It is my junior year of high school in 2009. More classes have started introducing laptops to their toolkits and we are sitting in a history class that has recently gotten its first set. Our usernames are the initials of the school: MHS, and then our first initial and last name.

While the teacher is speaking to us I take notice of the girl next to me, who has taken to taking the keys off her keyboard and rearranging them; I don’t say anything and turn back to the teacher.

A few minutes later the teacher finally tells us to log in for the first time and set our passwords, which is when this exchange happens.

Girl: *Swears softly.*

Me: “What’s up?”

Girl: “Well, I moved the keys around to make typing easier.”

She shows me that she has lined up the keys MHSLE which match up to our school name and her name.

Girl: “But it’s not typing the correct letters!”

I lean over and hit the ‘M’ key, the computer produces a ‘G’.

Girl: “See!?”

Me: “The keycaps don’t dictate what letter the computer is going to make, [Girl’s Name].”

Girl: “What? Of course they do, what else would they mean?”

Me: “The keys? The little squares you moved? They are just the tops of the buttons so that you know what letter each button is. You can’t change that by moving them.”

Girl: “What!? That’s stupid!”

At this point the teacher walks up, apparently, we’re the only two that haven’t been typing away.

Teacher: “What’s going on here?”

Girl: “He was just telling me that if I move the keys around it doesn’t change the letters!”

Teacher: “You’d better not be moving the keys around!”

Girl: “Oh… I…”

Me: “Just put them all back, look at mine.”

I pushed my laptop over to her so she could look at it and she started popping her keys off again. The teacher, understandably, was at a loss for words, but eventually, her brain gained enough traction to speak again.

Teacher: “I can’t believe you! Would you do this to your computer at home!?”

Girl: “I don’t have a computer at home, I go to the library across the street.”

Teacher: “Have you done this to the library computer!?”

The girl looked offended and gasped.

Girl: “Of course not Mrs. [Teacher]! I would never! Those computers belong to the library!”

Me: “Uh, these computers belong—”

Teacher: “Don’t! Mr. [My Last Name], don’t… don’t… don’t… just don’t.”

The teacher ended up leaving the classroom for about twenty or thirty minutes, when she returned the lesson plan resumed, but, with much less energy.

When I was in elementary school, we went on a field trip to a historical pre-US fort. It was a long drive to the fort on the bus, and we were not very patient children. School started at 7:30 am and we were loaded onto the bus around 8:00 am.

When we got there around 10:00 am, it turned out that the school had forgotten to buy tickets for us, or even to let the fort know we were coming. One of our teachers stayed behind at the fort to negotiate with the staff while the school buses brought us to a McDonald’s with a Play Place.

Unfortunately, the McDonald’s manager saw a full busload of children descending upon the play place and said, “No way.” While the bus driver was trying to make the sharp turn into the parking lot, the manager knocked on the window of the bus and told the driver, in no uncertain terms, that we would not be permitted to play in the Play Place as there were more of us than their maximum safety capacity allowed.

We wound up driving around apparently aimlessly until we stopped at a park in the countryside and were let out of the bus. Only it turned out not to be a park, as a farmer arrived to tell the driver that it was private property, and we were to leave. We weren’t even given long enough to finish the packed lunches we’d broken out. We were ordered to eat them on the bus.

Now, at about 1:00 pm, out of snacks and still quite rambunctiously energetic with no outlet for our energy, we drove back to the fort to pick up the teacher who had been left behind. She had been unable to secure places for us at the fort. After that, we drove back to the school where we were dropped off only to head home.

The parents found out about what happened and tore the school administration a new one. Rather than learn their lesson, the school announced that, for an indefinite period of time, there would be no further field trips.

We never had another field trip as long as I was there, and after asking around at our reunion with some of the young parents who were once children I went to school alongside, I’ve learned that it was almost ten years after I graduated before that school started doing field trips again.

