Bloody people.

It has to stop. No, really it does!

I don’t really get angry. I just feel disappointed. I should feel angry but, you know, there’s just too much effort in being angry. And, anyway, it doesn’t solve anything. However, I could be, shall we say, firmer. You could say ‘more of a bastard about it’. And that would be true ….. to some extent.

But, overall, I’m just disappointed – both with the people concerned and with the resulting situation for me.

I don’t know why I do it really. The ‘planning’ bit. Even as I’m doing it I think, ‘don’t do this ‘cos it won’t all work out like this at all’. Still, I do it.

In this case, I’m talking about my students – but, to be honest, it applies to most things. One of them, who has to complete this test before the end of this year or else he loses his degree that he worked so hard for. But he doesn’t work hard enough (in his own time). There are excuses, of course. They are reasonable excuses – he works full time, also runs a business (a nursery) with his wife, has a baby daughter and fights with his wife most evenings. Oh yes, and he’s just bought a new flat which needs work to be done. Not really a recipe for success when the English thing is difficult for him.

So, as he hasn’t worked hard enough, he wants to stop the lessons. This is fine by me. His Monday, hour-and-a-half lessons at 9 p.m. were a real killer for me. It meant not getting to sleep much before midnight, making me have a lack of sleep that is showing in my face as I rapidly approach old age. He says he wants to self-study. He won’t pass his exam ….. even if he does actually take it. But he has no intention of using his degree; it’s too difficult for him to get work in his field without working for a while as an intern (meaning no money – which with all his other commitments is impossible) and he’s unlikely to get an internship at his age (being a few years older than is normal). Anyway, his long-term plans means that he doesn’t really need a degree. He wants to open a tobacconist (he works for the one below my house). You don’t need to be an architect to do that.

And so, he cancelled a lesson a few weeks ago and said he didn’t want to do any more. But he had pre-paid. I said he had two lessons left. And so, he booked for last night and next Monday.

I sit in my kitchen. Everything is ready. Well, I say ‘ready’. I have no real lesson plan. I’m not sure what he wants from the last two lessons. I will play it by ear.

F is packing for Spain and trying to do the music (see post below). He knows the lesson is until 10.30 so he isn’t rushing. He ‘does beauty farm’, as he says. After he comes (which is always after the lesson), we will eat the remains of the Cottage Pie. It is too late, really, but the other option is to throw it away.

I had, previously, rushed round to his place to show him a ‘solution’ that didn’t really work and rushed back to be sitting in my kitchen, with a cup of tea, by nine.

It reaches two minutes past nine. I have a ‘sense’. It’s not a good sense. I decide to text my student. I attach his message which gave the dates and ask ‘Are you coming or have you forgotten?’. I already know he has forgotten or, if not forgotten, chosen not to come.

I wait for no answer and am rewarded.

Ten minutes later, I text again, this time putting a delivery receipt on the text. This one just asks ‘Are you there?’. He’s not. Or he’s ignoring me. Or his phone has been stolen. Or he’s arguing with his wife (again). Or he’s in hospital or dead or something. But his phone’s still working and there is a receipt to say the message was delivered.

I am a little pissed. At least have the decency to let me know you’re not coming? I had turned down a drink with A (who is away the rest of this week) because of my errant student.

I decide that I will charge him this anyway. Stuff him. Unless he has a really good excuse like he’s in hospital. Or his daughter is, or something. Then I couldn’t do it. There’ll be some excuse, for certain. Also I had told someone else they couldn’t have a lesson at that time. Goddamn them. Bloody people.

But this keeps happening. People cancel. At the last minute. Now I have to be upfront about this. I have to set rules. It will make me seem like I am a money-grabbing bastard. But so be it.

As I found when running a business before, rules only need to be brought in when people start taking the piss. And so it goes.

It’s bloody people that are the problem!

8 thoughts on “Bloody people.

  1. HI ANDY-

    Oh my – ya. I have learned that we only have power over our choices and we are totally powerless over what others do or don’t do. I certainly understand the disappointments when folks don’t see things “my way” – but that is the answer it is my way and not theirs. So too this is true of your students(s) – you cannot assign value to anything for them – that is about them. this is a far greater discussion that this forum allows – bu over time as I came to accept, and I mean really accept that I am powerless over others my life was easier,more peaceful – that’s not to say I don’t feel the same hurts and disappointments and even some anger but not for long. This is a far greater discussion that this forum allows. Please know I understand.
    Love to you
    Gail
    peace…..

    • Hi Gail,

      Thanks for the comment. I don’t want to change them it’s just the lack of informing me that is annoying. I would prefer that they told me in advance instead of assuming that telling me 5 minutes after they are supposed to be with me, is fine and that I won’t mind. No, their values are theirs but there are some common decency values that apply to everyone, surely?

  2. Hi again –
    yes, surely. societal norms of sorts. and yet they too seem to be violated at every turn. sigh……..
    love you

  3. I hate people who cancel at the last minute. It’s rude.
    So, dear strict English teacher, I agree with you! Set rules… especially with Italian students. I know the “species”.
    ;)

  4. Bloody people and especially those not respecting social norms remind me why I left web design as a business. The client that made me quit was one who never turned up for meetings and despite constant “Are you sure this is what you want? Because I’ll have to charge for changes if you change your mind” reminders, always changed his mind then queried the changes – which were near daily and ridiculous (can we make the background more red). In the end I gave him the code, usernames and passwords, informed the hosting company I was no longer dealing with him, and told him to find another company.

    • Ah yes. I know those people. I can’t say that I’m sorry to be out of the business – at least as far as having to have those type of customers. I keep a couple now but they’re really nice and I don’t have problems with them at all. BTW, did they ever find someone else to look after it all?

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