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It’s hard to stay out of workplace drama when other people keep dragging you back into it.

One school employee reached that point after repeatedly telling her manager that a coworker wasn’t pulling her weight.

Then, after the coworker complained about her, the employee tried to clear everything up and asked her manager to leave it alone.

However, the manager brought it up again the very next day and suggested the head teacher was getting irritated.

So, the employee finally said she wasn’t going to stay quiet if someone was saying things about her.

Read on for the full story.

AITA for speaking my mind to my manager

I work in a school, and it gets a bit toxic at times.

I work alongside a colleague who never pulls their weight, and we’re meant to share a class. It’s basically just been me doing it, and they go off for breakfast in the canteen and a chat.

I’m so bored of explaining this to my manager with no resolution.

It all started when the woman went to their manager and the head teacher.

Anyway, the other person ran off to my manager and the head teacher to moan about me, saying I never turn up, which was a lie. I escalated it to the head teacher too because my manager said to do it.

So anyway, I specifically told my manager yesterday that I clarified what needs to be done with the other person via email and to now leave it. She said, “OK, I’ll keep my mouth closed.”

Today she runs to my office and says, “Let’s talk about the class share. I had my meeting with senior leadership. I get the impression from that meeting that the head’s getting a bit irritated with all of it. But that’s what I’m getting anyway, so let’s leave it at that.”

At this point, she couldn’t bite her tongue any longer.

I said, “Well, I said this yesterday as well, so I’m not sure what’s changed today.”

She then said, “Well, the other person’s running off to the head and probably having a moan, and the popular people always come out on top in these situations.”

So I bluntly said, “Look, I don’t want to be involved in drama. At the end of the day, though, if she’s saying anything about me that’s rude, I’m going to stick up for myself. I won’t just take it. I don’t see the point.”

Now, she’s not sure if she went too far.

I’m not sure if I should have just left it now, as I did snap. Her manager later popped by to say hi to me, so I said, “Hey, just wanted to clarify, is the head teacher okay? My manager mentioned the class share earlier. I don’t want to be causing drama.”

She said, “Oh no, the head was wondering if you’re okay. She was mainly just checking things are all good with you. That’s all. There’s always drama here anyway.”

I said, “Oh.”

I don’t know who to believe. I feel scared, as my manager is my referee for applications. But I just feel she always does little digs, and I just needed to stand up for myself.

AITA?

Wow! This workplace sounds like it’s very toxic.

Let’s see if the people over at Reddit have any advice for her.

Here’s a head teacher’s POV.

That’s good advice.

It sounds like that about sums it up.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a client who regretted paying for a cross-country flight after the IT specialist just flipped a breaker.

According to this reader, she’s never wrong for standing up for herself if she’s justified.

She really didn’t say anything that terrible.

If someone is making false claims about her, she has every right to defend herself instead of just sitting there and taking it.

However, the bigger concern seems to be her manager, especially since the head teacher apparently wasn’t nearly as upset as she made it sound.

Hopefully, she keeps things professional from here and starts documenting these conversations in case the drama continues.