Rubber room

The rubber room is an off-campus location where hundreds of New York City schoolteachers get reassigned when they get in trouble with their higher-ups. They sit in a room and do nothing while still getting paid the same. They may stay there for a few weeks, but lots of teachers stay stuck in this room for months and some even for over a year. Basically, they wait there until the higher-ups determine their punishment. Then when the punishment is delivered, as in a firing, the teachers receive it without forewarning.

The rooms are pretty gang-like and territorial. Teachers form groups according to race and fight over chairs (pretty funny to think of your white teachers and black teachers going to blows for a chair). But when you assert yourself you can get along in that quasi-prison environment and play cards. It costs about $35 million a year to maintain these rubber rooms.

Great way to waste taxpayer money. But if you're a lazy teacher who has a good poker face then it's not so bad.

Rubber Room movie.