When I am twenty-two, I decide to get a license to drive the second-largest motorcycle, which is the best I can do at the time. (A2, for you EU-citizens out there.) In drivers’ ed for a normal car, I had teachers that I would classify as “meh” at best, but for the motorcycle lessons, my teacher is awesome and knows exactly how to motivate his students.

While I love the driving lessons, the thought of taking the practical exam makes me very nervous as I failed several times when getting a license to drive a car. My teacher has already asked which spot I would prefer for the driving exercises as he has the possibility to make a suggestion to the examiner — unofficially, of course.

One thing that I am scared of most is one of the basic exercises: driving in a perfect circle. It’s not that I can’t do it technically; it’s just that the radius isn’t marked on the ground and I am terrible at guessing how many metres I am from the centre. This goes for motorcycling, biking, or horseback riding — I just can’t do it.

My teacher knows this and tries to calm me down by explaining that the examiner can choose from several exercises but he can only choose one, which means that if I am tested in, for example, stop-and-go, I won’t have to do the circle. I am good at stop-and-go, so I really hope we will do that one.

Fifteen minutes before the exam, we stop at a gas station to fill up and check the tyre pressure. Nervous as I am, I do something stupid and fall down with the motorcycle, hurting my knee — but not so bad that I couldn’t continue — and breaking the clutch lever! I can’t drive like this safely so we stop at the motorcycle dealership and my teacher calls the examiner to tell him we will run late. While the lever is being replaced, I am standing outside in tears. This is about as bad as it can get.

My teacher tries to calm me down. “Okay, so that is done now; it’s over,” he says. “Now you can focus on the exam and pass it.”

“I can try,” I say, shakily.

My teacher says confidently, “No! We’re not here to try. It’s far too expensive for that. You’re gonna do it!”

Cheered up only a little, I start the exam. For the base exercises, my teacher makes sure we go to the place I know best. Now comes the part I am so scared of; will the examiner make me drive in circles? I try to tell myself how unlikely that is when I hear my teacher over the radio making a subtle suggestion to the examiner.

“So, which exercise should we do first? Stop-and-go or—”

“Yeah, yeah, do that,” the examiner says.

I immediately cheer up over the little trick my teacher pulled, even if, on second thought, the examiner probably knew exactly what was going on.

And that’s how my teacher chose the perfect spot for the exam, saved me from the possibility of circle driving, and later even told the examiner that a line I illegally crossed was absolutely impossible to see with the wet surface of the road. I passed on the first try!

To this day, I think he is the perfect teacher and if I ever find the money to do the license for big motorcycles, I will definitely go to him! Even if I still have a guilty conscience about denting that motorcycle.

I get a student job filling shelves in the morning. Normally, I’m done before we open, but sometimes, I have to stay a bit longer and people come up to me with questions. I’m just filling in the aisle containing everything from flour to canned goods. It is March 2020, so due to panic buying, we often run out of some items.

Customer: “Where’s the flour?”

Me: *Checking around* “The normal one is sold out. We still have this organic flour on the shelf above. I can go check in the back, though.”

The customer just… stares at me, so I take that as a yes and go into the back to check. Flour is one of the goods that’s gone frequently and we have no idea when it gets delivered next time.

Me: “I’m sorry, but the regular flour is sold out. You can get this one, instead.”

I point to the flour on the top shelf.

Customer: “But flour is 79 cents! It’s always here!”

Me: “That’s the other type. Unfortunately, that one sold out. This one is the only one we have right now.”

Customer: “But it’s always here!”

Me: “…”

Customer: “Why is it not 79 cents? It always is!”

The customer leaves without looking at me again.

Colleague: “At least you weren’t accused of hiding it from him like I was last week.”

We’re managing flea markets. Our “customers” are people selling stuff they no longer need, and they have to pay a fee based on the length of their market stand, while children’s stands are free. This happens while we still have the DM rather than the Euro.

Collector: “All right, that will be forty marks.”

Customer: “What?! I was told it’s ten per meter and that children are free. This should just be thirty marks!”

Collector: “Yes, that is right, and your daughter can sell her toys for free. However, your own market stand is over four metres long, so thirty is not enough.”

Customer: “Fine, here’s your money; this is robbery!” *To the daughter* “Give me ten marks; you have to chip in if you want to sell.”

Collector: “Uh, sorry, but as I said, your daughter’s table is free.”

Customer: “Mind your own d*** business!”

I overhear this at the hotel where I work.

Guest: “Yeah, I think we are going to go to the pizza restaurant tonight. We have not had Spanish food yet this trip.”

Due to an ongoing sickness, I miss more than half of the whole year’s PE classes. While I am obviously excused and not written down for skipping class or anything, my teacher still pulls me aside a few weeks before we get our final marks.

Teacher: “Listen. With the little time you’ve been in class, I can’t properly grade you. The school requires a certain amount of participation in class, and we don’t have homework or exams to get points in PE, either, so right now you’re at about 20%. That’s a failing grade.”

Me: “Uh, okay. Is there any other way I can make up points for missing class?”

Teacher: “I really can’t think of anything sensible. All I can do is give you a topic to write a paper on, and enter it as participation into the system.”

Me: “I can do that; I like writing papers. What topic?”

Teacher: “Uh, volleyball.”

Me: “Just… volleyball?”

Teacher: “Yeah.”

Me: “Like, the history of it? Professional volleyball? What?”

Teacher: “Just volleyball.”

Me: “You mean how to play?”

Teacher: “Yes, sure, let’s do that.”

I wrote a five-page paper about How To Play Volleyball, which meant I basically copy-pasted the rules of volleyball and drew some diagrams of the field and player positions. My teacher loved it and actually used it as a guideline in future classes doing volleyball.

The year after, I missed most of PE again because of my sickness, and I was given yet another topic to do a paper on — basketball this time. Rinse and repeat for my entire high school career. No one at the school ever thought about maybe excusing me from PE entirely, since it was a required class and there was no option for me to have any other class as a replacement.

I ended up graduating with a rather mediocre but acceptable grade in PE, having barely done any sports at all. I kind of feel like the school’s grading system never considered how to actually grade physical classes.