Kids and Customers

In a past life I was known to have a short fuse when it came to my work place demeanor. Anybody who shared the floor with me at the video store will know that I took only so much from a customer before showing that person the door in what would usually become a month long catch phrase. I coined such classics as “I’m done with you” or “Baby, I’m fucking hilarious” and though my quips were always malice filled they were generally delivered in a very calm demeanor and I can count on one hand and maybe a foot how many times I raised my voice to a customer. All of these cases were justified in my mind and in most instances were backed up by coworkers. I can recall a drunken man who would frequently stumble in and berate our staff with insults and threats and it amazed me reading repeated offences on this asshole’s account that nobody had done anything but take the abuse. Instantly, with me, this guy knew he was dealing with somebody who raged back just as forcefully and eventually I obtained permission to ban this guy from our location. Another instance dealt with a slew of obscenities launched towards me by a man who may have been channeling the soul of Joe Pesci. He was perturbed by the ludicrous size of his cable bill and demanded to know the reason behind it. When I politely informed him that it was due to the amount of adult films on his account he proceeded to insult me, the establishment and other workers with barbs of pure beauty. I have to admit, when it came to cursing, this guy was a da Vinci. I would make short work of this guy in the middle of his tirade and I equaled his octave (mainly to be heard) and loudly informed him that we’d be calling the police should he not remove himself from the store. He chose to stay, continued to curse and rave, I called the police and the man was escorted outside and never seen again.

These are the joys of working retail. You meet the worst of humanity outside of murderers and rapists. Normally, although this might spark some debate with co-workers, I was fairly calm when it came to angry customers and their verbal abuse. I wouldn’t raise my voice often and though I had a very short acceptance of such behavior I would often simply tell such a person they had to leave. For good or ill, I am a boiling kettle and I am willing to take a lot of heat before I finally boil over. I was surprised to find myself feeling remorseful over my treatment of some of our more notorious customers as well as part-time offenders. I always thought after a confrontation of two things: 1) Well, that’s the one that’s going to get me fired; and 2) Could things have been dealt with better. In going over the situation, for the most part, I feel I did the best I could. When a man, for example, states he is going to throw a piece of cable equipment at you if you don’t reduce his bill that man is dangerous and needs to leave your establishment. On the job I’d defused lots of volatile situations but, in another instances, when somebody says they will “slit your throat” then such a disturbed individual should not be welcome in your establishment. This, after all, was a death threat and could have been pressed with police action instead of a simple store banning. Because of this no-guff attitude of mine (and honestly it wasn’t a NO-guff attitude but more of a Not-so-much-guff attitude) customers who usually problematic disliked me and would pen notes of complaints and choose to not be served by me. This was just peachy with yours truly as I was happy to not serve such people but don’t think I didn’t step in much to their disdain should they try their verbally abusive act on another co-worker. I always maintained justification for my actions. Especially when they came under scrutiny of higher ups. I also maintain that I am a patient person, one willing to tolerate much before retaliating.

