Schools have a lot of resources that they offer to the teachers and students, and part of that includes making sure that they aren’t being abused.

What would you do if the school where you taught had a nice color printer, but in order to use it, you had to fill out a lot of paperwork to justify its use?

That is what the teacher in this story was dealing with, so since she was a contractor, she charged her hourly rate for the time it took her to fill out the paperwork (and the other teachers started doing this, too). It ended up costing the school way more than just letting the teachers use the printers with very reasonable limits.

Check out the full story below and see how the school quickly learned its lesson and fixed the problem.

School imposes time-wasting printing routine on teachers paid by the hour. Regrets.

This is my story, from back when colour copiers where somewhat new, and quite expensive to use.

Handouts can be great assignments at school.

I was working as an IT trainer at a private vocational college, teaching young adults various software.

Most of my material was digital, but on occasions I’d hand out printed papers to my students.

This seems like a smart setup, until it is abused.

The printers in question were pay-to-use for the students, but teachers got these credit-type cards that just unlocked everything, and had afaik unlimited credits. They were not connected to any personal info.

Apparently a teacher colleague saw the opportunity to publish his/her first book in full colour. On the school copier. Or something along those lines.

Now this sounds annoying.

At least the free-printing privileges were eliminated quickly, and a new regime put in place.

We had to fill out a form; what class, how many copies, for what purpose etc. Then they would load the exact needed credits on a card, we’d do the printing job, then return the card.

Wow, they are getting paid a huge amount for a teacher.

Important bit; most teachers were contractors, charging by the hour. I had managed to secure a rate ≈$70/hr, which was quite good in the late 90s.

So, the malicious compliance goes; I increased my printer frequency slightly, went through all the motions – getting form – filling out – returning form- waiting for approval – print – return card etc.

Of course, they are entitled to get paid for the time worked.

And I would bill the school for all my time spent on this, by minimum 30 minutes intervals. The sum I charged them for this time vastly exceeded the actual cost of the prints (I didn’t need much, nor full colour).

My colleagues would do the same.

Putting limits on the cards seems like an obvious solution.

They quickly dropped the cumbersome arrangement and just gave us pre-filled cards with a max sum. Why didn’t they think of this in the first place?

Lesson learned; if a benefit can be abused, it will be, and it goes both ways.

This is one of those funny stories where the solution to the problem is obvious in hindsight. At least the school learned its lesson and adjusted its policy quickly.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a student who was threatened after refusing an elective exam, so they took the case to the district.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about this fun story.

Most teachers are underpaid, that’s for sure.

That first teacher was the real problem.

The school wasn’t doing anything wrong.

This is a great hourly rate.

Companies often have to pay for bad policies.

The school has to protect its resources, but it went about it in the wrong way. Fortunately, this teacher saw the opportunity to expose the problem and force the school’s hand.

To their credit, the school promptly addressed the problem and put a very reasonable policy in place. It is always nice when things work out the way they should.