as I approached his office, I could see my trainees were already with him, complaining to him about my attitude.

I had grabbed the training materials they were arguing with me about, and knowing that my manager would see they were wrong if he saw it, I walked into his office, straight past them, and handed the materials to my boss, saying ‘you’ll need this ‘.

How is it okay for a manager to yell at her but not for her to yell at the trainees? Double standard much?

When I got back to the training room the other trainees had gone, so I packed up my stuff and decided to go home as it was close to my normal leaving time.

As I was about to go, a higher manager came in and then spent the next 10 minutes shouting at me about ‘appropriate conduct’.

I was astonished.

She wouldn’t listen to my side of the story – basically saying I was expected to behave in an ‘acceptable manner’. The fact that I had handed my manager the training materials, and that the conduct of my trainees was appalling mattered not.

It wasn’t all bad.

I told her I wouldn’t be training this group any more.

And she just replied ‘oh, I know’, as if the decision had nothing to do with my opinion.

In short, I felt relief. I was glad to be away from the idiot-fest and glad I could go back to leaving at my usual time – rather than an hour or two later because I had to accommodate latecomers.

But it wasn’t all good either.

In the following week, I discovered that, because the group had made a complaint about me, the higher manager had begun a gross misconduct case against me.

Great. 5 against 1. I was suddenly staring potential dismissal in the face.

Despite an even higher manager getting involved and putting a stop to the gross misconduct proceedings (‘she’s a new manager and she’s just inexperienced…’) I remained furious.

Even when the manager came to me with a grovelling apology and telling me she had overreacted, I was angry at the lack of support I had had from the get-go, how my concerns had been brushed aside and how a bunch of literal children had been supported over me.

It’s crazy that they expect her to be willing to train new recruits after all this.

I went back to my usual duties and tried not to dwell on what had happened.

A few weeks later it was decided that we were taking on more recruits and more training was needed.

The manager who had started the gross misconduct proceedings came over to me with a big smile on her face. ‘We are having a load of new recruits starting in the next two weeks, so I’ve booked the training room for you…’

I looked at that horrible grin, returned it with a bigger smile, and replied ‘no can do’.

She didn’t back down.

‘I’m SORRY?!’ she responded.

‘I’m not a trainer. See someone a grade above me’, I replied, walking away.

The look on her face was priceless. She couldn’t do a damn thing to make me do the training.

Over the following few weeks the department had to drag another manager in from another area to run the training, resulting in delays and extra cost. That manager’s knowledge isn’t as extensive as mine, which means there have been some costly errors and now we are overwhelmed by complaints.

Treat me like garbage, that’s the price you pay.

It’s never a good idea to do work above your pay grade. Make them promote you first. But in this case, it worked in her favor that they could just say “no” and there was nothing the manager could do about it.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Another trainer shares their experience.

This employer was a lot more strict about arriving late for training.

Might be time to look for another job.

Another person points out how unacceptable it is to show up late for work, and that includes training.

When your hard work isn’t appreciated, it’s okay to walk away.

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