About a year ago, I designed a logo for a company that provided low-cost music and dance classes to low-income communities in Los Angeles. It was a husband/wife team, and I was mostly dealing with the wife, who was incredibly sweet. I quoted her a price via email, which she seemed okay with, but her husband intervened and sent me an email attempting to lowball me. He also insisted I honor my 10% discount to non-profit businesses since they were “technically almost that anyway”.

Being a dancer myself and feeling bad about the wife being dominated, I let my empathy get the best of me and agreed to a very low price to design ONE logo. The logo came out really great, and the wife’s reaction was very positive and happy. She loved it.

I asked for the remaining payment so I could send over the final files.

Two weeks went by, and I heard nothing. Finally, the wife emailed me.

Client: “My husband has just decided he really doesn’t like this logo. He really thinks the logo should be a silhouette of his face and mohawk. He wants his mohawk green. He started this company, so he thinks it should represent him. Let me know when you can get that to us!”

I didn’t think his ego could get any bigger. I was wrong. I quoted her the price for a whole new logo design and never heard from either of them again.

When I was a kid, I used to dance competitively. I had been a dancer for years (I started when I was five), and by this point, I had been doing competitions for several years.

This particular year, I had a solo performance, which I’d also done quite a few times before, but this time, I just kept getting lost in the middle of the routine whenever it was performance time. I think this was due to the structure of the routine; there was a sort of “refrain” where the same sequence of moves was done at different points in the song, and I would get what came after that point mixed up.

The first time I had this brain blip — thankfully, during a rehearsal — I completely froze, and then I burst into tears and ran off the stage. My mom consoled me until my dance teacher — who I was already beginning to develop some negative feelings about as I got older — came over to berate me.

At the first competition, I forgot again, but this time, instead of freezing, I just made it up. I improvised half the dance until I found a point where I could pick up the real choreography again, and then I finished the song with the correct moves. The judges were apparently none-the-wiser because I was awarded a High Gold — the second-highest possible award. (It’s worth noting that these competitions worked on a sort of “grading” system, so everyone got a trophy, but getting awarded Gold — and especially High Gold or Platinum — was very difficult and worth celebrating.)

My mom was thrilled.

My teacher berated me again and ignored my win.

In the second competition, I still had a hiccup where I forgot some of the dance, but I was able to pick it back up sooner than the first time. That time, I got a Gold.

My mom was still happy, and my teacher was still grouchy.

In the third and last competition, I finally managed to remember the whole routine flawlessly. That time, I got a High Silver.

I still got no praise from my teacher; I think she was mad at the implication that the judges liked my choreography better than hers.

I am a ballet teacher. On this occasion, I am teaching a small group of six- and seven-year-old beginners.

Student #1: “Miss [My Name], why does ballet only count to eight?”

Me: “I’m not entirely sure. I think it’s because music is usually counted in four, and two sets of four is eight, but I don’t know for certain. The problem is that ballet is really old, so we don’t have many records of why things are the way that they are.”

Student #2: “Wait, how old is ballet?”

Me: “The earliest beginnings of ballet are over 600 years old.”

Student #1: “Woah… That’s even older than Disney Plus!”

Client: “Can you do SEO?”

SEO is Search Engine Optimization.

Me: “Yes.”

Client: “Can you get us a number-one ranking?”

Me: “We have in the past. What keyword phrase do you want to rank for?”

Client: “I want to rank number one for ‘Lady Gaga’.”

Me: “‘Lady Gaga’?”

Client: “Yes, she’s quite popular, and I’m sure there are a lot of searches for her.”

Me: “Yes, she is, but you won’t be able to rank number one for that term.”

Client: “Why not? Didn’t you just say you can get us a number-one ranking?”

Me: “Yes, I did, but it has to be related to your business. Lady Gaga has nothing to do with your children’s dance troupe.”

Client: “The children dance to her songs and listen to them, so we want to be number one for ‘Lady Gaga’.”

When I was three or four years old, I took dance lessons in a class with other kids the same age. There was a window between the dance room and the hallway outside where parents could sit and check in on their kids. My mom usually did that because the classes weren’t too long.

One day in class, I had to use the bathroom, so I asked the teacher for permission. She said I could not. Shortly after I clarified that I really did need to use the bathroom, but she still denied me. She wouldn’t let me take a short and non-disruptive trip out of class, but she did find it appropriate to let me sit and cry on the floor next to my classmates, as she directed me to do while the other kids were dancing.

Soon, my mom looked in the window and saw what was happening, and she was furious. She took me out of the dance room and then chewed out a superior at the dance studio, who was somehow on the side of the dance instructor.

I never went back to that awful dance studio, and soon after this ordeal, we found a better dance studio that let young children use the bathroom on time.

What was ridiculous about this whole experience was that I missed out on dancing much more by being told I could just sit on the floor and cry than if the teacher had just let me use the bathroom. I don’t remember this, but my mom tells me it took a lot of convincing for me to trust that my preschool teachers would actually let me use the bathroom, so apparently, this experience stuck with me.