And this brings us once again to terror kids for which there are thankfully few in my current teaching block. Yes, here we are again dwelling on such things despite my recent claim that I don’t take work home with me. Maybe I should have said I don’t take work home with me unless I take it to a blog post I mean, one doesn’t really need to try to figure out a good student. Good students are good students. They listen, do their homework and take the most out of your lesson and enjoy their hour. Bad students, however, merit a deeper study. What makes them bad students? Why are they acting up? Why are they violent? Rude? In some regards the simple reply of “kids will be kids” just doesn’t cut the mustard. Some kids are easy to figure out. Students that are in the wrong age group, for example, will become board with a lesson that is overly simple to them and thus they will drift and within this drifting they will become disruptive. They need more to spark their interest in a lesson that is bellow their level. This type of kid will often just distance himself or herself from the group, doodle in their books or engage in chat with other students. The opposite, of course, is a student that really doesn’t understand anything you are trying to teach and they are extremely behind the rest of the group. This could be for a number of reasons, the main being that their learning curve is bent differently then most. Other reasons for this could be that they have missed a number of lessons and are now behind or their parents don’t press them to study which is usually evident in checking homework. These kids tend to be more disruptive then the group that is board with the lesson. The kids that don’t understand will mess around with other kids, are louder, are usually the ones rolling about on the floor, tossing school supplies or snatching things out of your hand. It is almost as though they are subconsciously (or in some instances very consciously) trying to sabotage a lesson they don’t understand so they don’t have to deal with their miscomprehension. I can relate to such kids as I was once one of them back in classes where anything to do with mathematics was involved. I couldn’t grasp things so instead I became a nuisance to fill the void and to impede the progress of others. Other kids are show-offs looking for the attention of other students by any means necessary. I was one of those kids too always wanting to be in the center of things and noticed even if what I was being noticed for were negative aspects of character. Such kids go out of their way to be a nuisance usually making jokes about myself or the lesson or purposely messing up games and objectives to get a reaction out of their teacher and other students. Like those less abusive customers that were usually just using us clerks as an outlet to vent steam, I have a high tolerance for such behavior and will not raise my voice or blow a gasket with these types of students mainly because I can comprehend their behavior and see reasons and roots behind it. Disciplinary tactics usually involve moving a student away from the people they are bothering, making them read class rules in front of the class or having to repeat a few times the lesson element they are mocking. Pro-active techniques I use with this kids are turning them into helpers in distributing materials, explaining the lessons or even having them instruct elements themselves, turning them into the first participants in a game or loudly praising their involvement outside of their disruptions. I will try to work as much as I can in one on one instruction with these kids as I do my students with learning impairments. As I have written of in the past, sometimes this works and I break through with a kid and he becomes a better student because of more nurturing attention and other times, sadly as is mainly the case, the student remains the same and lessons with them are a constant merry-go-round of minor misbehavior and equally minor disciplinary action.