This is the start of my most frustrating work days so far. I’m a driving instructor and use a car provided by the company I work for. Due to decisions made by coworkers, our boss has decided that on any day we aren’t working, our car must be left at the Home Base. Home Base is the town our office is located in and where most of our work is done, but none of us actually live there; we all live thirty-five to sixty minutes away. Prior to this decision, we each kept our car at our homes.

Now, since I only work part-time, I leave my car in the designated location on Wednesdays and get a ride home from a family member if one is in town, or my spouse picks me up. On Mondays, we drop our kiddo off at preschool and then drive into town to get my car and begin my work day. I’m usually running late on Mondays.

This particular Monday, I’m running later than usual and get to my car about ten minutes after my first lesson was supposed to begin. The first thing I notice upon starting up the car is that the gas light is on, even though I know I left it with at least a third of a tank. [Coworker #1] never puts gas in anyone else’s car if he has cause to use it (like a tire leak on his car), so I grumble about him and decide to pick up my student first and we’ll start the lesson by teaching them how to pump gas.

I get about thirty feet down the road when the car dies. Every light pops up on the dash. While I’ve been driving for a while, I don’t have a lot of experience with car failure. I call [Coworker #2] who works in the office and tell him I think my car ran out of gas, but it could be something else, also. He comes over to help me.

While I’m waiting, I call my student, apologize profusely, and explain that I won’t be able to do the lesson that day due to car trouble. Fortunately, they’re understanding about it. [Coworker #2] shows up, helps me get my car a little more to the side of the road, and confirms that it is out of gas. He goes off to get a gas can, and I wait again.

He comes back with quite possibly the smallest gas can I’ve ever seen. He puts the single gallon in, my car starts, and we head over to the nearest gas station, less than half a mile down the road. [Coworker #2] follows me just in case the problem is bigger than being out of gas. I’m glad he did!

I pull up to a pump, and as I go to get out, I see a huge puddle spreading under my car! I crouch down and see gas pouring out of my gas tank. As my coworker joins me, I say, “I don’t think I can blame [Coworker #1] for this one.”

[Coworker #2] crouches down and sees that two holes have been drilled into the bottom of my tank. He calls our boss, and I run inside to let the gas station workers know that their pumps are fine, but there is a gas spill out in the lot. One of them comes out, helps push my car back, and starts to sop up the gas with kitty litter.

When my boss arrives, he gives me the keys to his work car, and I use that for the rest of the day. The rest of my day continues to be chaotic but likely not interesting until my final student of the day.

The schedule says I am picking her up directly from the high school, which is unusual. We usually pick the school’s students up from the convenience store across the street. I am back on schedule and have about fifteen minutes before the lesson is scheduled to start, so I decide I’ll start at the convenience store, and if I don’t see my student by the time of the scheduled start, I’ll go over to the school.

The start time comes, I do a quick walk around the parking lot (it wouldn’t be the first time I missed a student because they were behind a bush or something), and I don’t see anyone. To the school office I go!

Me: “Hi, I’m here to pick up [Student].”

Secretary: “Hmm, she doesn’t have an off-campus pass, and you aren’t on the approved pick-up list. Her mom will have to call us to release her.”

I call [Student]’s mom and tell her I’m at the school to pick up her daughter. 

Mom: “Oh, yes, I’ll call the school to let them know.”

I’m internally rolling my eyes at this not already being done, but I don’t say anything as I know my annoyance is heightened by the other events of the day. I hear the secretary send the call out over the walkie-talkies for the school security guard to get the student from class. It should be just a couple of minutes, then.

Ten minutes later, I’m still waiting. It turns out that [Student] doesn’t have a class this period, so they don’t actually know where she is. She could be pretty much anywhere on campus. The security guards are looking for her.

Fifteen minutes after the scheduled start of the lesson, the mom calls me.

Mom: “She’s on her way to [Convenience Store]; she’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Me: “I’m at the school; I can just meet her in the office.”

