Fridays are almost always my most frustrating day to work; mainly because most of the sessions I have on Friday tend to be online sessions where something goes wrong whether it's someone who didn't check the book twice on what's an online tutoring and what's not or Google Hangouts decides to screw up.
Today was especially annoying since I was not only the one available staff tutor around but I was the only one who's trained in online tutoring. That's another thing, there needs to be more people who are able to online tutor too! On Fridays, it's only me and one other staff tutor who's able to make those appointments. Having more people who are also online tutors can really help.
The writer I was scheduled to work with was quite stubborn. When I told him our session was over, he kept persisting that I'd give another 15 minutes of my time. I ain't getting paid enough for that (just kidding, I love my job), so I had to remind him about our 50-minute policy and that I indeed had other obligations to attend to.
I could tell from his voice that he was angered by this fact, claiming that he deserves those extra 15 minutes because of a screw up on our part. I agreed that we did, in fact, screwed up because I was not aware that this was going to be an online session since it didn't say so in the book as well as the name of the writer I was going to work with but that doesn't change the rules. If I had to give him more time, then it wouldn't be fair to those who didn't get the same treatment and I know I sound like a broken record at this point but I wish writers would understand that there's only so much I can do in the amount of time we have together!
Finally he agrees to reschedule at another time because, as I've said earlier, there aren't a lot of tutors who are able to tutor online on Fridays besides two including myself.
tl;dr Scheduling online appointments and the lack of online tutors is still a gripe that needs to be worked on.
Thanks for voicing your frustration on this front, Karishma. I agree with you. I am planning to have some material on the webpage for spring that helps make things clear about the length of time that tutors are available for online tutoring. However, I also think we need to give students an option to have a 90 minute appointment online. We are all still getting used to the online tutoring system. I am sure we'll get the kinks ironed out eventually. Hang in there.
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