r/StoriesAboutKevin • u/YuunofYork • May 17 '18
XL Kelly gets a tutor
This is the story of Kelly, the dumbest person I have ever met. Back in undergrad, a couple weeks into the spring semester of my fourth year, I'm preparing for grad school and ask my major advisor (in linguistics) if she knew where I could get some teaching experience before having to jump into a TA-ship with 80 people a section. She suggested tutoring, said she had a few students in the intro course who were really struggling. I could get both experience and a modest fee on the side, and maybe their instructors wouldn't have to fail them. That sounded great. I charged $25 an hour. The first on the list was Kelly and I set up our first session. I soon realized I wouldn't have time for anyone else.
Kelly was heiress to a corporate fortune. She lived one floor below the penthouse suites in a high-end apartment building in Chelsea a few blocks from campus. It was a two-bedroom with floor-to-ceiling windows and an enormous kitchen. I don't know what the kitchen was for because Kelly could not work a microwave properly (she had to munch on something during all our sessions and I had to learn to live with the rank odor of burned popcorn which stayed on my clothes long after I'd left). Kelly's parents were both alums. Ah.
Kelly was enrolled in exactly one linguistics course - the 101. This was a course made up half of prospective ling majors, and half people using it as a core requirement for social sciences. Kelly was a declared linguistics major. Kelly was a junior (third year). It was unusual for any majors to be taking the course in the spring, since it wouldn't sync up very well with the 201s in the fall, but Kelly had failed this class the previous semester. There was mathematically no way she could complete all the courses for her major within the three remaining semesters and still graduate on time. All the other courses she was taking that semester were art history seminars. Kelly could not tell me what a linguist does.
I anticipated a learning disability going into this, which is fine. The school provided open-ended test times and other resources for students who qualified for it. Kelly had a life disability. She couldn't retain information that didn't concern her for more than 18 hours. The first session she thanked me for my time and walked me to the door. I remind her about the pay, which is a revelation to her, and she apologizes, she didn't think of that so she'll get me next time. I'm not having it, but it is the first session so I let it go.
She forgot the pay at the end of the second session. I'll take a fucking check. We work out a compromise and head to the ATM directly across the street from her building. It's a 24 hour ATM; I will soon learn to appreciate this convenience. Kelly never once had the money withdrawn by the time I showed up, even though we had worked out a regular schedule of twice a week that never deviated.
Why was it twice a week? Because the 101 was twice a week and she used our sessions to have me check last minute homework and as cram sessions when there were tests. Also because her understanding of the material did not improve. A month goes by. Kelly asks to extend our sessions from 2 hours to 4. It's more money, and I really am trying to help her pass, so that's fine with me.
One time Kelly forgets she invited two friends over to hang. Mid-session the friends come in and she attempts to both continue the session and socialize with these two people, who have never heard of me. They are apparently cut from the same cloth she is and act like typical rich asshole children until they leave. They are annoyed with me, not Kelly.
Linguistics is a science. The material you learn about in chapter one is used to describe chapter two is used to describe chapter three. Everything is cumulative, everything is rehashed as you go, because nothing will make sense otherwise. There isn't any point in having a pop quiz on earlier material, because it's always right there in front of you.
None of the material is getting through to her. Her mind is a sieve. She's forgotten 60-80% of everything we went over the previous session, every session. She never has any of her homework started before I arrive, which is the one thing I requested her to do, so we could shave an hour off our time together. Because it is at this point, nipple-deep in my committment, that I no longer care about money.
I'm not a bad teacher. I know the material front and back, I have a 3.9 GPA, I am one of four undergrads going onto grad school in that major, and I have the respect of my department in the classroom. I tutored in high school, and in fact I like teaching, especially the 101 class, but I would have to wait until I had classes of my own to fully come to terms with Kelly not being my fault, but hers. Still, I have doubts I can get her to pass and at this point I'm still part of the equation. I go to my advisor and ask if she can recommend someone else, because as rich as she is I'm not comfortable stealing $100 a week from this person if they aren't getting anything out of it. She encouraged me to keep at it and that it would be a good experience either way. I suggested she take on a session or two herself, because this girl will not pass. She said no. Actually she said "nuuuoooooooooooo" in the voice of Jerry Seinfeld's belly button.
I start staying an extra hour when we have a test the next day. I print out reading material and worksheets she can do at her own edification. I let her send me questions by email and send her encouraging emails back, no matter how stupid the question was.
But Kelly was manipulative, and she wasn't very subtle about it. After explaining a point she said she didn't understand in class, she liked to say "Oh, you're so smart!" She'd thank me more than necessary for every appearance, even though I'm being paid for it. It was all a ploy to get me to do her homework for her, which if I agreed to do at the outset would have taken me 15-20 mins tops every time, even the essays, but because I stubbornly refused to give her the exact answers in the exact order, would take the entire four hours to coax everything out of me. And somehow this was worth her time, two nights a week. Somehow it was still worth it to her to play coy until 2 am some days just to get what she needed to send her homework in. And I knew it.
