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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/ENC_SWDV_Rush on 2024-01-11 11:54:59.

When I was in Jr High many years ago, I was usually a quiet person. We had an older gentlemen as our science teacher. About halfway through the school year, he broke his leg. I think he had been doing some work on his house and fell off a ladder. We got a substitute teacher, a middle aged woman who told us initially she would only be ‘subbing’ for about a week or two.

The class was usually not too bad, but one day while she was trying to lecture, people weren’t really listening and it was getting a little bit louder. She didn’t really handle it well and started screaming at the whole class and ranting about our behavior and disrespect. She finally ended with “And if you don’t like it – you can just leave!”

Now I had been sitting quietly the whole time, but her yelling was quite offsetting for me. I listened to her whole rant and kind of took it personally although I knew I shouldn’t. It just kind of set me off,… so as soon as she shrieked out that last part of “you can just leave!” I stood up forcefully. It pushed my chair back about 4 feet (I was in the back of the room,) my chair scraped loudly and made that metallic sound. When I stood up, the whole class turned around and everyone just stared at me. The substitute and I just stared at each other for a few seconds – her mouth was open and then I just walked out slamming the door behind me.

I called her bluff,…

I guess I have a bit of a rebellious streak in me that doesn’t come out all the time, but something about her yelling and losing it in front of the class rubbed me the wrong way and brought it out in me at that moment. I took a minute, walked over and got a drink of water at the fountain then casually walked back in the classroom. She asked where I went – very quietly, and I told her I was thirsty and wanted a drink of water. The whole class was watching when I came back in but after I returned, the rest of the class went fine. She didn’t send me to the principals office, which I fully expected. She kept teaching the rest of the semester because the injury to our teacher was worse than they thought. She never yelled at the class again or made any more ultimatums. She and I never brought it up again.