to expect child minder not to slam door in dp face? Please help

[lilymolly]

ok here goes

Usually pay cm on friday morn, but dd was excluded cos of conjuncitivitis.
CM rang on friday to ask after dd and I told her I would drop cash off over the weekend, instead of cheque cos obv could not be checked into the bank.

CM under a lot of personal pressure due to family illness, sons car payments and start of menopause, she had 1 day off last week due to stress, and I was really supportive and me and another mindee bought her some flowers and offered to go for a meal and drink to cheer her up, (this was cancelled by the other mindee and was rearranged for a few weeks time)

Anyway, I totally forgot to send money to her this weeekend, and she sent this text message at 4.30pm

"where is dd childcare fees, i take this as at best as forgetfullness at worst disrespect and insentivitness and i trust that you will not need me to look after dd any more"

I sent dp down with cash for her, he tried to apologise for delay, and told her we had had manic weekend, as dog has just had puppies and was at the vets etc... she told him not to talk about his weekend and that her mil was terminally ill, she had a car to pay for and that she would look for someone elses children to look after as we have no rexpect for her!!!!

I swear down, I have the upmost respect for her and have treated her with so much sensativity, ahe is an excellent cm, and dd is due to go to her care on Tuesday and I dont know what to do.

I have sent a message apologising and asking her to contact me directly but she has ignored me.

I am devastated, I have been in tears all night, I am CONVINCED i have done nothing and this is totally out of the blue, and if she is stressed I am willing to let this go, but need some advice as I don not want to loose her and dont want her treating us like this.

Please Help

Thanks

blimey I forget to pay my CM all the time, she's never even mentioned it god she is fantastic.

Once I got my weeks muddled up and was a whole week late paying!

Yes because not being paid money you are owed and NEED is exactly the same as someone not turning up to your birthday party.

Is there a single person here who would tolerate their employer or their DH/DP's employer "forgetting" to pay their wages? Or would everybody kick up an almighty fuss if it happened? People have bills to pay direct debits coming out of accounts etc., etc. If you are on the breadline which it sounds like this CM may be, every penny is probably accounted for and allocated.

yeah but she clearly needed the money to keep ends met,

but lilly - she wouldn't have got cash from the cheque until Wednesday (even if she'd banked it on the Friday) so buy paying her cash at the weekend she actually got her money early.

In some banks cash takes three days to clear too. Crappy system.

but lily - if she's had a cheque it wouldn't have cleared by sunday night anyway

so she was actually better off getting the cash

and a polite reminder would have done as opposed to a text full of attitude and slamming the door in someone's face

Elizabeth...If your boss forgot or failed to pay you by cheque and therefore supplied cash a coupe of days later would you behave like this?

Yes because not being paid money you are owed and NEED is exactly the same as someone not turning up to your birthday party.

Yes but in case you are missing the point she actually technically got paid EARLIER than she would have been if she had got a cheque on Friday. And what relevance does it have that the cash could have taken 3 days she had it in her hand if she needed it for anything straight away and being paid in on MOnday even if it had taken 3 days would only have MAYBE made it a day late as paid on Friday most banks would not class the first banking day until the monday anyway for clearing the system.

On and as for your dripping sarcasm it was just an example of the fact the people do forget things but others tend to handle it more politely than this cm did.

In my dp's job there have been occassions where his wages have not gone in on time in fact one of them was Friday but you know what it didn't take up ranting or neing rude to anyone to have it in the bank by lunchtim.

If they fobbed me off with crappy excuses when they had obviously forgotten all about it I'd probably be looking for another job, dropdeadfred. Particularly if they started making rationalisations about how long it takes a cheque to clear and how I was somehow better off being paid late and making out that I was the one in the wrong for being angry about it.

The thing is good employers don't do this. People get paid on time like clockwork, to avoid any resentment from the employees. Because you can be sure there would be a whole lot of resentment if stuff like this was happening in workplaces all over the country.

Lillymolly she has no right to refuse to take dd. If she is an NCMA registered with OFSTED then you can make a formal complaint. Have you got a formal contract?

On the other hand I agree with Maureenlovemincepies in that a CM does have the right to be paid on time as her direct debits etc will be arranged for certain dates, just as anyones are and how would you feel if you were not paid on time from your work and they just said oh we were so busy we forgot? No doubt pissed off.

I think you should go and see her and have a calm conversation if possible.

To be honest the more I think about this the more bizarre it is.

my CM likes cash - if she would take dd it would be fab as I wouldn't forget.. sometimes I forget to pay her because I've forgotten to go to cash machine or have been busy or what have you. I hope she over looks it because - I am never early dropping off or late picking up, I am always nice to her give her as much notice as possible when my plans change. arrange my holidays around hers. my dd loves her and I hope that me paying her late has no bearing on the relationship that she has - we haev a contract and we are both flexible with it. if one of her children was ill I wouldn't send her a text threatening to no longer use her service. and if I forgot her money this week I wouldn't expect a text saying she would no longer provide it or though quite frankly I'm so crap at rememebering I'd hardly blame her.. what I'd expect is for her to quietly say to me -

"look mascara I can't afford to keep putting up with your late payments please can you ensure that you always pay my by x time on x day"

She got her money early,she really has behaved very inappropriately.

tori - she's already had a conversation with her today and the cm has agreed to keep looking after the child

people are now just worried that this woman is not coping well under immense stress and is perhaps not best placed to be looking after the child

Elizabetth, if my employer forgot to pay me, I wouldn't 'kick up an almighty fuss'. Obviously I wouldn't be happy, and would expect it to be sorted quickly but I'd be professional about it. People make mistakes. They can be rectified without rudeness.

