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Rules are important, but they should never be so strict that people can’t make adjustments to ensure things run smoothly.

What would you do if you were an assistant coach, and the head coach insisted that only she take attendance, and that class doesn’t start until she is done?

That is the situation that the people in this story were in, so when the head coach wasn’t there at the start of class, they just made the team wait quietly, which made the head coach look really bad when she finally arrived. Eventually, this led to her getting fired.

This is why she should have trusted her assistant coaches to make decisions when she was gone. Read through the full story below and see what you think.

Boss can’t follow her own rules, gets fired

The new Head Coach at the school I had been coaching at for 5 years demanded that she be the only one to mark the roll before all 100 or so kids went off into their respective groups for the afternoon.

It seems she is very possessive of the attendance records.

She snapped any time anyone else would try to mark it (She was also bullying one of my colleagues, and really let her have it when she marked the role on a separate occasion).

One day, a kid forgot something in their locker and asked to be escorted by our Head Coach to get whatever it was.

The coaches can’t begin practice before taking attendance.

So, at the beginning of class (around 3:15pm) all of the kids were looking at us (the coaches) and getting antsy, waiting for something to happen.

My boss didn’t tell anyone what she was doing; we thought she went and moved her car or something, and she was taking her sweet time.

The head coach set the rules; they are just following them.

Since I had been working there the longest out of all the coaches, the others were asking me if we should start and if I could mark the rolls. I told them in a very sarcastic and evil tone

“We have to follow her instructions, lets wait and see how she copes with her own mess up”

She should know exactly what happened.

My boss returns at about 3:25 and sees everyone just standing there and proceeds to ask us

“What happened?? We are late for class, come on, chop chop”

There isn’t much she can say about it.

I kindly reply

“We followed your rule, we can’t start without you marking the roll”

She gives me this look

“I’ll mark the roll while the kids are warming up then”

Taking attendance while the kids are running around sounds like a nightmare.

Meanwhile all the kids are hastily running to where they need to be and the whole gym looks super disorganised.

We get the warm up underway and while kids are running back and fourth doing kicks and turns etc (this is an Artistic Gymnastics class btw) she is walking in between the rows, almost getting kicked in the face, and asking who’s here and who’s missing etc.

Perfect, her boss is there to see it all.

All my students are looking at me like ‘what is she doing?’

All the while, the Head of Sport was watching from above in the sport staff room, watching this awful coach crash and burn.

It is time to get rid of her.

She was fired at the end of her 3rd term at the school.

I’m now applying for the Head Coach role, fingers crossed that I get it!

Good riddance; hopefully the school will pick a better head coach this time.

Check out what the top commenters had to say about this story below.

Ouch. This is harsh, but true.

She did exactly as she was told.

It must have been very satisfying.

I was wondering about this too.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about an employee who decided to push back against time micromanagement.

This commenter thinks she handled the situation well.

If you’re extra strict with the rules, you should expect people will follow them. Don’t act surprised when your assistants do what you tell them to, even if it is going to make you look bad.

I’m sure this was just one of many issues that led to her firing. This was almost certainly celebrated by the rest of the coaches.