A $20 Proposal

My last session of the day was filled with anxiety and plain old hyper-ness. For starters, my session before the last one went over about 5 minutes, and I rushed out to grab my next tutee, whom I will refer to as X. He was sprawled all over the waiting area like many tutees and the collection of all his possessions was like watching a juggling act. Turns out, that 5 minutes was excruciating for him and he almost left..part of me wishes that he had simply done so. X pushed the laptop towards me, thought thankfully not all the way in front of me, so at least he had that going for him. The assignment was unclear, he just directed me to sections of this large word doc at random; I am left with a pretty unclear vision of what he was even doing, but supposedly I really helped since that was a phrase that came out of his mouth every five minutes or so. I got a slightly creepy vibe from him from he very start, but on top of that, he was in a super hurry and was literally bouncing around, leaving me to feel like all I wanted to do was get him out of there. Unfortunately, it was also one of those instances where even though time is up, he just kept having one more question or one little section he wanted me to read. Why am I always a sucker for that "one more little thing"?

But the absolute best part of it all, after I finally answered all the little questions and could start packing up my own stuff, I was offered $20 to meet him in the library to go back over the whole thing with him later on. Hmmmm, let me think about that one. I said no if only because I couldn't handle anymore of his rush, rush, rush attitude. Though, after an hour has passed I do feel like I had a missed opportunity to take the money and reinvest it in some Indian food at the emporium for dinner, with enough left over to go get my eyebrows waxed.

In all seriousness, this offer did bring to mind all the times I've heard tutors talk about giving out their personal email addresses to tutees for further help and I can't help but wonder what types of extra burdens (maybe not so much burden, but ...) we place on ourselves because we feel connected to our tutees and really have this spirit of helpfulness. While it was easy to say no to X because I really just wanted to get away, those tutees who become a part of our community by coming in regularly are much harder to say no to.