When I was in high school, my district came up with this “project” that all seniors had to turn in. Basically, you were supposed to get copies of some work you’d done for specific subjects/credits, put it in a binder, and include a couple of paragraphs of your post-high school plans.

It was stupid all around because they expected us to include examples from classes like PE where you don’t ever write anything and stuff like that. (The members of our school board were idiots.) Even the teachers thought it was ridiculous. Most of the teachers would pass you as long as you turned in a binder that had some of the information.

My senior year came up, and it was time to turn in our binders. My friend and I had just dropped off ours on a big stack of binders, and the teacher had been going through his pile. As my friend and I tried to leave, we heard a sound from our teacher’s office.

Teacher: “Oh, come on!”

My friend and I rushed back to see if there was a problem.

Friend: “Mr. [Teacher], are you okay?”

Teacher: “Take a look at this and tell me if you can figure it out.”

He passed us a binder, and we took a look at the front page he’d indicated.

Me: “It says that it belongs to [Classmate].”

Teacher: “Correct. Now take a look at this one.”

Me: “That says it belongs to [Same Classmate]. Oh, no.”

Friend: “They weren’t that stupid, were they?”

Teacher: “They were.”

Again, almost all of the teachers passed you as long as you gave them a binder that had something in it. However, even the most lax teacher wouldn’t pass you if you turned in a binder with someone else’s name on it.

I worked at the help desk for the IT department at my university. It paid well enough for a student, and I got sharply discounted tuition. Plus, my folks let me just stay with them for a pittance of rent since we lived like five minutes away from campus. I could walk to class. It was the perfect set-up!

One semester, I was on shift one afternoon during the first week of school. Students were still getting their dorm rooms set up and connecting their gaming consoles or streaming devices, etc., so this week was typically busier for us at the help desk. We typically had to do a lot of allowing MAC addresses to bypass our NAT restrictions; students could request this by filling out a web form or by walking into the help desk. So, as you can imagine, we had a TON of traffic that first week.

The phone rang.

Me: “Thanks for calling the help desk at [University]. This is [My Name]; how can I help?”

Student: “I need more bandwidth for my Internet connection in my dorm room. The speeds I’m getting are unacceptable, and I can barely connect to the Playstation Network. Please boost my bandwidth to a minimum of 200 Mb down and 40 Mb up.”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir, but I do not have control over that. Our network admin and CIO have set and determined the necessary bandwidth allowances for the dormitories along with the other buildings on campus by priority. We don’t have enough bandwidth in our pipeline to accommodate that for you.”

Student: “Well, I understand that, but you see, my father is [Father], the CEO of [Local Company that donates to this university], and I think we can reach an understanding that I rightly deserve an extended bandwidth increase due to my family’s background. Please stop making excuses and get it done.”

Me: “Once again, I’m sorry, sir. I cannot accommodate that, nor do I control it.”

Student: *In a snooty rich boy tone* “That’s okay. I’ll just go around you and keep escalating until I get what I want. Thanks.” *Click*

The way we were set up was we had a single bandwidth pipeline for the whole school, and it was split two ways: the main campus buildings and the dorms. The former were “priority” for the bandwidth needs, and the dorms came second. So, unfortunately, the dorms got less bandwidth and thus less speed. You just had to learn to time out when the best time to connect online for gaming and streaming was, and that was NOT in the evenings when everyone was back from class. For surfing the web or checking email? It was fine. For gaming and streaming video? Not great. But it was what it was. Instead of streaming, you were better off collecting DVDs or renting them from the (then still open) video store in the area and connecting in a LAN with other dorm-mates if you wanted to game multiplayer (or play solo on local campaign mode).

The CIO, the network admin, and I were on casual terms — the IT department at the school was a tight-knit group — so I later asked them both how that all went down. [Student] escalated all the way up to the CIO, who promptly told him to go pound sand and that he would not be receiving more bandwidth just because he was [Local Company]’s CEO’s son. If he wanted more bandwidth, he’d have to go get his own personal data plan and hotspot to do that. [Student] lost his mind and threatened to get his dad involved. CIO said go ahead and called his bluff.

