When some people get put in a position of power, they quickly abuse it, which is the exact opposite of what they should be doing.

What would you do if an aide at school was on a power trip, and when you refused to comply with her punishments, she threatened to bring you to the principal’s office?

That is what happened to the student at the school in this story, so she marched down to the principal’s office and explained what was happening, which got the aide fired.

School employee wanted to assert her authority by dishing out illegal punishments

It happened when I was in middle school, many years ago, but a recent post here reminded me of the time when a school employee tried to lord her authority over us kids.

This sounds like a teacher’s aide or something similar.

In France, schools have what we call pions, literally “pawns”, they’re usually young adults, sometimes uni students, who look after the kids and do many menial tasks around the school.

One day, a new pawn was hired and her first day included looking over the cafeteria.

Some people don’t do well in positions of authority.

She obviously felt like “asserting her authority” over us kids because she was screaming at any kid who did anything while we waited in line for the cafeteria doors to open, and she told all of them to stay behind after lunch for a punishment.

One kid coughed? Punished. One kid talked with her friend? Punished. Another was scribbling in a notebook? Punished.

This is just pathetic.

Me? I was rocking back and forth slightly, shifting my weight from my heels to my toes mindlessly. Of course, she told me to stay after lunch too.

After lunch, she took out some cleaning equipment and told all of us (there were about 15-20 punished kids) to clean all of the cafeteria, which should have been her and the kitchen staff’s job.

She’s standing up for herself.

All the other kids kept their heads down and started cleaning, but I didn’t. I simply refused, and I told her she didn’t have the right to give us such an order as a simple pawn.

She condescendingly told me “If you’d read the rules of the school, you’d know physical tasks can be dished out to disobedient brats.”

She came prepared.

As it turned out, I had the booklets with the rules in my bag and, following her advice, I started looking for that rule.

Surprise! There was really such a rule! Except that, to be able to order that a kid do a physical task as punishment, all the teachers, the principal, the entire governing board of the school and the Recteur d’Académie (a high-ranking representative of the Ministry of Education) must be physically present to approve of it.

The pawn was well outside her scope of authority.

No way a pawn can dish that out on a whim. I told her as much, as she screamed at me to obey, or she’d drag my butt to the principal’s office.

She certainly meant that as some terrifying threat, but I complied. Without needed her to drag it anywhere, I went straight to the principal’s office with the pawn in tow trying to threaten and discourage me.

She isn’t making any friends today.

I barged into the principal’s office, explained the situation and the principal initially tried to convince me to obey, even if it wasn’t technically legal for the pawn to punish me.

But as I insisted and told him I’d sooner sue the school than obey a stupid pawn on a power trip, the principal sighed and told me to forget the punishment and just keep quiet about it.

Her services are no longer needed.

When I left the office, the pawn was waiting just out the door and looked smugly at me before entering the office.

It was the last time anyone saw her. She didn’t even show up that afternoon.

You almost have to feel bad for her. Almost.

It was her first day, and she managed to get fired on the spot after just half a day of work, just because she wanted to feel respected.

Good riddance, I say.

If this story is true, it will hopefully teach the pawn a lesson about abusing a position of authority.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about the situation.

She had no real authority.

Teachers have a difficult job.

Everyone should be held accountable.

Well, this is going to backfire.

Never pretend to have more power than you really do.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who got his coworker fired when he stopped giving him rides.