Woman 'tattles' on colleague after he is 'shady about her breast pump.'
"AITA for 'tattling' on my colleague?"
I am a teacher and I breast pump at work because my baby only drinks breast milk. All the people I work with in the school know I pump in my room.
When I pump the door is locked and I put a sign up. The only way to get into the room is with a key card. I always make sure to put the sign up because the ONE time I didn’t, the custodian walked in. I take full responsibility.
He apologized and was so mortified told the principal himself what had happened (he was not reprimanded in any way). She told me if anything like this happened again, to let her know.
Now onto the problem. Recently I was pumping in my room and someone knocked on my door but I couldn’t answer. They left and about five minutes later my door opened and a student walks in holding a teacher’s key card. I firmly, but politely, tell him that he needed to leave and close the door.
I was pretty confused. How did the kid get a key card and how much did he see? I’m pretty covered up when I pump, but it’s obvious enough what is going on. I start to freak out a little because I was concerned about the student.
I had no clue how to proceed so I wrote an email to the principal and the guidance counselor to ask for advice.
I never mentioned a teacher or the key card. I also emailed the student’s other teachers and asked that they don’t give keys to students to get into my room. One teacher, Mr. M, admitted that it was him. Later, the principal asked how the student got into my room and I explained that they had a key card.
She asked me if I knew who gave the student the key card. I felt awkward, my goal wasn’t to get anyone into trouble, but she asked me directly so I told her I knew and gave her Mr. M’s name. I can assume she talked to him because of what occurred later.
Mr. M came to my classroom and apologized on behalf of the student but not for his own personal role. I told him it was fine. He told me my sign should be more obvious like “DO NOT ENTER” instead of “Pumping. Please come back later”. He said that students don’t know what pumping means.
I replied that it doesn’t matter because my door is locked, and the only people with keys know what pumping means. He tells me it was unprofessional of me to tell the principal on him. That a good colleague would have emailed him first and talked with him before involving administration.
I tried to explain to him that I never meant to cause him any problems, but I thought it was an issues that needed attention from administration. He continued that he disagreed and that a more experienced colleague would have gone to him first “instead of tattling like one of our students” (I’m a third year teacher while he has been teaching for 30 years).
I can understand why someone would be upset for being “tattled” on to their boss, but that was never my intention and happened as an unfortunate result. I feel like he's being a bit shady about the whole thing. Am I an asshole because I didn’t talk to him first and “tattled” to the principal? AITA?
Let's find out.
annawhatsit writes:
No, this absolutely sounds like something that a professional with 30 years in the field who views younger (female) teachers as students would do. She's young enough that she could have been one of his former students so how dare she question his decisions as a teacher.
He absolutely sounds like the kind of entrenched teacher who would feel it was his duty to give a lecture to this young upstart who would question his authority whether or not he actually broke school safety protocols. NTA.
unipride writes:
NTA! Report this interaction as well. Your coworker is deliberately setting up a hostile work environment over a legal work requirement. You are legally protected by law to have a private space for pumping.
velvetwire writes:
NTA this dude tried to gaslight you that you were the one who did something wrong. “A more experienced colleague...” This is typical male coworker bs. A more experienced colleague would know better than to give any student a teacher’s key card. He’s just mad he got called out by the principal.