I was unemployed for a while (due to living in a small town and there not being many jobs; most were part-time or you needed a qualification for), so I thought about learning to become a computer repairman/technician. I had been dabbling with PCs for years and knew quite a lot, so I mentioned this to the Job Centre.

I was eventually sent on a “computer course” which I thought would be a start to a new career.

Hooo boy was I wrong.

Red flags started popping up when I went in, and the class was full of middle-aged people and seniors (this was back in the late 90s/early 2000s). Then the teacher came in and started the lesson.

Teacher: “Okay, class, for this first lesson we will be learning how to properly use a mouse—” *He points to a picture of a mouse.* “—and Keyboard—” *Does the same with a picture of a keyboard.*

Me: *Surprised Pikachu face.*

After about half an hour of him telling us how to move the mouse and use the buttons, I walk up to the teacher.

Me: “Excuse me, what is the end goal of this class?”

Teacher: “So you can send emails and write letters using your PC.”

Me: “Uh huh, I know all that already. In fact, I build PCs, repair them, and install and troubleshoot peripherals in my spare time.”

Teacher: “So why the h*** are you in this class?”

Me: “I dunno, ask the job centre; according to them this is supposed to be a PC repair qualification course.”

He sent me home, and my advisor got a b*llocking for wasting his time.

I work in a school. On the school’s website, there is a page with a list of all the teachers. Some years ago, that page also listed which courses they teach. One such subject is Spanish. In Norwegian, the word for Spanish is “Spansk”. This is important to the story.

I was browsing our website one day when I noticed a typo. I went to the IT people and told them that they should correct it post-haste.

IT Guy: “Yeah, I can take a look at that later.”

Me: “I think you should look at it now.”

IT Guy: “Why, is it urgent?”

Me: “Yes.”

Intrigued, the guy opened the web page and took a look.

IT Guy: “Sorry, I’m not seeing anything.”

Me: “Look at the language teachers.”

IT Guy: “Yeah?”

Me: “See the teacher who is listed here?”

I point to the Spanish teacher.

IT Guy: “Yeah? Teaching Spanish.” 

Me: “Is she?”

IT Guy: “Yeah, it says she’s teaching Spanish.” 

Me: “No, that’s not what it says. Read it again.”

IT Guy: “…oh.”

Me: “Yeah.”

IT Guy: “Yeah, I guess I should fix that typo right away.”

Me: “Yep, I don’t think we’re that kind of school…”

IT Guy: “Thanks for the heads up.”

Me: “No problem.”

The misspelled word was “spansk”. There was an ‘S’ missing. And it wasn’t the first one.

Many years ago, when my now-adult niece was about five, my sister took a job as a fundraiser for a wildlife agency in Idaho. This required her to attend hunting, fishing, and camping expos all over the West, where she would run booths and give presentations on why people should donate to her organization. She was very good at it.

Her success did not translate well on the home front. One day my niece’s teacher asked her to tell the class what her mommy did for a living.

Niece: “She goes to fancy hotels and gets men to give her money!”

Way back in the mid-1980s, when I was but a wee thing in third or fourth grade, I was being bullied pretty relentlessly by one of the larger and older boys in my neighborhood. The bullying primarily took place at our suburban school bus stop before and after school, which was more or less a lawless wasteland of no adult supervision whatsoever. 

This was waaay before the current practice of parents walking/driving their kids to the bus stop and waiting with them until they boarded the bus. And anyway, my parents left for work before I had to leave for the bus, so no solace for me there.

The incident that was the tipping point was when my bully decided that the fun thing to do one morning was scoop up a bunch of dog crap on the end of a stick and wipe it all over my new coat. Up until this point, my parents had been kind of half-heartedly reporting the bullying to the school in a “this is a problem” sort of way and hoping it would resolve itself. But for whatever reason, this time my parents flipped out and demanded a meeting with the teacher and principal. Only to be rather primly informed that since the bullying wasn’t taking place on school grounds or during school hours, there was nothing they could (would) do. 

So, my parents did what any reasonable parents did at that time; they signed me up for Karate classes so I could learn self-defense.

A couple of months after that, I ended up kicking the crap out of my bully when he tried to play keep-away with my backpack at the bus stop. To the best of my recollection, I kicked him really hard in the junk and then punched him in the face a couple of times when he went down. He ended up with a split lip and a bloody nose. 

I’ll never forget the meeting with the teacher and the principal that followed. My Dad quietly sat with his hands folded and listened to the teacher and principal rage on about how they were going to punish me; I was going to be suspended, this would go on my permanent record, etc.

Then when they were done, he quietly leaned forward…

Dad: “It is my understanding that you have no jurisdiction over anything that happens off school grounds and outside of school hours, and can’t punish students for anything they do that isn’t at school. Isn’t that correct? That’s certainly what you told me when I complained about how [My Name] was being bullied by [Bully’s Name] at the bus stop.”

Teacher/Principal: *Dead silence.*

Dad: “Yeah, I think that we’re done here. I certainly hope this is the last I hear about this.”

He took me to Baskin-Robbins for ice cream and told me that while he never ever, ever, ever wanted to hear about me starting a fight, he was proud of the way that I had finished that one.

We’re in tenth grade (fifteen to sixteen years old).

Female Classmate: “Mr. [Teacher’s Name], I need the hall pass.”

Teacher: “Why?”

Female Classmate: “For the restroom.”

Teacher: “Class is over in five minutes. You can hold it.”

Female Classmate: “I really can’t.”

Teacher: “You’re not a little girl anymore. You can hold it for five minutes.”

Female Classmate: “You’re right. I’m not a little girl. I’m a young woman, and my tampon is full.”

The look on his face! He stopped questioning why the girls needed to go to the restroom after that.