Some people get so caught up in enforcing rules that they forget to use a little common sense.

So, what would you do if you were a substitute teacher walking down the hall to the office, only to have the school’s resource officer stop you, assume you were a student without a pass, and start “arresting” you right there? Would you go along with it?

Or would you try to explain yourself?

In the following story, a substitute teacher finds himself in this situation on his first day.

Here’s what happened.

I work here Officer!

Back in the mid-2000s, I was working as a substitute teacher in an inner-city school district. I had been substituting for a few weeks, but this was my first time at the VoTech school.

The school had a policy where if students were in the halls without a pass, they would be arrested and brought to the office.

There, they would be checked to see where they were supposed to be, then released and either sent on their way (with a pass) or sent to detention.

He didn’t make it far before being stopped.

If they weren’t students, they’d be brought down town. The school had issues with students from other schools coming in during the day and causing trouble.

One of my scheduled classes had no students, and the neighboring teachers both confirmed that I did indeed have the correct class and that it was the correct week.

So, instead of having one of the teachers call down because they had classes, I decided to just walk down to the office myself.

I had gone about 20′ when the school resource officer saw me.

The funny thing is that he wasn’t even dressed like a student.

He decided to check for my hall pass, a document I didn’t possess. So he started the arrest process. As he was leading me down to the office (I wasn’t handcuffed or anything), I pointed out several issues with his assumption.

I possessed a school substitute schedule with my name on it. The name matched my driver’s license.

The driver’s license confirmed that I was 24.

In a building where everyone but the principal and the police officer was in casual clothes or work jumpsuits, I was in business casual, with a tie.

When they got to the office, the truth came out.

The neighboring teachers could confirm I was a substitute.

He refused to check my license and confiscated my ‘stolen’ schedule. He also refused to disrupt class ‘unnecessarily’.

We made it to the office about five minutes later.

When we walked in, the head secretary asked me, “Oh, Mr. Hip-Hop, how’s your first day teaching?”

The officer quickly made up an excuse.

As I started to answer, she said, “Officer, Police Officer, what brings you down here again?”

To which he replied, “Oh, just getting another coffee,” with a red face.

Technically, he never dropped the charges on me…

Wow! It’s crazy that the guy wouldn’t even listen.

Let’s check out what the readers over at Reddit think about this story.

This reader has a few follow-up questions.

Here’s someone who can relate.

According to this person, he should’ve filed an official complaint.

For this person, it would’ve been about embarrassing him.

What a first day on the job! Hopefully, he never made that mistake again.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.