Is it cheeky to ask to be paid over the holidays?

[Dogswimmingcompetition]

I work as a tutor. I work for three different families.
Over the summer holidays, one family like me to keep working, one family don’t have tutoring at all over the summer, but pay me year round. The final family is the family I work with the most, I’ve taught their child for almost three years. For the first year it was year round, last year they went away last minute for summer (I didn’t realise this was the plan) and I wasn’t paid all summer. I get the majority of my income from them and found it a real struggle for a couple of months.
Their child finishes their exams in a couple of weeks and mentioned something about our last lesson being in a couple of weeks (much earlier than I expected) This will leave me without pay for 3 months, which will set me back a lot.
I’m unable to commit to other families who have asked for tutoring as they would want all the time, not just in the holidays.
Would it be cheeky to put this to the father and ask if there’s any way they can pay me over the holidays and explain the situation?
I enjoy working with this family and would rather stay with them if possible, I know that i’m valued there also as the mum has told me in the past that they’re keen to keep me/continue with me.

You said what I suggested, that either he pays a retainer or you won’t hold the spot?

but you then refer to it in another post as a “request”. Which is what I’m getting at. What have you requested? There is no request to make, unless you are requesting payment. Which you shouldn’t be. You should be saying, you have 2 options; which would you like? The ball is in your court, not his. Either he pays, or you get other clients and they lose their spot.

Yes, this was the option I gave. I said due to the lengthy time off, plus the unprecedented early finish, I would need to either have the retainer to guarantee the same slot in September or it may not be available due to me needing to find other students over the summer to supplement my income and this may lead to a long term position
I put in a professional, but nice way as I have built up a relationship over the three years

See what today brings; you might hear something.

And what else have you done to start trying to build an income over the summer? (After all the suggestions you were given)

I do think this is a different way of looking at tutoring than I've ever seen before. Tutoring is effectively a zero hours contract. You provide a service for payment and when that service isn't required you don't get paid. I've never known a tutor have a retainer. Child minder yes. Tutor no. If I was this family I would say fine maybe see you in September.

He hasn’t replied so I guess everyone is right

Sorry to hear that. Protect yourself going forward with a contract. Introduce a contract for this client from September. Once you have contracts in place you will find that clients won't mess you about so much and drop you earlier than planned.

You need to stop hoping for this family to support your business and start making decisions.

How do you want to work it?

They book a term at a time, and need to confirm renewal 4 weeks before the start of the next term and pay the full term on confirmation? That means you know ahead of time who is staying on and have time to fill the spaces. They’d book the term starting in September before the summer holidays begin.
You can then run “summer school tutoring” as an extra.

They book a block of 10 lessons at a time and need to confirm renewal and pay when they have 2 lessons left?

They book week to week and can cancel without warning? Book week to week but need to give 2 weeks warning?

You need to work it out. You can negotiate separate options for people if you want, and if this guy had wanted permanent tutoring then he would need to pay a summer retainer so you don’t fill the gap.

You were given advice on here to try and book in some summer tutoring. Have you started advertising any of that? As I said, there is a high school girl round here who tutors and she runs “summer school” and tutors a few groups once a week during the summer. I think she does a primary group and National 5 (GCSE) groups in her specialty subjects.

Would you message or just leave it, have to say I find it odd/rude to have no reply at all

It would be really rude to message again. The lack of response is the response. Would be very unprofessional to start badgering them for money for nothing at short notice.

I am not badgering them for money! I am trying to sort my work out and him not replying either way is not allowing me to organise things.
This tutoring occupies two days of the week, where I could be giving lessons to a family that won’t leave things in the lurch for almost four months of the year. If no reply by Monday I will respond to another family I had to turn down a few months and hope they still need someone.

*Months ago

You are though. You've asked for an unprecedented retainer at short notice.
By all means tell them "let me know by Monday or I will offer the spot to another family". But they haven't "left you in the lurch" - they've done exactly what they did last year, and had no reason to think anything else was supposed to happen. It is very unprofessional to ask for a retainer at such short notice, with so little time to think about it, and if I were them I'd be looking for a new tutor anyway to be honest.

Please, please don't message him again, you're just going to come across as really desperate and very, very unprofessional. It's up to the family to decide what they want to do, if you badger them they'll lose all respect for you and won't want to have anything to do with you.

You say you're not badgering but that's exactly how it will come across if you contact them again.

Go ahead and make alternative plans, it's not like this family needed you for lessons for the summer so feel free to take on other students.

But is it professional to not tell me when we were ending lessons? For the pupil to tell me, when they felt like it…over a month early? For them not to tell me they wouldn’t need me over the summer until mid September..and only telling me this after me asking many times for clarification?
Or perhaps in past times, when I would arrive at 10 am on a Saturday morning ready for the lesson and no one would answer the door as the mum was asleep from being out the night before and therefore her Dd wasn’t woken up.
There is a pattern of being disorganised and quite disrespectful when I’ve always been flexible (changing my days around when they requested, having them forgetting it was lessons that day and cancelling two hours before.
Yes I definitely need a contract now, but to be honest, if it’s not just that he’s forgotten to reply to me (very disorganised) then I think I may be better devoting my full attention to my other families (who are all great ) and a different family to fill their spot.