Then there are what I have dubbed the Terror Children. This minority are the ones that rise my ire to boiling levels. I have stated in the past that the only thing (since that first month out where I was a little harder on the kids then I would become) that causes me to really lambaste a student for their behavior are instances of violence or actions that could harm themselves and other students. Terror Children are hard to reason with. You do many things to try to deter their actions and they continue lesson after lesson to make your hour with them hell. These kids don’t want to be there. In most instances this is painfully obvious. They don’t bring their books or anything to write with and do anything they can to ensure that you don’t teach anybody else anything. If they can rally others into emulation of their behavior then all the better. Terror Children are the ones the result in the only thing I have in my arsenal to combat them: a very, VERY loud scolding. I hate going off on kids. Honestly, I really do. Megs has told me that yelling isn’t going to solve anything and honestly I agree to an extent but not doing anything is really not going to solve anything and often times I raise my voice to exemplify the seriousness of the situation. I know the kids don’t understand my English for the most part and I cannot explain to them simply what they are doing is wrong. With angry facial expressions and a harsh tone the message is delivered better then misunderstood explanations. Take two examples from today that I thought merited such a tone. In instance number one a student that has been escalating into quite the problem due to a Terror Child friend of his in class decided he would open one of the classroom windows, we are on the second story, and lean out of it. This happened in a few seconds as I was setting up a game for them. If every my eyes are off the kids they are usually not removed from them for long and in these few seconds this kid was up, to the window and leaning over the edge. I ran over to him, grabbed him, pulled him in and locked the window. I removed him from the others and loudly scolded him telling him how dangerous this was. The other kids laughed as did he. Again, even in loud tones getting your message across is hard when you don’t know the language. I did know one word though. The Japanese word for “dangerous” and I pointed to the window and repeated this word in my harsh tone until the student nodded and said he understood. The other students also understood and had by this time stopped laughing…except for one. Every school I teach at has at least one Terror Child. This was this school’s winner of that accolade. He continued to laugh and point at me and the other student and when I scolded him for this behavior he cursed at me in Japanese (I know more words then the kids think). This kid has been a problem since the start and nothing I have done has helped. He goes beyond minor infractions by being a very violent kid. He has jumped on students, pushed them from behind, threw hard magnets at them, slapped, punched and kicked. He shows no discrimination between sexes either. He bullies the girls just as much as he does the classes only boy, now somebody who has become an ally instead of a punching bag. He talks back when scolded, never brings any books to class and is all around just a bad to the bone kid. Today I’d had enough of his behavior and employed a new tactic I have been thinking of using come my new teaching block if required. After the window incident I thought the class would fall in line. Usually such a reaming of a student’s actions causes the class to behave well for the rest of the lesson. This was indeed the case except for the Terror Child. Incident number two happened only five minutes later when, during a game, he kept attacking the other students on the team against him. This started out as simple pushing or blocking their way but things reached a peak when he ran at another kid and forcefully kicked them in the stomach. This kick was hard enough to send the other boy flying a few inches nearly having him crash head first into a wall. Terror Child was in the process of jumping on the kid he’d just kicked when I stormed over, grabbed him and yanked him off the other kid. He tried to jump on the boy again and I held him back. I didn’t shout at him. This was beyond that and besides it didn’t work before. Instead I kept him apart from the others while I cleaned up the pieces of the game, told the others to sit down and open their books and when Terror Child tried to do the same I stopped him, took out a chair and told him to sit. When he didn’t do it I told him more forcefully and pointed at the chair. He cursed at me again and sat down. There he would remain for about six minutes, twice trying to get off the chair and join the other kids in the middle of a new game and both times he was told to remain exactly where he was. This was the Bad Chair used against me so many times in grade school. Soon Terror Child began to cry. I felt bad, of course. I’m not sadistic. I don’t get any pleasure from punishing a kid into tears. Take my own daughter, for instance. She’s a good kid and I have only had to resort to voice raising on a few occasions. Often I just sit her down and explain to her why she is being punished for something in a calm and very adult manner. I wish I could do to the same for these kids and if there is any grounds to make damn myself for not learning the language it is for this reason. Instead I have to resort to angry faces, curt looks and now the Bad Chair. As the kid sat there sobbing lightly I believed he was realizing what he had done and was coming to terms with the punishment for it. After a few sobs I told him he could rejoin the lesson and wouldn’t you know it Terror Child was an amazing student…for about ten minutes. Then it was more of the same however now I didn’t have to raise my voice…I only had to look at the chair. The threat was evident. Sadly, I don’t think this kid is going to change any time soon and I feel sorry for the next teacher in line although in many instances she should be happy that I curbed some kid’s rotten behavior.

Admittedly I do raise my voice from time to time for minor things. Usually it is to be heard over loud students with a mighty “Hey” and a clap of my hands or if I have told a student once to stop doing something and they don’t the voice raises a bit the second time. There has never been a third time. Despite how shitty I feel after reaming a kid out for something they’ve done I still stand firmly that any time that child’s or another child can be caused harm it is a necessary evil. I was afraid that the other students, those who are not causing problems, would start to be afraid of me if they witnessed me in this angry state but I have not really seen that. The quiet students have stayed withdrawn and shy despite my actions and in many cases kids have warmed to me including some of the ones who have received the Angry Teacher Treatment. Like those customers in that past life, I like to think that the kid’s look back and think “You know, maybe I shouldn’t have done that” but often the behavior is repeated. I’ve been trying to figure out these kids but I’ve come as far as I did trying to figure out a grown man claiming he would throw a remote control at me because I wouldn’t lower his adult movie charges. Yet there is hope for kids. If a guy at the age of 40 is a rage filled prick unleashing obscenities onto an underpaid shop clerk as his veins pulse and bulge it is a good bet he is always going to be this guy. Kids are still young and through their future experiences can change. Maybe a little shouting here and there will cause them to shape up as it has some or maybe it will be something bigger later on down the road. Speaking as a man who once was a bad kid there is the chance that you will not grow to be a bad adult. You know, I think I will even miss the Terror Kids when I leave them next week. I looked upon them as conquests in hopes of turning them around. Ah well, you can’t win them all.