To tell my nanny she can't take days of for her wedding.

[Foreverondiet]

Have had same nanny for several years and each year she does some sort of retreat thing in June, 2 weeks. She is allowed 2 weeks holiday when she chooses and the rest when we choose (usually another 4 weeks worth).

Anyway she tells me she is getting married.... I think nothing of it until cleaner says did you know it was in September this year. I ask the nanny and she said, yes she was thinking she's take some unpaid leave. Try to push how much she needs, she wants another couple of weeks. I suggested maybe she wouldn't do the retreat this year but she was almost in tears and said she couldn't believe I wouldn't give her time of for getting married (she's going back home to eastern Europe to get married).

I asked her why she thought it would be ok, as I don't have enough holiday to cover it because we have already committed to go away with DH's parents. And yes I can take unpaid parental leave but this would be very expensive, and leave my boss being a bit annoyed with me.

The reason we have a nanny is that I have 3 DC, aged 4,7 and 9 months and its the only way I can work (full day nursery/childminder for baby plus after school would cost almost the same and this way she looks after older DC if they are ill or during school holidays).

Her wedding is on a Saturday and she works for me Mon/Tues and Thurs so its not as if she HAS to take time off, and if it really was that important to her why does she not cancel the retreat?

at Fabbychic.

Hope you're not an employer or you owe your employees some serious retrospective leave!!!

Aw FabbyChic you are being TOO gracious why don't you slam the door and tell us all we're a bunch of bitches?

YY mme should have been in childcare. I'm shocked at some of the immature irresponsible comments that have been thrown abobut here. OP planned all her comitments for this year well in advance and will now have to be out of pocket and inconvenienced, which she may have gladly doen if her nanny had behaved responsibly and discussed this with her.

You can't compare being able to take leave whenever you want at a company to nannying. People don't seem to understand the difference between working for a sizeable organisation where one person's unpaid leave will not have the same impact.

What's so unfair about the 50:50 split of holiday, nanny chooses 2 weeks and OP chooses the other 2 weeks?

On the one hand MNers are famous for droning on about your children/you look after them. Don't expect GPs or family to help. Only earlier I read a thread like this. OP's parents however, are expected to step in to the rescue as if they don't have other comitments (and to my understanding they don't live close by) and are accused of being selfish for not doing so

What's done is done though, you've received plenty of good advice here. You have lots of time to make arrangments if you indeed value this nanny as an employee.

Good luck sorting it all out.

Im not going to get into the whole 'you have a nanny therefore are loaded therefore scum' debate . Given you have plenty of notice there must be ways round this . How about she takes one full week unpaid (the first week following her wedding ) ,this gives you time to look around for a childminder to care for the baby and pick up the older ones after school for that week ,then on the second week could you possibly arrange to work wed.thurs.fri ? and she could come back to work to cover those days ? That way you both win ,i think

The nanny wasn't giving her 9 months notice.

The nanny hadn't told her a thing.

It was only luck and a conversation with a third party that the OP knows and can now make alternative arrangements.

Of course she is only human to have a first thought of why the fuck am I the last to know and you have DECIDED not requested/talked/come to a mutually agreeable arrangement about this with me your employer.

Where is the decent caring behaviour from the nanny in that?

I think if we take the wedding out of the equation then your Nanny is being unreasonable. Presumably she normally talks to you about when she wants her holiday, you don't find out from the Cleaner? Why has the Nanny done it differently this time?

Communication is going to be the key to resolving this. There are agencies that send Nannies to cover just such situations and presumably that won't cost you anymore as I think you said your Nanny is happy to take it as unpaid leave?

The reasons you're getting such a rough time are

a) you have a Nanny and a cleaner and therefore will be perceived as upper class and I'm afraid some people just are prejudiced against this (heaven forbid if anyone said anything derogatory about someone stressing over benefits etc)

b) your tone and some of the things you say sound very cold 'she tells me she is getting married.... I think nothing of it' - that's not a very normal reaction, you weren't happy for her?

c) you don't seem to be taking onboard any advise from others.

Maybe next time don't post something like this on AIBU but instead in the Nannies section.

