Late picking up DD from nursery

[hellomynameissuzy]

I was 10 minutes late picking up my DD from nursery today. The educator that did hand over was not happy at all! She didn’t say a word to me, not even hello or goodbye to my 2 year old DD. She didn’t say anything when I apologised for being late so I couldn’t explain my reason for being late.
The nursery closes at 3pm, I arrived at 3.10pm.
I couldn’t ring ahead and let them know as my phone is broken atm.
AIBU to be upset about the educator being like this towards me? She has only been at this nursery since November. It makes me not want to send her back.

You are human. We've all been in that situation where despite our best intentions we have unavoidably been late.
It's happened to me (once in 23 years of parenting) and I felt lousy for it.
It was like one of those dreams where you are trying to get somewhere and every obstacle imaginable is thrown in your way, and the bloody phone signal is down. Shit happens to us all.

I understand why it "put them out" but if you are a parent who is usually on time then they should have accepted your apology.
Ignoring you achieves nothing and is (in my opinion) unprofessional.
It would have been easier to read you the riot on being late than make a point of ignoring you. There's just no need for that.
I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving my child in their care after that.

You better get your shit together for when school starts - in primary they'd be in afterschool club after 5 mins and it would be £20.

Our (central-ish London) nursery were more tolerant than this. They closed at 6, they assumed the parents were all working until probably 5/5:30 pm and they understood that every once in a while, public transport would royally screw up in evening rush hour and parents would be late (and sometimes stuck underground and uncontactable by phone)

They were only rude to the parents that they clocked were late regularly, or were rude, the rest of the time they weren't. Think you got fined from the third time you were late. 10 mins is not really an excuse for rudeness if the OP hasn't been late before

YABU for being late and they ANBU to feel angry but it’s unprofessional and immature to blank you and your child.
I’m often made late by someone grabbing me for a quick chat at work or sending me 1000 emails. The nature of my work means I don’t get paid for anything outside my billed time. I don’t get pissy about it.

I run a children's activity on a Sat morning. It ends at 10:30am, and we ask parents to be there for 10:30.
We are usually all packed away and ready to go by 10:40am. We get paid until 10:30.
Almost every week, two of us are waiting with children, often until 10:55. When it gets to 10:45 we call the parents. But we still have to wait until the parent arrives obviously.

It's really annoying.

Late fees have been shown to significantly increase lateness!

If a nursery (a business) is relying on its staff being able to to leave on the dot that the parents are due to collect, that's an unrealistic way to staff a business. Persistent lateness is rude, but are there really people who have never been late once in three years?

I've even been late to two job interviews in my life - one because I stopped to help an elderly person who'd fallen and waited until the ambulance came, and once because there was an awful crash and my journey time was increased by an hour.

There's no need for rudeness - just unprofessional. I can understand a member of staff being annoyed if they're not paid for that time, but honestly, the nursery really ought to pay them for the time they have to be there, and factor in that that will usually be getting towards 15 minutes later.

It's unprofessional to ignore you. A less than warm welcome of course but not ignoring. Was jt the first time ?

When my DD's was driving to get dgs from nursery and car a ahead of her had accident and crashed into a van closing road, she had to wait until police arrived and moved cars to hard shoulder before she could get by. She rang them, apologised and explained situation. She was 17 minutes late. 2 other parents also late. She was fined £5 for each minute late. Other late parents fined too. I am surprised you weren't fined.

She was unprofessional and completely in the wrong.

It would be fine for her to tell you being late is not ok, but not talking to you and your child is very rude. I’d be annoyed and would say something about that.

Late fees certainly stopped my one piss take serial late pick up to stop.

Don't know any child care setting who doesn't have them.

I don't think you get to dictate what behaviour you would like see demonstrated when you have blatantly disregarded the behaviours they have asked of you (to collect on time and be contactable).

@toastfiend thanks for the lecture. 🙄🙄🙄

completely irrelevant to my post though.

What a great idea!

Look just the fact that you were ('only 10 mins'!) late AND your phone is fucked is enough to tell me that you are undoubtedly an irresponsible cf who badly needs to grow up

This other child wouldn't have had to wait if you could be bothered to be on time. My son is at the same nursery I work in but I don't want him having to hang around for an extra 10 minutes (or 40 minutes as has happened before) because parents are late.
Where I work we are open until 6 and we get paid until 6. No overtime for late pickup.
We work as a team so everything is done by 6 and we can leave. I like my job doesn't mean I want to work for free.

And she could have been more chatty but she was probably worried about how late you'd be and no one wants to do a handover when they should be on their way home.

Yes she was rude and unprofessional.

But you are coming across as sorrynotsorry. I bet if you had arrived looking genuinely flustered and apologetic and enacted a sincere grovel, that would have somewhat placated a poorly-paid irritable nursery worker.

Your breezy greeting probably wound her up more. You don’t actually sound very sorry at all! Your ‘apology’ has the tone of an amused ‘silly old me’ rather than an ‘eek I am so late, I am so sorry to do this to you’.

I firmly believe that apologising is a skill. And not everyone has it.

"But you are coming across as sorrynotsorry. I bet if you had arrived looking genuinely flustered and apologetic and enacted a sincere grovel, that would have somewhat placated a poorly-paid irritable nursery worker.
Your breezy greeting probably wound her up more. You don’t actually sound very sorry at all! Your ‘apology’ has the tone of an amused ‘silly old me’ rather than an ‘eek I am so late, I am so sorry to do this to you’."

My thoughts, too.

Maybe she'd have been less cross if she'd given OP chance to explain.

Unforgivably, I've not read to the end of the thread yet, but what if OP had been in an accident? Or witnessed one? Or her next door neighbour had collapsed? Or... well anything absolutely unavoidable. For as far as I've read everyone's jumped on her for being late without finding out why, just like the member of staff did.

Do nurseries really run with only one person there when they close at 3? And does eveyone fly out of the door along with the parents that arrive at three? No-one's tidying up or anything?

She should have been more polite and professional. I’ve been kept waiting into my own time (so now unpaid) on many occasions . I’m fuming inside but still manage a smile and a goodbye to the child.

People shouldn't be late simple as that really.

I usually was a few minutes earlier. It was a Friday afternoon they finished at 1 for Staff training and Senco meetings. s there was a lot of Sen children there both. So usually setting off from town at 12.45 with dd was plenty of time.

She wasn't last there they had after school club. So if a parent was late they would put them in with those children so they weren't the only child waiting.

You really need to get your phone fixed. If you know you are going to be late, you need to be able to let them know.

This.
I was once late for picking my middle one up from Reception. I arrived at school and literally ran across the playground (toddler in my arms) and as I reached the door I said "I am so sorry - there was an accident and..." - it helped that my toddler had blood all down her, probably - and the staff were absolutely fine and told me not to worry. I had never been late before (interestingly, the OP hasn't answered when a pp asked her if she had). I had called on the way, too. The main point was I was visibly rushing and genuinely apologetic. That isn't the picture the OP has painted of herself.

The Op walking up and just saying she was sorry she was late is very different. She didn't give an excuse / reason. By P11, she would have told us if she'd rushed.

There's a world of difference between not smiling and completely ignoring. The former is fine; the latter is unprofessional and passive aggressive.

..........and let's remember we only have the OP's version of events here. It is likely to be subjective.

Plus, she says her phone is unusable, which read to me like it wasn't today that she dropped it / trod on it / it got run over by a bus - I inferred from her posts "that's how it is"