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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/FalconGK81 on 2025-09-08 15:53:13+00:00.
I grew up as an Army brat, so I did a lot of moving in my childhood. I had been at my current school for 4 years, starting in 8th grade. Up until then, it was the longest I'd ever been in one place. I would be moving across an ocean for my senior year of high school. I was going to miss the friends I'd made, but as an army brat, this wasn't anything new. Frankly, I was looking forward to a change of scenery.
I was a member of the high school band. Through my sophomore year, we had a wonderful band director who was the kind of teacher everyone dreams of: helpful, friendly, supportive, encouraging, and a little bit of a hard ass when needed. However, she left us, and her replacement was nothing short of horrible. He was mean, rude, short tempered, and authoritarian.
One spring day, nearing the end of my junior year, I needed to go to a dental appointment to fix a cavity. Given that we were about to move thousands of miles away, we just took the first appointment we could get, and that happened to be an early afternoon that would require me to miss a single day of band class. So I go to the band director, inform him that I'm going to miss class this afternoon for a dental appointment. Then I check out of school, go to the dentist, get my tooth filled, go home, and carry on with the rest of my life because this is a regular, routine, normal and not at all unusual event that is hardly worth even noticing, let alone causing drama, right? Of course not.
I come to school the following day, and a bunch of my band mates come up to me at morning break. "Hey, OP, did you hear about Mr. B yesterday?" they all inquire. "No, what happened" I reply. I get a story about how Mr. B decides to take the opportunity of my absence to lecture the entire band about how dedication is soooo important. Everyone really needs to be a team player. We don't need selfish members in this band who schedule appointments during band class/rehearsals. I mean he really lays into it. Apparently arms waving, voice rising, he works himself into a full tirade against selfish band members who don't show up to class for trifling things like medical appointments. While the band was somewhat large (probably 80 students), everyone in the room knew exactly who he was referring to, as I'm conspicuously not in my chair that day. Hence the cluster of band mates asking me if I'd heard about this.
So, here's the thing. As I mentioned earlier, I'm an Army brat, through and through. To this day I still say "Yes sir" or "No ma'am" when talking to my elders/superiors. I know rules and order, and I know my part in the system. I was not rebellious. I had a 3.9 GPA, good manners, and never put a toe out of line. But I also have a very large sense of justice. And this? This was bullshit. So, I marched myself right to the band director and said "Mr. B, I hear you gave a good lecture about not needing people who aren't dedicated in the band, and how scheduling appointments during band class is not showing dedication. So, effective immediately, I am no longer in your band. I'll find another class to finish out the year."
You should have seen the veins on his forehead, I swear the man nearly stroked out. I've never seen anyone angrier. He starts to yell at me, but this isn't my class time, I don't have to be there, so I turn around to walk out. The man literally moves to block my way yelling about how "I decide if you're in here or not, you can't leave this class without my permission. I'm the one in charge here." We'll see about that. I just walk around him and go about my day, since this is between-class free time, I don't have to stand there and discuss it with him.
I go to Coach N (another one of those awesome teachers everyone loves) and tell him about my situation. Coach N happens to teach an art history class the same period as the band class. I ask Coach N if he wouldn't mind if I finished out the year in his class. He did encourage me to try and work it out if I could, but I made it pretty clear to him that I didn't respect Mr. B, I wasn't going to be treated like that, and this was just the last straw in a year long display of his petty, mean, authoritarian nonsense. Since Coach N and I get along great he gladly agrees to let me join his art class. So I go on down to the principals office and tell the principal that I'm not going to finish out the year in band, but that Coach N is willing to let me finish the year in his class. The principal tells me "we're going to have to discuss this with Mr. B, and your parents. I'll setup a meeting." "Great, as soon as possible please.". So, last period of the day comes, and I go to Coach N's class. About 5 minutes into some slide show about Coach N's trip to Rome last year, and I'm fetched out of the class, and told that I haven't been allowed to switch yet, and I must go to my band class.
Cue the malicious compliance. I can't leave without your permission, Mr. B? Ok, I'll stay in your band. Now, what older more vindictive me thinks I should have done, was just play the most ridiculous, off-note, out of tempo nonsense all class long. That would have been hilarious. But that's not what I did. Like I said, I was a rule follower, playing wrong/loudly never crossed my mind. Instead, what I did, was go into band class, take my front row seat (I was first chair oboe), and sit with my hands folded in my lap for the entire 90 minutes. Staring at Mr. B. I don't take out my instrument, warm up, pull out sheet music, or interact with anyone the entire time. I just sit there, passive aggressively displaying that while you can make me stay in your class, you can't make me play.
You'd think he'd get the hint and just relent, but that's not Mr. B's style. Instead, for two days while they setup the meeting with my Mom, I have to sit in that class and openly defy him. But he's got a plan, he's gonna threaten my grades and try to coerce my Mom to make me support him. Thankfully I've prepped Mom, and she's no fan of Mr. B, so that is gonna go nowhere. So we finally go to the meeting, and when both sides have had their say, Mr. B smugly says "If I don't let you out of my class, you have to stay. You'll get a failing grade." The principal takes his side and also tried to cajole me into staying, trying to lean on the threat to my grades. "OP's Mom, OP has such great grades, you wouldn't want those ruined, now would you?" Mom, like a boss, basically says "I think OP is right. He doesn't want to stay in the class. Lets just find an alternative." Then I said to the principal, "You can make me stay if that's what you want to do." Then I turned to Mr. B, and said "I have a 3.9 GPA, I think I can afford one bad grade for one quarter in an art credit. I don't think that's gonna ruin my future. So, again, you can make me stay, and you can give me a bad grade, but you can't make me play. Every day, in front of every member of that band, I will openly defy you. Do you really want that for the rest of the school year?" I still remember the look of defeat on his face. It was glorious.
Coach N's class for the rest of the year was great fun. I learned a lot about art history and appreciation, which was something I hadn't really been exposed to before. Then I set off half-way across the world for an international high school adventure my senior year. In a way, I couldn't actually believe I pulled it off. I think its the day I realized that I wasn't so different from adults. You could maybe even argue it was when I became an adult. So I guess I could thank Mr. B for that. But I won't.