This is a repost. The original was posted in /r/AITAH by User AcceptableWar5433. I'm not the original poster.

Status: Most likely not concluded, though it's not inconclusive.

Mood: What even is going on

Original

April 22, 2024

I 24M teach boxing in my spare time, and one day a week, I teach it to kids.

There's a mom who i'm starting to feel like is taking advantage of these classes.

She's increasingly late with picking up her kid after the session.

To give some context, this is a rich woman. It's not that she's out working a job. She is a stay at home parent. No other kids. She told me all this because another thing she loves to do is have really long conversations with me on top of already being late.

She's been late most of March (3 classes). I talked to her about it at the end of the month and she apologized and said it won't happen again. It did. x2 now. So I started timing her.

The second week of April (no class the first week), she arrived 45 minutes late. Then spent maybe 20 minutes talking to me. The other day, I timed her again. She got there around the 1 hour mark. I made a point to show her my timer and I gave her a warning that I will remove her kid from my class. She still tried to continue argue at which point I raised the timer and turned it on again. She said I was being 'unjustifiably rude' (exact words).

I explained (politely) that I have other obligations and her consistent lateness throws my schedule off.

She got all furious and stomped to the driver's side of her car. Her kid rolled down his window to say thank you and 'bye' to me. I told him bye and added 'tell your mom to stop being late'.

She reported our conversation to my boss saying that I told her kid he will get kicked out of the program. I didn't say that. My boss still gave me a lecture about how I don't have that power and can't make the statements I did. He went over professionalism and how i'm being too hard on this mom who could have other circumstances going on.

I do have a bit of a cold vibe and I'm working on that.

But i'm not getting paid for the hour after this class that I spend hanging out with her kid.

The kid's great.. but I have things to do.

For people who work with kids, what's the etiquette here? do I give parents grace?

Comments by OOP:

Unfortunately, I don't think my boss has any policy around it judging from the way our conversation went. If this continues to be an issue, I'm going to push for compensation since his approach currently has me taking responsibility for it. I'll send an email to him about clarifying so I have some kind of a written response.

There is no front desk. I didn't want to immediately escalate to CPS and cops before making some attempts with the mom. The (lack of?) policy is definitely an issue.. that I am now going to push to address/seek further info about.

Update

May 2, 2024, 10 days later

I appreciate the advice I got on the post I made. I learned a lot from you.

A little bit of background on me. This is my first time working a job that involves kids. My actual profession is unrelated to boxing. This was mostly something I picked up spontaneously, because I saw the merit in it and I wanted to do my part to help. The program itself is very new and disorganized. Due to differences of opinion about how its run, I doubt I will stay with it.

Here's the update:

I took various notes from the people who gave me tips here. I wrote a detailed email to my boss and cc'd other people who run this program, including co-instructors. I did this for transparency, accountability, and to put pressure on my boss to provide a policy around the issue instead of him dealing with us all individually / case by case.

My boss didn't respond to the email, instead he called me in to see him. I kind of had a feeling though.

He asked me why I sent the email cc'ing everyone and was clearly not happy about my approach. He kept trying to minimize the situation, and make me feel that I am in the wrong. He told me that I'm being greedy. That my attitude about one parent being late is exaggerated and I'm looking for problems. I should essentially just wait around after-hours if I need to sometimes (unpaid) because it's a program for kids, and I should do it with some heart. "Do it for the kids". I had to turn my face to hide the fact that I wanted to laugh in that moment. Having proper policy in place not only protects the staff, it protects the kids, not to mention his fucking business. After I made my perspective a little more clear (in a mostly professional manner).. he came around a little.

Unfortunately, he flat out told me he will not back-pay me for the time that I've logged waiting for this mom, but he will implement a late policy moving forward. He's followed through on that. He tried to throw in other incentives for me. I didn't accept them.

That mom wasn't late this week. She did try to catch my eye when she picked her son up and I ignored her. She ended up getting out of her car and asked me if I saw her waving. I kept ignoring her. She wore me down because she kept following me around while I locked up. I informed her why she's getting the silent treatment. She apologized and also tried to write me a check on the spot. I didn't take the money. I told her... honestly, I might quit instead.

I am not sure about it though. I am on the fence about just letting this go and playing it by ear class to class. Maybe the program will get smoother with time. It's not that much money anyway...

I haven't proof-read this lol but it looks longer than I wanted it to be. I'm sorry.

Comment by OOP:

She's attractive but every time she opens her mouth I have to do a mindfulness exercise in my head

Update 2

January 22, 2025, 9 months later

Hey so it's been a long time. I deleted the original posts off my page hoping I would stop getting messages about it. But now I have this update. Is it allowed? I don't remember the etiquette here.

I found that my post is still on Reddit. Someone DM'd it to me. Catch up here.

The short of it is you guys were right, this woman had a crush on me or some kind of interest in the least.. and I was too angry at her / the situation to notice. We're seeing each other now. I won't get your hopes up because it's probably just temporary.

Longer story: Towards the end of last year she approached me. She said she was separating from her husband and hinted that the marriage was abusive. She said her reason for getting in touch with me was to take me up on my offer about teaching her how to box. I told her I was only offering (back then) so I could make her suffer.

The thing is, I don't think joining a combat sport immediately as a means to process abuse is always the best form of action. I get why it's empowering but if you're not doing therapy or something alongside it.. it might frame things for you in an unhealthy way. So I think you need both. That's just my personal opinion. I felt ill-equipped to be the starting point of her healing or whatever, even though she was reaching out to me so sincerely.

So I redirected her to someone else.

She started going to those classes I connected her with and occasionally texted me about them. Straightforward texts, questions, asking me my opinion etc. We'd have short exchanges, a few texts back and forth with no pattern and a lot of gaps in between.

About a week ago, I ran into her in person and she convinced me to have coffee with her and..

I don't know how to explain it. There is some kind of intensity between us and we decided to see where it leads.

It's not serious.

Given how many people thought something was there and how oblivious I was to it... I felt this might be worth sharing.

I didn't know her age back then but I found out she's 32. I'm 25. (I know).

Comments by OOP:

I can't argue about me being a fool but I disagree about it being unprofessional.

To clarify: I don't teach the kid, I dropped that mess of a class early last year, and I don't teach her either. I declined her offer when she first reached out to me and redirected her to someone else who I have no affiliation with.

I get it. But I'm not trying to be in a relationship and that's clear between us.

I'm not the original poster.