to wonder what the hell she was thinking?

[FreckledLeopard]

New au pair started yesterday. Her English is ok.

I had a pair of chairs listed on freebies section of Gumtree and had someone coming this morning to get them. I explained this to the au pair and told her the woman would come in the morning and get chairs (while I was at work).

I now find out that au pair gave chairs AND a box of old family photos away (box was on top of chair). I'm freaking out. The reason I have a room of stuff was that I'd cleared out my parents' old house. Photos, letters, diaries, going back 60+ years are there. And the au pair has given them to a stranger.

I spoke to woman who has the box who said I could get it back. But I'm panicking in case she doesn't get in touch or chucks the box away.

I am so cross and upset. if au pair didn't understand then why didn't she clarify????

But previous two au pairs have been brilliant and I guess I was used to having such great people

Wooaaahh there. Nothing she has done suggests she won't be brilliant or a great person. This is your mistake, don't blame her.

Perhaps because you showed her what was in the box, she thought it was related to the fact you were giving them away - it seems a bit odd to have shown her the content otherwise. I have to say, whilst I can understand your frustration and worry, I do think that giving her an extra task that involved dealing with a stranger and doing something outside the normal remit of an au pair on her first day was probably a bit too much. I hope that once you get the box back you can relax a little and work it out with your au pair.

YABVU

so she started her new job yesterday which is looking after your child/children and whatever else she does. bound to be a little nervous, concentrating on getting to know your children, worrying if they would like her, being in a new enviroment and about getting to know you

i think her mind was elsewhere on more important things like her job .....

Big hugs and sympathy going out to your new Au Pair. I say this in all love...you sound like hard work Freckled

Am calming down. And being a bitch. I am not a happy bunny today as have a herniated disc in my back and the painkillers from GP are making me vomit. So have had to leave work, come home to bed and then the box going to other woman has not helped my mood.

I will try and be nice and watch a DVD or something with new au pair and DD this evening.

Thanks all

Yeah, I think the collector thought she was getting an extra freebie. Cheeky of her.

And the au pair has no idea who anyone is in relation to you. The concept of Gumtree might be totally alien to her - for all she understood this might have been a friend coming to borrow a couple of chairs. The intricacies of the transaction were probably completely lost on her.

YABU and you also sound like a PITA.

And I accept I am probably hard work. Ish.

yabvu - your poor aupair - next time be clearer.

Am calming down. And being a bitch. I am not a happy bunny today as have a herniated disc in my back and the painkillers from GP are making me vomit. So have had to leave work, come home to bed and then the box going to other woman has not helped my mood.

You're excused then!

If you have a slipped disc you are excused. What have they given you?

YABU.

If something's very precious, you make sure it's safe.

Hope you weren't too hard on the au pair.

In the future put stuff (or as you're struggling, get someone else to put stuff) that's going that day in the hall/porch rather than in your room of boxes to keep/stuff to bin. It means you don't have strangers coming into your house and minimises the risk of confusion.

Hope your back is sorted soon

You sound like the kind of person who will always moan about their au pair. If there is another side to the story, you should always temper your emotional response because you can be as sure as hell the au pair will be seeing that side and resenting you accordingly. I don't know if you've created an atmosphere by reacting negatively to this. The correct response is to explain what went wrong, take responsibility for your part in this (carelessness and lack of training) and moving forward, explain what's going to be done about it (everybody using their initiative and you taking time to explain a job properly and au pair taking responsibility for clarifying).

If you express anger at this point, you'll lose her confidence. She'll either end up sullen and demotivated, or unhappy and permanently flustered. You will probably blame her for this. Please remember she is somebody's daughter - there is probably a mother somewhere biting her nails and hoping these first few weeks are going well. Act like a professional and treat her well. You messed up and she was silly. Move on.

Co-codamol 30/500. Took last dose last night and still vomiting. Back is killing me and don't want to take more Co-codamol if I keep being sick.

Seeing consultant on Tuesday so hopefully can get MRI/treatment sooner rather than later.

Give her a break, Freckled. She may be great, too. I turned out to be an excellent au pair aeons ago, but I was shy and flustered for the first few days (a baby and a very difficult four year old with significant behaviour problems and a speech defect which made him difficult to understand for ever native speakers of French), as I was barely eighteen and had never left my home country before. What cut me to the heart on the second day was overhearing the mother of the children be very disparaging about me to a friend on the phone. Once I calmed down and got used to things, I was fine, as she acknowledged.

I can understand you are prickly and in pain, and frightened about the loss of your old letters etc, though.

Hmm - do you have private cover? Do you know which disk it is? I'm currently lying on the floor in the Mackenzie position trying to persuade L5/S1 to calm down.

Assuming paracetamol doesn't make you vomit, it must be the codeine disagreeing with you? Have you taken Nurofen Plus successfully?