Monday, August 1, 2022

Monday, August 1, 2022

  

  I was in distress over lost clients. I need the stimulation. I fear I will have to compete with tutoring companies that promise trained tutors for $10 an hour. The young woman provided by one of these companies, billed as an Orton Gillingham trained, didn't know how to help adolescent D.  She had some training but lacked experience and adaptability. 

   I had my Saturday Reading &Writing office hours for the Step Up Tutoring program. Two tutors had signed up. I knew before I met them they were new tutors who hadn't met with their students yet. I told them I would forward Julia's email to them with suggestions for the first few sessions. I told them they should return after meeting with their student and if they wanted advice on teaching. We were done in a few minutes. I sent them the email. I was so careful typing their email addresses. They both came back as undeliverable. It happens to me every time I send an email to a stepuptutoring.org address. I sent the information to Julia, asking her to tell me what I did wrong and forward it to the woman.

   I had my second session with second-grade-homeschooled M on my calendar for today. I sent the Zoom link. Her mom texted me to remind me that she told me she couldn't make it on Monday and scheduled it for Tuesday. I make lots of mistakes with this woman. I forgot Friday's session completely. She intimidates me with her impatience. Let's see how it goes.

    The visitors to my public blog are in the single digits now. The other day, it was in the double-digits. I suspected a bot. When the numbers dropped the following day, I was sure it was. I once had two thousand visitors from Israel one day who all disappeared the next.       

     My head felt dense. Something was wrong, but I couldn't figure out what. Was I coming down with something? Could it be an extreme reaction to the way M & W's mother was ghosting me? I wasn't sure what was going on. Was her behavior because I pointed out an error? Was she cool to me because they decided two tutors was one too many for their children and decided to drop me? The latter would be reasonable. I wouldn't disagree. I see the result of my work and know I'm one of the best in the business. Maybe she was avoiding me because she was embarrassed. Who knows?

    On one of my walks, I passed Marina sitting in a white SUV. She announced it was a new car. A customer of hers said they were leaving the island for good in three days; did she want to buy the car? They tried to get $23,000 for it but offered it to her for $12,000. It had four-wheel drive and seated seven. Marina does little driving and lives alone. Nonetheless, it was a great car. Now she had to sell the other two. One had been sitting at the curb for as long as I can remember. The guy who sold it to her didn't bother mentioning it had a bum radiator.