to want to take nanny to court for £40.25

[VentiPeppermintMochaWithWhip]

Long story short:
Nanny of 9 months announces she is 6 weeks up the duff to the guy she broke up with late last year... (it's one of those "If I get pregnant, he'll stay with me" babies that I think she is now regretting)

Got a text yesterday in the middle of a uni lecture from said nanny:
Cnt get kids 2day I quit

I immediately leave uni to collect kids from school, ask her what is going on, she says it's confidential.

Then last night, I tot everything up for her last wages and discover that she's taken too much holiday by three weeks this year. After deducting this month's wages, etc, it turns out she owes us £40.25

I inform her of this yesterday. She then has the gonads to text me this morning asking if she can work her four weeks notice?!?!

I very politely but sternly tell her no, that she quit, that she is no longer welcome here, and requested that she return her key today whilst I'm at uni.

I spoke to a friend who is also a solicitor last night, who has agreed to send a letter requesting the money.

I KNOW it's only £40 and it's not the money I'm pissed off about... it's the fact that she flipping TEXT an hour before the kids were due to be collected, that she gave no notice, never came to speak to me about any of her issues, nothing!!

AIBU?

[StayingDavidTennantsGirl]

Maybe up til this point the nanny's care of the children had been good - but if someone just sent me a text to say she quit and wasn't bothering to pick my children up, in fairness I would probably change my opinion of her!! It is hardly commendable behaviour, is it.

[Honeybee79]

Let it go.

I say that as a lawyer.

Really not worth it.

[AgentZigzag]

If it is a wind up chippingin, I can't wait to see how they'll weave the nanny who doesn't work for them into their next thread.

I'll guess at the OP deciding to take her to court, the nanny will get upset and go round to the OPs house and shout obscenities through the letterbox.

Maybe getting back with the good-for-nowt boyfriend who will encourage the nanny to take 'texting etiquette' evening courses down the local community centre?

[UnlikelyAmazonian]

I don't think primary schools ever leave children aged 5 and 6, outside the school gates alone.

Ds's school is very vigilant about this and has numerous emergency phone numbers for other people to ring if I were to not arrive to collect him.

OP, given that thread you started about 'nanny' (not even a personal pronoun) taking a shower, I would think it possible she faked her 'up-the-duff'-ness just to get a quick exit from your engaging and pleasant household.

I can BACS you £40.25 if you like. HTH.

[WassaAxolotlEgg]

I think you need to let it go. If £40 is a significant sum for you at the moment, I don't see how you can afford court proceedings, and if £40 is small enough that you can sue over it for principle's sake, you could easily be portrayed as a bully in court.

I completely understand why you must be furious with her: she let your children down and treated you all abominably. However, the minimal details you provide about her, in a post putting forth your point of view, make me feel sorry for her. Think how much sympathy her circumstances could get if she (or a solicitor acting for her) was speaking in court..


Young woman who got into bad relationship, stress of bad relationship and unplanned pregnancy, acted totally out of character due to [event], etc. Court case has been terribly stressful, blah, blah.

[mathanxiety]

There is more than just this thread then?

[firstsupermum]

take her to the court for £40 because she
do you realy have a time for that??????????
or because you know you have more money than her to do that???????

[ohnoshedittant]

Is this the shower nanny? That was a good thread.

[StayingDavidTennantsGirl]

You're right, UA - no school would leave children that age outside the school gates, but I think it would be pretty upsetting for the children if all their classmates had been picked up, and no-one had arrived for them. They would be safe, but wouldn't know why they had been forgotten, and that would be a rather unpleasant experience.

The nanny risked that happening, because she didn't do all she could to ensure that someone was picking up the children. There's no suggestion from the OP that she followed up her text, to ensure that it had arrived - and frankly, doing this by text is careless behaviour. The OP's phone battery might have died, or she might have been somewhere with no reception or where it had to be switched off, and wouldn't have got the text in time.

As I said earlier, she should have contacted the school to tell them there was a problem with pick up, that she had texted the mother, and that they should contact the mother themselves, if she didn't turn up.

Or, frankly, she should have put the children's welfare ahead of her own feelings and got them from school, handed them over to their mother, and then given in her resignation.

Unless she was in actual physical harm if she went back to the house, there is no good reason why she should not have made sure the children got home safely - but she didn't. I cannot understand anyone justifying such behaviour towards children.

[fallon8]

why did she text you? did you not actaully speak to her? She's probably done more than 40 quids worth of extra's anyway.YABU.

[fallon8]

why did she send a text? Did you not actaully speak to her at all? She's probably done more than 40 quids worth of extra's anyway, give her a break

[redexpat]

I don't think YABU to want everything to be straightened out. I absolutely understand where you are coming from. I'm with Paisley: a letter that threatens a small claims court usually does the trick.

[electra]

I think yabu and very harsh......unless there is a back story of her being consistently unreliable in the past. As her employer I think you should cut her a bit of slack - shit happens to people, they are not robots - I expect her head is all over the place.