Mom: “No, she’s on her way to the store. Also, she doesn’t have her permit, so her dad is on the way to [Convenience Store] to give it to her.”

Me: “Okay. We will all meet at [Convenience Store] then.”

It doesn’t take long to get to the store as it’s directly across the street. I think it took longer to walk from the school office back to my car. Regardless, the mom calls me again as I’m parking.

Mom: “My daughter is there and says she can’t find you.”

Me: “I literally just parked. I see your daughter; she’s crossing the parking lot toward me right now.”

Mom: “I can’t believe you weren’t there! My daughter has been waiting for you!”

Me: *In my best customer service voice* “I’m very sorry for the confusion, ma’am. Your daughter and I have made contact now. We’re just waiting for her permit to get here.”

Mom: “So, the lesson is two hours starting from now, right?”

I take a deep breath. This is my last student, and I’m really looking forward to going home. It is now twenty minutes past the scheduled lesson time. If it’s my fault the lesson gets a late start, I’m fully willing to stretch the time and make it a full two-hour lesson. Due to her not having her permit, and the mix-up of where to pick her up not being my fault, I could just cancel the lesson entirely. My boss would be on my side for it. 

But this mom has signed her daughter up for TEN LESSONS. The legal requirement here is six hours of driver training, which is three lessons. This girl is getting more than three times the amount she needs. And I already know she’s not a bad driver, as I had her for her first lesson. This is her sixth. It literally does not matter if the lesson is two hours or an hour and a half; she has already surpassed the requirement and gotten her certificate of completion.

Me: “No, ma’am. The lesson will end at 5:00 as scheduled.”

Mom: *Blustering sounds* “Well, when was it supposed to start?!”

Me: “At 3:00. And I was ready to begin the lesson at that time. The lesson will end at 5:00.”

Mom: “Fine.” *Hangs up*

The student told me as we waited for her dad to arrive with the permit that she didn’t even know she had a driving lesson that day and that when her mom called her to tell her, she’d been in line at the sandwich shop down the road. She’s a sweet kid. I avoid contact with her mom as much as I can. I got her home right at five o’clock and went home to take a nap.

I worked as a ward assistant at a teaching veterinary hospital. Some of the vet students were incredibly book-smart but had never developed any common sense. Then, there was this student.

I was refilling the treatment trolleys in the open-plan treatment area while one of the vet students was cleaning up after a procedure. One of the residents came through making clicking, whistling, and just generally encouraging noises to the very large dog she was leading. 

Student: “Why are you whistling? It’s not a horse.”

Resident: “Oh, he’s blind.”

Student: “Ahhh! He can’t hear you.”

As part of a career change, I once took an online university course. When I got a paper back from the instructor, I was dismayed to see several grammar and spelling errors indicated. In my existing career, I’m a language professional and have been for twenty years, so I was puzzled by this to say the least.

On closer inspection, it turned out that the instructor had accepted all of the suggested “corrections” from Microsoft Word, marking them as though each had represented an actual error. Of course, they hadn’t, given how the spelling and grammar check works: the corrections are merely suggested, and it’s up to the user to decide whether the change makes sense or not.

In fact, in some cases accepting the suggested change introduced an error. For example, it corrected “assuming that” to “if” in a sentence, for “concision”. But I wasn’t using “assuming that” to mean “if”; I was literally referring to the act of assuming (e.g. “Client-centered care can include not assuming that the therapist understands the client’s background,” etc.), so replacing it by “if” made the sentence gibberish.

Never mind, of course, that I had obviously typed the thing in Word, so I had seen all the same suggested corrections she had and decided that they weren’t appropriate. 

It’s hard to describe how personally and professionally indignant I felt about this, especially because she had docked me marks for each of these “corrections” and left a little comment about “paying more attention” to spelling and grammar!

I still got above a ninety (out of 100) on both the paper and the course, so I decided it wasn’t worth the hassle to complain about, but it still rankles me.