In any case, Lilymolly is not the CM's employer. The CM is self employed; Lilymolly is a client.

Elizabeth...you are obvioulsy entitled to your opinion, but this lady was rude with out reason in the first instance and seems to be desperate to break any semblance of a polite, professional relationship ever since.

A simple..'I hope you haven't forgotten my money I need it ASAP as agreed' would have sufficed and saved herself having to bleat on embarrassingly about money problems and stress whilst simultaneously claiming not to need any friendship or support...

Stable = NO
Polite = NO
Forgiving = NO
Ever likely to look after a child of mine = NO NO NO

Childminders are self employed. They choose whether to take your child, you don't employ them.....

Elizabetth

As cm are often keen to point out they are
self-employed. The parents are not their empoyers. The situation is nearer to the relationship my company has with it's suppliers (who are paid 30-60 days in arrears on invoices)

You cannot argue that you are self-employed and as such are not at the beck and call of parents and yet at the same time expect to be paid with the same level of punctiliousness that an employer would pay an employee.

Your parents are not your employers they are users of your services and as such are required to pay you. They can however sometimes (usually though error rather than design) pay a bit late as my company often does to our suppliers.

When we pay our suppliers late they don't like it (unsurprisingly) and they often complain but they rarely refuse to work for us again in such a histrionic manner unless our payments to them are continually late over a long period of time.

As lLily has said this is the first time she has been late (and in fact the late payment for the weekend was agreed in advance so not technially late) in a year.

One error which she has tried to rectify as soon as she was reminded does not warrent the behaviour of this cm.

Elizabeth if my employer forgot to pay me, I'd politely ask him to sort it out. I wouldn't rant and rave at him and say "right, that's it, I'm walking out. Now"

In fact, once my employer did forget to pay me. Actually he didn't forget, there was a balls up and the payments didn't come through on time. The FD came round and apologised to everyone in each dept and asked us to call our banks explaining the wages would be delayed and ask them to honour DD's and if they didn't, to let him know and he'd cover any costs. Nobody raved at him or walked out. Because nobody was a nutter. (Oh actually, yes they were, but not in that particular way.)

Lilymolly you are obviously not going to listen to any advice except advice that keeps insisting that you're in the wrong, even though you have clearly acknowledged that at the beginning of the incident, before the CM's preposterous over-reaction, you were. It's like you want to be kicked around. Well you're in luck, because there's no shortage of abusive people out there willing to kick you about, and your CM is one of them, out of character or not. If you think someone as abusive and unkind as her, is a good person to look after your DD, I think you're mad, but hey, it's your choice and none of us here will suffer the consequences of it, your DD will. I hope you and she don't regret it.

Blody hell. After everything that's gone on, you STILL want to send yor dd to her.

You are a fool, that's the politest thing I can think of to call you. You have been given so many reason to terminate this agreement with this (currently) lunatic cm.

I really really hope you do not live to regret this decision.

Your main priority sould be to protect your dd from this woman and for some bizarre reason that only you understand you are choosing to expose her to possible danger from a woman who is clearly not in control of anything at the moment.

You are mad. I feel really for your dd, that you are willing to do this to her.

i'm with littlebella i'm actually suprised that this thread is still going!

TBH I don't think the late payment is the issue here- that has been resolved ( to her benefit as she got cash) Lily admiitted her miostake & apologised she's human too!

The real issue is wether or not she is safe with your DD AND the other mindees. OK YOU trust her,Lily, but what about with the other children? What if she flipped at one of them, not your DD, & hit/shook them?

Why not look around for another CM/nursery whilst you are off for Christmas?

I really don't feel your relationship can ever be the same again & that must affect her attitude to your DD. (Just MHO!)

I can see in your posts how anxious you are to remain on good terms with her but still put the welfare of your child first.

I would write a letter something like:

I sincerely apologise that we forgot to pay by cheque on Friday. It was remedied in cash on Sunday, however, we understand that you no longer want IgglePiggle to attend.

I've now made alternative childcare provision for IgglePiggle but would like to thank you for all you have done in looking after her in the past year/however long.

Mrs Piggle

totally agree with bossybritches

Self-employed is about contracts and taxes and National Insurance. To all intents and purposes LilyMolly is an employer, employing this CM to look after her child and paying her weekly. The level of nit-picking that is going on on this thread in order to put this woman in the wrong is quite incredible.

"The FD came round and apologised to everyone in each dept and asked us to call our banks explaining the wages would be delayed and ask them to honour DD's and if they didn't, to let him know and he'd cover any costs."

Yup he accepted full responsiblity and apologised profusely, he didn't self-righteously start to criticise anybody who was annoyed about not being paid or call them nutters. He understood the seriousness of what happened and acted accordingly. That's not what Lily or her DH did.

"Nobody raved at him or walked out. Because nobody was a nutter."

Actually the CM didn't rave at Lily, she spoke forcefully to underline how important it was for her to be paid on Fridays. Lily says herself she exaggerated this to a rant. I think something similar happened with the supposed door-slamming incident.

I hope that nothing awful comes of your decision to leave your dd in the care of such an aggressive and unpredictable woman.
I would definately not send my child back to such an environment as you have made it out to be but perhaps there is more to the story?