Man in high school I needed a letter of recommendation and went to one of my teachers. They said yeah they'll be happy to write me one. They had about a month a

Man in high school I needed a letter of recommendation and went to one of my teachers. They said yeah they'll be happy to write me one. They had about a month and a half to do it. Kept checking in every few days and they kept saying they'll get around to it. Didn't want to rush them but as the weeks went by I was sorta running out of time. The last possible day I could get it out in the mail I went to him after class and asked if he had it, looked me right in the face and in front of a bunch of classmates said "You know what, I for the life of me couldn't think of anything good to write about you." Man I was humiliated. I still remember the look of disbelief some of my classmates had. Some time later after thinking about it I got pretty angry because it sure seemed like he was trying to sabotage me, a high school teacher should know that a letter of recommendation was required to get into college. It wasn't even a particularly great college either, a dinky state school out in the boonies. I'm pretty sure you don't even need to say much in the letter. At the very least he could have said no, or said he was too busy weeks earlier. Simply told me he didn't know me well enough. It was partially my fault. I was very naive for a large part of my younger years. I had a weird feeling that this guy didn't like me. But it was always just a feeling. We never argued and I never talked back or disturbed class or anything like that. But there was just something off about how he interacted with me that I always dismissed as being in my head because I didn't see any reason for him to hold anything against me. I was naive because I had no idea that there definitely are people out there looking to screw you over. Not only do they want to see you fail but are willing to help make it happen. I don't see your suggestion as unethical at all. It's great advice. I did finally get that last letter of recommendation from another teacher. One that I only had taken a few classes from in the past but he was more than happy to write something out at the last minute and I did end up going to that school.