When you are working in a loud environment, sometimes you have to raise your voice to ensure that you are heard, even by your manager.

What would you do if you raised your voice to express a safety concern, and then your manager and their boss got upset about it?

That is what happened to the swim instructor in this story, and she can’t figure out why her management team is so upset with her.

AITA for raising my voice at my boss and questioning them

I, 26M, am a swimming teacher and raised my voice when my manager mid20’s (I think) F wanted to promote a kid in a class I was teaching.

She has a lot of experience.

I’ve been swim teaching for 2 years part time, one of the swim schools I work for had a program with a local school that I was part of teaching. This program was a longer program and I thought on Thursday and Friday of week 1.

Today, Friday of week 1 I was teaching a class that I had just started and was with a kid practicing kicking by themselves with a kickboard, when my manager went up to a kid who had just had their turn (this was the only excessive this class had done so far) intending to take them to the next level up.

She had to raise her voice to be heard. It doesn’t seem like she was yelling.

As I was with a kid and on the opposite side of my pool section I gestured no and raised my voice high enough so she could hear me something along the lines of “we have to see the freestyle first before we promote!”

I don’t think my tone was rude and I don’t think I raised my voice too loud either. I’m shy and very reserved, I hate raising my voice, especially shouting. I shouted at a class of mine at a month or so ago and almost cried afterwards.

No way, this is a matter of water safety.

I do not believe it is acceptable to promote a kid after just seeing that, I have seen plenty of kids who can kick like a rocket with a kickboard in a shallow warm pool but the second you ask them to do a complete stroke it completely falls apart.

In the higher level my boss wanted to promote them too the kid would go to the deeper pool 2m deep vs the 80cm they were in before.

I wonder why she is insisting on promoting that child.

They backed off at first but then went back 1min later and did it anyway. When they did I let my frustration show on my face but went back to teacher mode and continued with my class.

After that class I tried to get a word with them but they were busy so they told me to wait, the venue manager came (much older than me)F and confronted me about disrespecting my boss.

The management at this place seems terrible.

When I said “I respectfully disagree” she sent me off. And I had to have a meeting with them.

In my meeting with the venue manager she ranted about the performance off the swim school department and how poorly our department has done this program, issues with planning and teaching.

Are they looking for a reason to fire her?

I work hard, I have been one of the most reliable and consistent swim teacher in the school. Since April I’ve only missed 3 shifts, I gave ample notice, for them and all three were due to uni exams.

The parents of the kids I teach are happy with my work and often try to keep their kids in my classes after they get moved up. I take pride in my work, I care about kids learning to swim.

Yeah, this definitely seems very weird.

The issues with the department have nothing to do with me, my only role is to show up, teach, and then go home.

I have zero responsibilities in planning and I couldn’t have been one of the teacher the school we did the program with complained about because I only thought yesterday and today.

I would be looking for new job.

Afterwards she then grilled me on disrespecting my boss by shouting at her.

Moving kids up too early is dangerous though so I don’t think I was wrong.

She had better start updating her resume and getting ready to find a new job. Something weird is going on with the management team at this company.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

Teaching kids to swim is very important.

This is surprisingly common.

This commenter has a good idea.

Her boss is putting kids at risk.

Yup, I agree with this commenter.

There is something weird going on at this pool.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.