Welcome to our slash malicious compliance where a lowly employee destroys the reputation of a millionaire CEO.

Second semester of my freshman year, I was taking a music theory course.

The professor was very serious about her job and this class was a bit of a weed out class for students who wanted to pursue music education.

I was taking it for fun. By the time the end of the semester rolled around, I got the feeling she didn't really like me much

because I didn't pay attention in class but still got A's on the homework exams and playing tests.

I'd played piano for a decade by this point. So she couldn't really punish me for anything since I wasn't disrupting the class.

But was just a thorn in her side through lack of participation.

Thank God that wasn't part of our grade.

Our final project was to find a poem we liked and craft a song using the poem as the lyrics.

As she passed out the requirement sheet, she announced that she would be playing these for the class.

So we need to put in effort so that we don't feel embarrassed by what she plays in front of everyone.

About 30 people.

She shoots a glance at me, the least involved student as she says that.

Which I took as a challenge.

I found a poem called a minor bird and decided to craft my masterpiece in the key of E flat minor.

The reasoning.

Six out of the seven notes are lowered a half step.

So it's not a matter of thinking everything I see is lowered.

It's everything but one note is lowered.

Which is fairly hard to keep track of while sight reading something that utilizes both hands on the piano.

We were to hand them in at the beginning of class and she would go through the stack and play them without practicing first.

It's a freshman level class. How hard could it be?

...