The Tutoring Job from The Strange Life of Jimfre Bacal
A few years ago I was feeling feisty and walked into a high school chosen at random and asked the principal if I could have the name of one student who was withdrawn, but who had shown some mathematical ability. I didn't know it at the time but I was looking for someone like myself. This was a tremendous mistake as I was to find out. What I wanted to do, I explained to the principal, was to try an experiment. I told the principal that I wanted to prove that I could take a 12 year old kid and after 2 years of tutoring him, he would be able to find employment as a computer programmer, and thus support his parents. Yes! Well the principal at that school gave me the name of a parent. His first name is Harry. His son is named Joey. The combined income of Harry and his wife was between $10000-$12000/year. I loved the parents. They were extremely kind, and wanted to do everything in their power to help their son. Well it worked. After one and a half years Joey began work. I made sure that the company didn't take advantage of him and after 6 months he was earning $35,000/year, about triple the combined income of his parents. Well, I left the city and when I returned a year later I received a call from Joey's father, Harry.
"We're having a bit of a problem with Joey, do you mind coming over?" Sure I said.
"Okay", he continued, "come for supper this friday and you will see for yourself what has happened." I showed up friday and got the shock of my life. His parents were sitting at the dinner table wearing the old fashioned dunce caps that cruel teachers used to make slow students wear. Joey had not only picked up my ability to problem solve computer puzzles, he had unfortunately introjected some of my nasty personality traits: stubborn, arrogant, totally defiant of authority. The word 'compromise' was not in his vocabulary. He was running the household and making his parents bow down to his every whim. He had thrown out all of the silverware and made his parents eat with plastic spoons. For the last year the household diet consisted entirely of McDonalds burgers, french fries, pop. No vegetables nor fruit were allowed in the house. His mother had ballooned from a svelte 114 pounds to 172. Harry looked terrible. His complexion was pasty white, sallow, like he had spent the last year confined to an 8 by 10 jail cell. Joey showed no visible ill effects. He could have probably eaten the wallpaper and continued on merrily. Harry was still full of love for his son and had accepted his sons rule. "If you don't like the way I am doing things", Joey said to his parents, "you can leave. I pay the rent now and you will do what I say!" My god, I had created a monster, totally devoid of human consideration. Harry took me out for coffee and proceeded to explain.
"I don't mind the plastic cutlery", he said. "I don't mind that my wife is almost 60 pounds overweight. I don't even mind being told what tv show we can watch, and all the rest of it. But Jimfre", he says to me, "Joey has just reached puberty and is starting to notice girls. I am afraid of what will happen next." Visions of extreme 'Animal House' scenes flashed through my mind. I felt lousy. I was responsible for all of this. I should never have started with Joey. What was I to do? It was all my fault. Instead of making their parents life easier, and giving Joey a head start in life, I had made his parent's life a living hell. They couldn't talk about it to anybody. They were so embarrassed. Joey had become a human monster. Well let me tell you, the next 6 months were the most difficult period of my life (up to now). Luckily Joey still listened to me and I was able to use the 'paranormal' hook to capture his interest. Finally after about 7 months the household started to revert to some semblance of normalcy, with the usual parent/child relationship. Joey learned to respect the rights of others, and I vowed never to interfere with anybody's life again.