So if I worked for, a bank say, for 20 years. And I decided to get married. And I didn't ask for leave, but I told a colleague that I was going to get married and then my manager found out and asked me about it and I was expecting some unpaid leave for it and she asked me why I couldn't take the holiday time I had already booked off for a holiday instead and I said I wanted both and repeated that I was getting married and wanted the leave - I'd get it, would I? That would be reasonable of me, would it?

I don't understand what is going on here. Is it that anyone who is an employer is in the wrong? is it that for some reason being employed as a nanny is different to other employment? Is it that there is something about a wedding that other people should bend over backwards to accomodate? I don't get it. I am baffled.

What are you getting her as a wedding present?

If i were her id hand in my notice first thing in the morning. How unbelievably cruel of you not to give her time off to get married!

Or talk to your work about carrying some of next years leave forward so you reduce the amount of time you need to take unpaid (maybe you get a week and your dh gets a week brought forward).

Have skim read a bit more and there seems to be a few suggestions of creative ways around this which I think you should think seriously about.

Good nannies are hard to find and I am sure she would ahve no problem walking into another job so unless you want to totally alienate her and risk losing her you are going to have to find a way to accommodate this even though she has been unreasonable in the way she has approached this situation

'You can't compare being able to take leave whenever you want at a company to nannying. People don't seem to understand the difference between working for a sizeable organisation where one person's unpaid leave will not have the same impact' said thebrownstuff

Conversely, a Nanny is a special person, in your home, looking after your children. Bonding with them, soothing them, coaxing them to eat their greens. Surely you value her for that? It's not all work to rule, do the bare minimum begrudgingly. It's not a large company it's personal relationships between OP's family and her nanny FGS. Why not smile and be flexible and kind, and hopefully the nanny will smile and be flexible and kind to the DC?

It doesn't matter now that the nanny didn't tell her or the window cleaner peeped at the cleaner

Now it is known that the nanny is getting hitched in September there is plenty of time for the OP to think of a few solutions and sit down and manage the issue.

Is the OP Polly Filler from Private Eys?
"Polly Filler ? a vapid and self-centred female "lifestyle" columnist, whose irrelevant personal escapades and gossip serve solely to fill column inches. She complains bitterly about the workload of the modern woman whilst passing all parental responsibility on to "the au pair", who always comes from a less-advanced country, is paid a pittance, and fails to understand the workings of some mundane aspect of "lifestyle" life. "

As the nanny works 3 days a week her actual entitlement is 16.8 days paid leave.

If she works on a Good Friday she would get a day in leiu.

Ah...she's an employee not a slave mate! ...even I would expect if I gave my employer 9 months notice we could work something out..you sure the OP isn't put out she wasn't the first to know?...it's not like people get married once a year or some such...seems a bit cold imo..

hecate My last post answers some of your questions, I think.

at Polly Filler.

hecate I believe it's a case of MN inverse snobbery. It's frowned upon to employ help in the home apparently

Hecate - most big banks/financial services institutions will allow employees to take 3 months unpaid leave as well as their usual holiday. One of my colleagues did that recently - to get married

A job is just a job. People are losing and changing jobs left right and centre at the minute. It pays for your real life. That is all. The OP would do well to remember this and may lose a good nanny if she doesn't compromise.

Don't be daft brownstuff. That is not where the vitriol on this thread is coming from, fgs.

anyway, Op has buggered off.

Yeah. Cause you is all bitches wukter

In fact my previous suggestion of you working 4 days a week for 10 weeks while the nanny works an extra day each of those weeks to earn the 2 weeks extra is not correct. She would only need to work (as would you) 4 days a week for 6 weeks as it is only 6 days extra leave she needs...

"is it that for some reason being employed as a nanny is different to other employment?"

Yes, I think that is it, Hec. Especially as the Nanny only gets to choose when she can take her holiday for two weeks, the rest of the time she must fit round her employer.

Also, she is not asking for paid holiday, she wants unpaid leave.

I really do think when you work in a tiny organisation (a family) as opposed to a huge institution, the rules and regs over holidays must be flexible both ways.

There is too much of a sense of outrage and ownership in the op's post for me to take her very seriously anyway, if I am honest.

Not inverse snobbery - I disagree with OP and I have a nanny too! Just a different attitude about it I guess.

OP what was your plan if your nanny got sick? How would you cover that? We try to think of the extra costs as just part of being an employer and don't stress them.