Teacher takes a stand for herself after being forced to work for free by the management

An organization's activities will always be for their benefit. Recreation trips are for promotional purposes, work dinners are there to entertain the clients and so on. Even if the employees do not want to participate in such activities the dynamics in place are such that they are forced to give their services. In most cases, the employees contend with such behavior. However, u/bryannadz refused to do so, and as a result, exposed herself to a barrage of criticism. Despite manipulation from all sides, the teacher did not step down from her decision. She shared the entire story on Reddit.

The teacher began the post by sharing details about her job. She was employed at a daycare and worked "9 hours a day, 5 days a week." The whole issue started because of a Christmas party her workplace was organizing for the children. Though not interested she took it as a work responsibility and decided to give in the extra time. The dealbreaker for her came with the work announcement given in their official chat. The announcement informed the staff that the extra time would be unpaid and they would have to volunteer for this party. She immediately decided that she was not going.

After that, she described what would be expected of her at the party. "Keep in mind this 'kid's party' is us standing in our uniform shirts, professional, entertaining the parents' every question and their children until each child gets an individual photo with Santa," she wrote. Though the whole thing was supposed to last only an hour, her class is the oldest and is bound to take up more time. This would lead to her putting in two extra hours and then coming back again the next day for a full 9 hours.

Her boss did not take her 'no' lightly. Soon a message came in the group chat from the boss where she wrote, “some people don’t want to go and that she’s never had trouble with staff going before.” This was the boss' way of forcing people to participate in this activity. The teacher stuck with her decision because it made no practical sense for her to go through with the whole event. She received multiple unofficial warnings from co-workers that she would get into trouble, and not be accommodated by the management.

Seeing the management's reaction other co-workers also turned against her. Despite having such a critical attitude towards her decision they did not step back from taking 40 dollars from her for a daycare's present. Not only that she had to give 18 dollars for the supervisor's gift and 20 dollars for a Secret Santa. They had no problem taking her portion of these gifts but could not show some empathy for her decision. This incident led the teacher to investigate more about the organization. She learned from a former employee that the owner uses the Christmas gift money for her vacation. After knowing all of this, the teacher's sister called the whole organization a "cult" and "creepy" by nature.

The comment section supported the teacher's decision and applauded her bravery. u/dazednconfusedxo shared how important it is for employees to stand up for themselves and wrote, "I ran a church nursery for a while when I was still in college, and they didn't like that I asked questions and pushed back on unsafe issues. Too bad for them, I wasn't about to let them try and pressure me into ANYTHING that I could be held responsible for, because I KNEW that I'd be the first one thrown under the bus." u/chompy283 appreciated the teacher's attitude and commented, "Don't work if you aren't paid. Good for you for standing up. However, one has to learn to be uncomfortable about doing so and glad you showed that strength."