Unwaged au pair

Awful behaviour. By her logic the posher your house the more hours you can ask someone to work for free, because you know the rent is expensive, wages are low and they could never afford to live in such a naice area themselves. Yuk!

Blimey! What piss-takers! How will she even buy a cup of coffee? Pay her phone bill or travel card?

MN job application do you think?

I don't think the original ad is that bad. Not saying it's something I would advertise but I could see how it would be very appealing for some. I would have considered it as a nannying job in my early 20s if I was looking to move to London but didn't have friends or family to move in with. Free board and bills to do a bit of babysitting 2/3 days a week! Then earn an incone for the rest of the week - that would leave me with more disposable incone than I have now!
I'm not a nanny but I've done a lot worse jobs in my time for a lot less money. At the end of the day, if you dont want to do the Job or think it's a bad deal, don't go for it. They're not forcing soneone to take the job and be exploited.

I found myself standing in the shower the other day feeling really quite cross. I couldn't work out why, and had to stop and think to myself, 'why are you cross?'

I realised it was this thread, and it had brought back so many memories of a family I worked for about 25 years ago. They were awful, hideously exploitative, and thought they were doing you a favour by paying you next to nothing (but at least it wasn't nothing, right?). He was one of those patronising types who would chat to you with his arm round you, and the Mum was completely hopeless with the children. They actually put me off having children. Then the Mum's friend would come over and discuss her vaginal discharges in excruciating detail

I was quite shocked at the level of resentment I still felt towards them.

Dudley that's awful your lodger is doing 86 hours a month childcare for £200 so approx £2.30 an hour. And you don't think you are exploiting her.
How about knocking £550 of the rent that would be fair.

The dog au pair adhas been going up for years. No one stays for long. Would love to send my profile and find out more about positiom but I fear I'm not attractive enough.

Are you saying its porn anon??

Sounds like they are looking for a threesome rather than an au pair.

@tread I saw this ad in the beggining of 2013!!! They keep reposting it every few days. They need an "attractive au pair" to help them with their "photo" business. It makes me cringe sooo bad.

Wow tread that is certainly an interesting as. I don't think they have any idea what an au pair is!

What are the duties other than dog walking?? And why the obsession with looks??

Oh my - that ad gives me the creeps

I've been completely sucked into Gumtree ads now. I'm particularly interested in this advert
www.gumtree.com/p/live-in-nanny-jobs/au-pair-wanted-to-live-in-for-a-fun-and-varied-role-in-london/1093015571

Au pair job but 6 dogs and no kids working for a self employed couple in their photo business................. No apparent skills other than looking good required and no duties listed whatsoever

Wow.

I do hope these dreadful people are reading.

As an ex au-pair, sadly I know this sort of thing does happen, and invariably by pretentious wannabes. I had a fantastic family but my friend was in the same kind of set up as this one, she was never paid anything, despite having a so-called contract (we later discovered drawn up by the father's brother) We were daft 19 yr old students, so put it down to experience and moved on, but the appalling thing here, is that many of these girls coming from abroad aren't able to do that.

I wonder how many "super gels" they get through? Do they pay for the CRB and the first aid course, or do the super kiwis have to come ready equipped?

And I bet they'd be the first to be slagging off the exploitative nature of families abroad when Jocasta and Hermione go to do it in a few years' time.

at Eau de Pretension.

Or they wish that they were

The scent of eau de pretension is quite pungent.

Oh and "the usual nursery duties"!? Have we gone back to Edwardian times?

I suspect that "Mum" and "Dad" were brought up in homes that had actual nurseries where they ate "nursery food" with Nanny and were only brought down to see their parents for 30 minutes each evening...

"Mum" and "Dad" talking about themselves in the third person is truly nauseating- the whole undertone is that the unfortunate who takes the position will also be expected to view them as some sort of parent substitutes. And all this "delightful", "wonderful", "super" stuff is bordering on self-parody. A laughable lack of self-awareness.

If it is true that the previous nanny did do an internship then she was very luck indeed- few employers would take interns on anything other than a full-time basis.

Dudley that is completely explorative, your poor lodger is probably desperate to save a bit on rent, but that is no excuse for paying her so poorly. Even if she doesn't feel hard done by, Legally, you aren't allowed to pay her less than min wage and then take off the live - in offset amount.
Unless she is an au pair and then you need to pay her pocket money.

Min wage legislation was brought in to stop vulnerable people being exploited.

The woman who posted the original ad never did get back to me.....

Hmm - c. £2.50 an hour starting to look like less of a good deal...

(Although it depends what you expect of the lodger and the ages of the children - if you just want an adult in the house in case of emergency and she would be there anyway and doesn't really have to do anything, it doesn't look too bad).

Dudley, do you mean you are paying your lodger £200 a month when the nanny got £180 a week for the same hours?

It's a shame we can't give our teenage/young twenty something selves our later knowledge really isn't it? It takes so long to discover how to deal with people so exploitive.

Saintlyjimjams I was fresh off the boat from the other side of the world, quite young and very naive. And terrified of the mother. I'd be the first to turn down the same job these days!

Thanks Merry, I really thought people were going to judge me harshly, because ultimately its a worse deal for our lodger than it is for the nanny in the ad, even though we came to this arrangement as her own request and with no intention to exploit.

And 'after school' implies that you may need the services of a babysitter rather than a nanny unlike the example in the OP.

Dudley, as long as you are honest about tax, you are effectively paying your lodger £10 an hour for childcare. I have no problem with that as long as you are above board about the arrangement and pay tax correctly on your letting income.

The example in the OP is profiteering out of the housing situation, using the high cost of housing as an excuse not pay an au pair or nanny.