Nothing ever happened, and as far as I know, [Student] made do or went and got his daddy to buy him a fancy cellular hotspot for his special Internet needs — AFTER his daddy talked to our CIO and got cleared to do so. (Our CIO was a firebrand guy who knew how to handle himself in any situation and knew how to stand up to bullies and read political situations easily.)

Unfortunately for us, [Student] stuck around for a full-ride four years in the dorms, and so, like clockwork at the beginning of each semester (we reset the NAT restriction filters between semester breaks for security reasons, so you had to get your MAC addresses re-submitted every semester as a result), he would call in with the same snooty attitude about other random junk, like, “Please reconnect the cable jack in my room. The Wi-Fi here is crap.” We always drew straws to see who got to deal with him.

I used to go to a private school, and when I was twelve, I had a disabled classmate. (I don’t know exactly what his disability was because I never asked, obviously, but it was a cognitive/learning disorder.) He had his own assistant teacher, would take different tests, sometimes got out of class to do specific activities, and things like that.

Because of that, it was obviously harder for [Classmate] to socialize, even though no one was mean toward him or anything like that, but I was always kind of closest with him, and he really liked me.

One day after school, I was waiting for my mother to pick me up. [Classmate]’s father arrived and stopped to talk to me.

Father: “[Classmate]’s mother is pregnant, and we told [Classmate] he could choose his baby sister’s name. He chose [My Name] because of you!”

I’m eighteen now, and it’s still one of the things I feel most honored about in my life.

I was awakened early one morning by my cat jumping onto my face. In my cat’s defense, I don’t think he expected my face to be there, judging from the frantic scrambling of claws that ensued. I ended up with some long but not deep scratches across my nose and eyebrows. They weren’t bad enough to warrant stitches, but they definitely needed bandaids and antibiotic ointment. (Months later, there are a couple of faint scars you can see if you really look.)

So, I had four bandaids across my nose and forehead that morning when I headed to work. I’m a substitute school bus driver, so I also needed to wear a mask due to the global health crisis. To say I looked strange is an understatement. I saw several coworkers go wide-eyed upon seeing me, but they all quickly looked away, and no one said anything. I got my bus route for the day and got started.

I happened to be assigned a special needs route, which includes not only directions and student names but also any medical or behavioral conditions that a driver might need to know about during the drive (e.g.; “student needs simple, one-step directions” or “student has a seizure disorder”). The last student I was picking up for school that day had a note clarifying that he was non-verbal.

Like my coworkers, several students were noticeably surprised by my appearance. Also like my coworkers, they said nothing about it. But that last stop?

A charming elementary-aged boy scampered off the front porch where he’d been waiting with his mom and eagerly boarded the bus. He saw my bandages and pointed to his own forehead with a look of concern.

Boy: “Ouch?”

I was touched.

Me: “My cat accidentally scratched me. I’ll be okay.”

He nodded, relieved, and I helped him into his seat.

I wasn’t at all offended that no one else had asked how I was; I’m an adult and can advocate for myself if I need to. But I thought it was so sweet of the little boy to not only notice but make sure I was all right. For a non-verbal kid, he sure said a lot!

A teacher once told me:

Teacher: “Since you know it all, why don’t you teach the rest of this lesson?”

I knew ONE — very minor — thing, not the whole lesson material. He had asked a question that he didn’t expect any of us to be able to answer, and he was annoyed that ten-year-old me could answer it.

Of course, when Dad asked how my day went in the car on the way home, I told him.

Have you ever been apologised to by a teacher? Because the next day, I got an apology.

The teacher then ignored my raised hand in answer to every single other question he ever asked, unless mine was the only hand up, for the whole year. Petty b*****d.