I had a client once who came in asking about negative and affirmative commands. This is something I have never done. I don’t know how it happened that my review of elementary Spanish class skipped over it, but when he asked about it, I drew a complete blank. Even looking at his notes did not ring a bell. I was embarrassed but not defeated. I was completely honest about my inexperience and I gave him a choice between trying to reschedule with another tutor or trying to figure it out together. He chose the latter and so we went to the book. After looking over the charts offered there for about 10 minutes we seemed to have it. We had success with some of the exercises and he left looking uncertain but still better than when he came in.
On another occasion I had a client who was repeatedly forgetting about appointments. I would call 15 minutes into our scheduled time to remind him and sometimes he would show up, but sometimes he wouldn’t. After the fourth time this happened I called and said that I could not be his tutor anymore. He had been warned the previous two times and since he obviously did not value our time together I wanted to leave the slot open for other students who needed help.