They aren't the professional, you are, and they obviously feel like the precedent is for adhoc. As the professional, it was your responsibility to change the precedent if you weren't happy with it after last year.
If you're so unhappy with them as clients, just drop them and find someone else. I'm not sure why you've stuck with them so long if they're so unreliable and have twice now apparently dropped you with no warning. Not sure why you're so keen for a retainer from people like that. You should be glad to be rid. If you can replace them so easily just do so, with a proper contract.

Because the daughter is fantastic and we’ve built a good relationship, the work is interesting, it’s a 4 minute drive from my home, it worked well around my Dd and it paid well.
You’re right though, it’s probably time to move on, it’s just the lack of reply, if he were to say no, that would be fine, at least i’d know

He has said no though, by not replying.

Take this as a lesson and move on. You were unprofessional here, essentially demanding money last minute for the summer or threatening with losing the place. That’s going to leave a bad taste in anyone’s mouth.

It wasn’t like that at all, it wasn’t demanding money and wasn’t unprofessional

Why say he’d get back to me later that day and to let him think. Why not just say they wouldn’t be able to do it, strange, so now what?

You’re right though, it’s probably time to move on, it’s just the lack of reply, if he were to say no, that would be fine, at least i’d know

Take his lack of reply as no and look for new clients.

As @Digdongdoo has said, you're the professional, not the family you're working for. As a professional, it's up to you to have proper terms and conditions in place, that the family is aware of from the very beginning, so that clients don't think that they can treat you however suits them. Your failure to set out terms and conditions initially with this family led to them treating you in the way you've described above.

If you're planning to contact new people after the weekend, then spend the next few days drawing up your terms and conditions to present to new clients. So that everyone is clear how the relationship will work from the beginning.

Ensure you ask for payment in advance to avoid being left out of pocket. Make it clear what date you expect payment by. E.g., if you want clients to pay a month in advance then ask for payment by the end of, say March for example, to cover April's tutoring sessions. Or perhaps you want clients to pay by term. As it's your business you can set the rules. If they want to quit tutoring how much notice is required? What is the cancellation policy if they need to cancel a session? What happens if you need to cancel? What hours are you both agreeing to, rate of pay, etc. Agree what will happen over short holidays such as Easter, Christmas and what the options are for summer holidays. Lots for you to think about. All of this information should be presented to potential clients.

Make sure you work out what you need to earn so that you can save for quiet times, such as summer holidays.

Despite what you may think, lots of posters are trying to help you, so ask if you need help drawing up terms and conditions. Or give an example of your draft contract and posters can point out any weaknesses so that you can avoid being in this uncertain position again.

To be fair if after 3 yrs working together, and you being familiar with the pattern- ie the family leaving for months for holidays- and springing a last minute retainer request when it’s never come up before, I’d see it as a complete piss take and let you go. Speaking from my own experience.

Honestly I think you need to decide whether tutoring is right for you, or you'd be better off with full time teaching position.

You've got to remember that with self employment the risks are yours as well as the gain. Working for 2 days a week for someone without a contract for 3 years is beyond nuts (and if I'm honest, not very professional).

You set the terms, and then it's up to others if they accept that. For what it's worth, I wouldn't pay a tutor for work he or she isn't doing. But this isn't your standard 1 hour a week tutoring arrangement, if it's 2 whole days a week.

If the good money is worth the uncertainty, then that's fine, but you should be using some of that good money to save for the summer months.

You've been given loads of ideas to diversify your tutoring (which you've ignored), you've been asked innumerable times whether you have a contract (only now do you admit you don't), you rely heavily on a single unreliable client, which is a terrible idea, and you seem to think that the clients owe you to keep you afloat over the summer, that they are the ones that owe into be you to be protect. It's nice if they do, but leaving yourself with no contract leaves you very vulnerable. Not realising any of this was an issue is why I'm wondering whether full time teaching would be a safer bet for you.

I wouldn't pay a retainer to keep my slot in these circumstances. It's not like childminding where there's v limited slots. If you take someone else on for Monday evenings, they'll presumably be fine to do it on Thursday evenings. And if every single slot you have is full, they'll find someone else. But fundamentally, it's not the kind of business where you will fill their slot, any more than my hairdresser will fill my slot if I don't pay retainers. She just fits me in next time it's convenient for us both. I pay tutors for both my DC and I'm also freelance myself and get paid for the work I do with no safety net of retainers or any benefits of a regular wage. The DC's tutors are flexible and we're flexible when they need to change arrangements too. It's not complicated and the only issue is that you've relied too much on this one client and forgotten that it's an arrangement that can change at any time. I'd be surprised if he pays you for months when you're not working for them. You'd have to be indispensable for that to make sense.

It sounds like it's only been a day since you messaged OP. On top of what everyone else says about the expectations from a professional who is providing a service, you need to leave him adequate time to reply (or not). If his 'hm, let me have a think and get back to you' message was this morning, you have to accept that any normal person may need to spend a day at work, or wait for their partner to spend a day at work, and then have a conversation about it together before they respond. Expecting a response within the same working day is overly demanding in my opinion. If you haven't heard by middle of next week, then perhaps I'd get back to them and say as you haven't heard, you'll open up your slots for others.

You sound so mixed about how you feel about this work - you like the child and the money, but everything else seems to be a pain. So if you're mostly in it for the money, find other clients.

I'm baffled that a professional has been operating like this without a contract and terms & conditions for so long. Of course things are going to go wrong!

Don't bother. Take some of the great advice you've had on here. These tutors know their stuff and have given you solid advice on a business model.