But in any case you can't go to court for that amount. Just let it go and write it off.

[masterblaster]

to quote from eastenders "LEAVE IT -SHE'S NOT WORTH IT"

By the way, why should OP manage the nanny's holiday time? Perhaps the OP was planning to allow the nanny to balance the holiday over the year... Perhaps she was being nice?

And to unlikely amazon, who says that schools have a list of people of last resort to call - I would be furious if I paid someone to pick up my kids and, unless there was a really good excuse, they prevailed upon my family or friends to pick them up (hint - I can't make it, by text, an hour beforehand, is not a good enough excuse).

Don't kick the nanny when she's down though, OP. Life is too short.

[blueshoes]

If this is the showering nanny, nanny seems flaky and this just confirms it. I wonder about the quality and reliability of this nanny's care.

£40 is a bargain to be rid of her. I think a quick text from the OP wishing to the nanny all the best is in order and all in good grace. The OP's children have the best attitude in all this - hurrah for the next nanny and not a longer thought to be wasted on the outgoing one.

[mathanxiety]

She gave an hour to the OP, not great but plenty of time to rustle up another arrangement for the school run. She had an emergency of some kind herself after all, which apparently she didn't feel comfortable talking about. Maybe a black eye from the BF? Maybe a fight that she didn't think was anyone else's business? An emergency doctor's visit?

[stillfrazzled]

Thing is, an hour might not have been enough. I have several friends locally, but most of them work. The one SAHM has some family issues which means she can't always pick up the phone.

We don't know the OP's situation. She might have legions of people poised to spring into action, but the fact that she had to leave uni and sort it herself suggests not.

[stillfrazzled]

And we can't assume an emergency or anything else because the nanny refused to say one word about it.

[FlyingStart]

Trust me, you got off easily. £40 is worth it. Get her to put everything she says in writting so she can't take you to court, for example, unfair dismissal. She could make up some story after all. As I said, get her resignation in writting, then point out the terms of the contract between you (you did have a contract with her, right?) and in that letter also point out that she owes you £40.

However, I would not pursue the matter in court. I have pursued someone in court a few years ago, and at the time it cost £60 just to make an application to the courts. I finally accepted an out-of-court settlement but the amount involved was a couple of thousand pounds, not £40!

[claire201]

don't even think about taking her to court! why should tax payers fund something so petty!! just let it go.

[StayingDavidTennantsGirl]

Mathanxiety - the nanny said nothing about an emergency - even when she spoke to the OP later on (to ask if she could work out her notice) so I don't think we can assume an emergency. And she only sent a text to give the OP warning she had to pick the children up and as we all know there is no guarantee that a text will be received. The other phone could be switched off or in a low reception area or have a dead battery. A single text is absolutely NOT enough to ensure that the children were going to be picked up.

The nanny did not follow up to ensure that the OP had received the text. She didn't phone the school or phone the OP - she sent a brief text and apparently washed her hands of the children. How is that acceptable?

She did the bare minimum to let the OP know that she wouldn't be picking the children up - for the children's sake she should have done far more.

[trixymalixy]

An hour wouldn't be enough notice for my DH and depending on the train times might not be enough for me either, plus I don't get good reception at my work so may not have got it.

It's just completely unacceptable and am baffled by those defending her, when there was quite clearly no emergency otherwise she would have said sorry and given en explanation.

[Jaspants]

'What if the OP had been further than an hour away and unable to make the school pick up in time?'

^mathanxiety Fri 13-May-11 14:54:35
How about the OP calling one of her friends and asking them to pick up her brood from school? I have done that many times, and my friends have done the same with me. They have called from dentists' offices and from traffic jams and places where their cars were towed after breakdowns. It's what friends are for.^

Thing is mathanxiety, if the OP has employed someone to collect her DCs from school, she may not have any friends at the school gate who can do it for her. I know when I was working I didn't do school pick up so didn't know anyone who could pick up my children - that is why I paid a childminder to do it for me as I considered it a fairly solid child care arrangement. If the CM had sent me a text to say that they were terminating our arrangment and couldn't pick up I would have been furious and probably come on here to vent.

[StayingDavidTennantsGirl]

If she had phoned the OP and said, 'I'm sorry but I have a medical emergency and won't be able to pick the children up', I'm sure the OP wouldn't be here venting. But she didn't. And I can't see why a medical emergency would make you quit your job in that way at the same time as being something you couldn't tell your employer about. Or if you turn it round the other way, I am fairly sceptical about an 'emergency' that just happens to crop up on the day the nanny decided to quit her job.

I'm afraid that my reading of what happened is that the nanny decided to quit and couldn't be bothered to pick the children up, or to make any real effort towards making sure that the children were picked up by someone else. She just shrugged off her responsibilities with as little care as if she were telling someone she wouldn't be meeting them for a coffee.