When Incompetence Gets Tenure: The Legend of “Kevin” in Special Ed
Imagine this: You desperately need special education teachers for your school’s autism program. The hiring pool is slim. So you take what you can get. Enter “Kevin” (real name Alex), whose tenure would become the stuff of workplace legend—for all the wrong reasons.
The story, as told by Reddit user u/CooperArt, is a wild ride through three years of jaw-dropping incompetence, organizational indifference, and the Kafkaesque reality of education bureaucracy. And, as the r/StoriesAboutKevin community makes clear, it’s both hilarious and horrifying that this could happen anywhere—let alone in a school.
Meet Kevin: When “Warm Body” Becomes a Liability
It all began innocently enough. Alex, the new special ed teacher, struggled to connect to the Wi-Fi. No big deal—tech can stump even the best of us, especially if you’re not a digital native. But then he forgot again. And again. By the second time, u/CooperArt was starting to wonder.
But the Wi-Fi debacle was just the prelude. Soon, colleagues realized Alex needed constant supervision—so much so that he was effectively being “babysat” by coworker Wilma. She quickly predicted he wouldn’t make it as a teacher. Our narrator, ever the optimist, gave Alex the benefit of the doubt. After all, everyone starts somewhere, right?
But the incidents piled up. Yogurt stains left on his tie all day. Being unable to remember students’ names months into the year (even confusing Audrianna for another student after four months). And—perhaps most alarmingly—getting lost daily on his way to his own two classrooms.
As u/CooperArt notes, “I have brain damage that makes memory and words hard, and I had names down by that point.” The implication is clear: Alex’s struggles weren’t just rookie mistakes. This was something else.
“Is This a Prank?”: When Colleagues Start to Wonder
Over time, Alex’s reputation spread. He hadn’t taken the required class for access to the school’s online platform, leaving his caseload (15 students!) as paperwork only—meaning someone else had to do the work for 30. He never learned how to take attendance (a literal three-click process), wandered into the wrong meetings, and needed help opening the school door.
One of the best moments? The bulletin board paper incident. As told by a content teacher: “He watched Alex get stuck in one of those rolls. For four minutes.” The teacher was convinced he was being pranked. “This man is more useful anywhere but in your room,” he quipped.
The administration, meanwhile, seemed to have given up. The assistant principal in charge of special ed admitted she no longer bothered tracking Alex down for meetings. “There’s no point in him being here anyway,” she reportedly said. Yet, inexplicably, Alex remained—earning a $1.5k caseworker bonus for a job he’d never been trained to do.
The Community Reacts: Sympathy, Snark, and Systemic Frustration
The r/StoriesAboutKevin community had thoughts—and plenty of them. The highest-voted comment, from u/ShadowKraftwerk, summed up a common workplace experience: “I estimated that dealing with the problem person took a day per week. The other 14 people took about half a day in total.” HR, they observed, was no help—“just provide ‘evidence’”—and speculated Alex may have learned that incompetence means less work, since others will pick up the slack.
Others wondered how this could go unchallenged. u/page7777, a parent of special needs kids, asked: “How are NONE of the parents complaining? Does he literally have no students?” They also mused whether Alex might himself have special needs, and if, by some bureaucratic fluke, the system was actually helping him avoid a worse fate—even if it’s unfair to those around him. “The whole thing is just crazy,” they wrote, capturing the bewilderment of everyone involved.
A few commenters offered a more compassionate take. u/Cazmaniandevil asked whether Alex might actually relate to the students in ways others couldn’t—perhaps his one-on-one work was stronger than his admin skills. “Patience and perspective can change everything,” they suggested, echoing the hard-earned wisdom of many special ed professionals.
And then there was the snark. “How has the Darwin awards not scooped this guy up?” asked u/jenjoness, while u/reisenbime quipped, “I think he’s a Special Ed teacher not a Special Ed teacher.” Ouch.
Tenure: The Final Boss of Incompetence
Three years have passed and, against all odds, Alex is still there. He has tenure. He gets paid extra for work he’s not trained to do. The administration has driven out competent teachers, but Alex persists—a living testament to the phrase, “A warm body is more useful than no body.”
It’s a scenario that’s equal parts hilarious and infuriating. As u/SkylerAltair noted, the phenomenon isn’t unique to K-12: “They have teachers who royally screw up every single project, class, etc. to the point that I wonder if they’re hoping they’ll eventually just cease to be assigned work and can just twiddle their thumbs and get a paycheck.”
Meanwhile, the work actually gets done by those around him—at great personal and professional cost.
Lessons from the Saga of Kevin
What do we take away from this? First, that bureaucracies can enable the most baffling outcomes. Second, that “malicious incompetence” can be just as disruptive as outright malice. Third, that sometimes, the system meant to serve the most vulnerable can be so tangled it loses track of its own mission.
But maybe, as one parent commented, there’s a sliver of hope here. If Alex can survive (and even get tenure) in a world that’s not built for him, perhaps others—students or adults who struggle in their own ways—might find a place, too.
At the end of the day, we’re left with a story that’s as much about compassion as it is about shaking our heads in disbelief.
Have you ever worked with a “Kevin”? Seen a system fail upward? Share your stories below—because misery (and comedy) loves company.
Original Reddit Post: We Need Special Ed Teachers. So We Hired Kevin. Kevin has Tenure Now.