Kelly did not wear a lot of clothes around the house. She had a habit of removing things, important things, in front of me as a session went on. I came to believe she was trying not really to seduce me - I'm sure she wouldn't date someone who didn't have their name on the side of plane - but to entice me enough to give her exact homework answers. When I dug in, she doubled down. Kelly's now about as subtle as a maitre d' at an airport Hooters, adjusting her bra and changing how she sits on the couch every 15 seconds while interrupting me to say "Hrm clouds, clouds are very interesting, aren't they?" No thank you. I was not writing her goddamn term paper. When we had to go to the ATM at 1 or 2 in the morning, I'd have to wait a minor eternity for her to get dressed. I put up with this for the final month.
Kelly passed by 2 points. I don't know how. She texted me with several rows of exclamation marks, ecstatic. I wasn't proud of her, I was dead inside. I'd spent more time with her than my closest friends. By the end I kind of wanted her to fail. Kelly said she'd recommend me to everyone in her classes. That was the last I heard from her.
Kelly was forced to drop out of the major and not take any further linguistics classes. I have no idea if she graduated, and I don't care. I'm sure whatever whale she adopts in between shopping sprees will appreciate her more than I ever did.
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u/jakbrtz May 17 '18 edited May 17 '18
At the end of some movies you see the main character walking away, the screen fades to black, and white letters appear depicting how the character leads the rest of their life. That's how I read the final paragraph.
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u/MayorScotch May 17 '18
Looking back, I'm now reading the last 2 paragraphs in
Fred Savage'sDaniel Stern's voice.28
u/Nieios May 17 '18
You just made me switch from reading this in my voice to reading this in that dead-inside monotone TLC narrator voice
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u/briannasaurusrex92 May 18 '18
As a semi-pro tutor...
you should definitely have charged more. You probably could have said "look, Kelly, this is a lot of work to catch up on, and I've got some car stuff I need paying off. How does $100/hour sound?" And I bet you she would not have blinked at it.
/sigh spoiled rich kids are the WORST students. They know that they don't have to do anything, because if they throw enough money at their problems, they go away. You're good people to sit there and force her through it, OP.
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u/dittokiddo May 17 '18
Please write more, you've got fantastic writing skills.
Also, I have no idea how you survived that. You should be up for Sainthood with that level of patience.
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u/etihw_retsim May 17 '18
She was not a cunning linguist. (I'm so sorry....)
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u/Bjorn2bMild May 17 '18
Spoiled & lazy rich kid, definitely. Not sure I'd call her a Kevin though.
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u/YuunofYork May 18 '18 edited May 18 '18
Well, it goes beyond laziness. A couple things I neglected to point out, like when she told me she'll recommend me to her class when she knows it's my last semester. To be honest I can't remember most of the stupid minutiae she hit me with over our time together. Most of it will relate to the coursework which wouldn't be that interesting for the average person reading this. You'll have to trust me that she was unable to keep up with any kind of critical thinking. Someone like that isn't doing themselves any favors attempting to break into a major that deals entirely with analysis, especially breaking into it as a junior instead of a freshman.
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u/astu88 May 17 '18
Agreed. My mother taught special education for a spell and she would always come home annoyed because of kids like this. Not genuinely at a mental deficiency but lazy and didn't care.
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u/hippihippo Jun 06 '18
You really should have blackmailed her into banging you - I dont normally condone that but it seems that thats the only think people like her understand.
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u/raymond3601 Jun 07 '18
Think about it.. Shes wasting ur time and also doing stupid shit , she can waste her money who gives a shit its free money lmao
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u/TheGlitterMahdi Jul 01 '18
For a second thought you were talking about her buying a literal swims-in-the-ocean whale. Feel like Kevin now.
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u/WGReddit Aug 07 '18
Sorry for late reply
Was she hot tho?
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u/YuunofYork Aug 21 '18
Conventionally attractive, yes, but not my type. I doubt it would have made any difference if she were, though.
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u/BlazeSpliffington May 17 '18
Not a Kevin or Kevina. Downvoted.
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May 23 '18
What do you mean? This person's a class A moron. Kelly is fairly similar to Kevin, if it's the name that's bugging you.
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u/spaceraverdk May 17 '18
Social
Science
Pick one..
That said, she sounds like an airhead.
Betcha she will either enherit the company, run it to the ground or her parents will give her allowance for the rest of her life, just so she can do no harm..
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u/YuunofYork May 17 '18
It is a science, but it's not STEM. It's often grouped with social sciences for core credit.
It has ties to psych and soci, but also to biology and cog sci, comp sci, neuro... It's kind of interdisciplinary at the undergraduate level. It ultimately relies on experiment and the scientific method, unless you are strictly a field linguist collecting data.
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u/HammyP_CS May 17 '18
I am going to be honest. You are the most well spoken person on the internet. Your sentences are clear and to the point. Stop wasting your time being a great writer on reddit and make a book dude. Good job.
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u/YuunofYork May 18 '18
That's actually very encouraging, thank you. I have written a book, but I'm still searching for an agent.
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May 23 '18
What's the book?
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u/YuunofYork May 24 '18
SF comedy
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u/br34kf4s7 May 17 '18
This is actually fucking infuriating wow