Now I see how Ann Landers managed to make a career out this sorta stuff.
Every medical condition has tons of people self-diagnosing with it; Asperger’s is far from the only one. Additionally, Asperger’s is actually a subset inside Autism Spectrum Disorder, so all Asperger’s is Autism but not all Autism is Asperger’s.
And the fact that people commonly self-diagnose Asperger’s doesn’t suddenly mean it’s totally okay to use it as an insult. The insult also impacts officially-diagnosed people, people’s perceptions of Asperger’s, etc. Using mental or neurological disorders as snarky insults or invectives is a shitty thing to do.
And I think it’d be easiest to just add the cost of a tutee’s drink into your charge. That way they’re paying for one but not needing to carry cash with them.
Also, you’d probably be fine at a library. Depending on your age, how could they tell that you’re not either a fellow student, or older sibling or parent helping out a sibling/child?
So you prefer to patronize businesses that tolerate freeloaders.
“mature”. That word doesn’t mean what you think it means.
If they do that, it’s not because they’re being nice to assholes, but because they have decided that’s what their business model is. There are coffee shops that do have posted rules on using the wi-fi without purchasing something, etc. If you’re not at one of them, it’s not a moral failing to do what they’re allowing you to do.
They aren’t freeloaders if the business is okay with them. Some businesses believe that welcoming the occasional non-paying guest is a smart business move. This is particularly true if that policy helps build repeat business. They may even consider it free advertising-- even if the student didn’t buy a drink today, they are probably a little more likely to do so in the future.
Different businesses are different.
I’d buy the kid a coffee (or tea or a coke). They probably need the caffeine if they’re going to focus long enough to learn something.
Come to think of it, I spend a lot bringing cookies or chips ‘n’ salsa for my (college) students that come to class on time.
Order a large coffee and tip well (i.e. no pennies, slugs or buttons). Make sure all the employees notice your generous tip by loudly saying something like, “into the tip jar go ye, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt!”, then deposit the the tip into the jar with a flourish: clink!
At the table, give your student some salty potato chips to make him thirsty.
Libraries’ policies on this are all over the map on this subject. I suggest you call around to different libraries in your area if you haven’t already. Some don’t allow allow for-profit tutoring at all, some allow it in public areas of the library and some restrict it to meeting rooms. The meeting rooms may be available for free (on a first-come-first-served basis) or for a fee that can start as low as a few dollars an hour.
These pretzels are making me thirsty.
Plus one. If you’re going to use a coffee shop for business than make sure all the people at the table order something. A cup of coffee that’s ordered for a student is a small price for using the business’ table space.
Tutoring etiquette: the only proper places are: your office, your house, the student’s house.
Actually I think a public place is better.
Not to me. I can’t concentrate with people around, and I’m not about to distract my student the same way. And neither a student nor educator should be wasting money on coffee and rolls. It’s just not necessary.
How do you know that coffee and rolls are a waste of money? And why are they so specifically for students and educators as opposed to anyone else?
nm
I patronize businesses that offer goods and services that I want. Typically if I’m going to a coffee shop or bar, the drink itself is not my main reason for going there, but the chance to meet people in an outside space. If meeting a friend, one of us buying a drink, and us sitting for an hour is unacceptable to a particular establishment, then most of the time the place is useless to me. On the occasions where I just want a drink and don’t care about the space, I’ll choose the business that doesn’t hassle me when I want to meet a friend out somewhere.
There was a pool hall that a group of my friends went to weekly for about ten years. On a typical night probably half the group ordered drinks, while the other half ordered nothing or just a coke. Probably half the time we rented a pool table, but a lot of times we just took up a pool table ‘space’ without renting one. The owner could have kicked out those nasty freeloaders if he thought like you, but instead was very happy to have a group of people who didn’t cause any trouble and who provided reliable income, even if it was less on a per-night or per-person basis than some hypothetical other group would have brought in.
Could you explain how patronizing businesses that provide goods and services that I want is immature, exactly? Or is this just a random insult like calling someone who buys a drink a ‘freeloader’.
I agree. Tutors from my experience usually meet people at the local public library. If you need a quiet area, you could ask about reserving a meeting room to tutor. I would ask the head librarian if they have quiet space for you to tudor a student at the library. See what they come up with.
I wouldn’t want to tutor someone or be tutored in a coffee shop with strangers and other distractions around. You are giving a private lesson, it should be in a private place.
OK, I didn’t mean to abandon this thread-- I thought it was petering out when I last saw it.
There seems to be a very strong consensus that I shouldn’t ask the student to buy a drink. So, I won’t. Going forward, I’m going to just continue to buy one coffee-shop item if the student also buys one without my prompting, or two if the student does not. That should keep everyone happy, me, the student, and the shop. I don’t see a need to adjust my price to account for this, just like I don’t bother adjusting my price for a bunch of other factors.
A couple of other points:
Actually, this shop sort of does: They have signs up at the counter that you can voluntarily take and put on your table saying “I don’t need the whole table, feel free to sit with me”. And yeah, if I were there by myself, I probably would use one of those signs. Except that I wouldn’t be there by myself, since I can get a cuppa at home.
There are three different public library groups in my area, and I’ve asked all three of them, with the same answer. I probably could get away with it anyway without them knowing, but I will respect their wishes on this.
I’ll go to a student’s house if that’s what they prefer, but most prefer a public place.