Helping People

I've previously written about how lame it is to help people. I stand by that assessment. However, I'm willing to concede that there are times when the lameness is somewhat mitigated by feelings of usefulness and whatnot.
My tutoring experience got worse before it got better. After all the people who called me and then blew me off, I had a woman call me to set up tutoring for her son, then three-way her son onto the call, then get testy with me when I wasn't available immediately. That was the low point. Meeting with her son, though, actually went well. He was a good guy, seemed to get what we went over, and paid me $20, which would make my high school math teacher spin in her grave if she were, in fact, dead yet.
Since then, things have been better. I've had "regular clients," who have been nice to work with. Two have been college students, one in college algebra and one in Calculus I, and two have been elementary school sisters. (The college algebra girl stiffed me for the last time we met, but she'd overpaid me the previous two times, so I'm not too angry about it.) The guy in Calculus turned out to be graduating in my major with me, too.
Last week the elementary school sisters called me. They had gotten their grades and wanted to let me know. The younger one, who had been much worse off when we started, supposedly went from a D in math before we started together, to an A now.
It was nice to have children express appreciation for my efforts, since my kids would claw me limb from limb for not acquiescing to their dessert demands if we didn't keep their nails cut short. Appreciation is nice, but the money I make from tutoring is nicer. There are times that I have $100 on me, and coming from someone who has spent his entire married life having his wife confiscate all his cash, that's a huge deal. But the money can't say thank you, nor win me a misspelled NAACP certificate the way tutoring has.
Now if I just had the hubris to really try this life coach thing, I'd be rolling in the appreciation (meaning money).