TA.

As a teaching TA, I try to treat people the way I want to be treated. With discretion (I'm definitely no doormat), I let my students take late quizzes (and once, even a late test!), go out of my way to accommodate them when they are absent, and try to treat every question someone asks with respect, even if I've already explained the diagnostic features of the Onchocerca volvulus cross-section four times. I try to be approachable, smiley, and real, and not distant, snobby, and conceited (like some of the TAs I have). Pretention gets no one anywhere. I'm a student, you're a student; let's work together.

I flood the margins of the term paper drafts I edit with red scribbles because I want every one of my students to know that I read every word, no matter how boring or badly stylized, and I want their papers to be the best they can be. Maybe that's cliche, but it's true.
Today one of my girls admitted that she lost her draft--the copy I had written all over so extensively. The final copy is due Friday, and my students were supposed to be putting their previous drafts into final form for the past month. Embarrassed, she asked if I possibly had time to rewrite all the revisions I'd made before tomorrow morning.
I didn't have time. But I felt good that she felt comfortable enough with me to ask.
I did it anyway.

Sometimes I feel like a good TA.
:-)