Sorry for a ranting long post!
I have been a SAHM for a while, and I need to go back to work now. We have a child in school and a 1 yo and since I can work from home, the best option for us is a nanny/housekeeper who can take care of the housework in the morning while I spend a little time with the 1 yo, and in the afternoon, take care of the 1yo, picking up dd from school, after school classes, giving them dinner, etc so I can work.
After a long time interviewing and a first failed attempt hiring someone who left after 10 days, we have someone new with us for the past month.
She is lovely with the children and shows a lot of enthusiasm. That's the good part. The problem is:
a) She is terrible at housework: very slow cleaning, extremely slow cooking, can't iron at all
b) She seems very absent minded. Keeps asking the same questions, I always have to tell her 2 or 3 times (at least!) whenever I need her to do something differently, and she keeps saying she forgot. I even went to the trouble of writing a lot of things down in a "handbook", like the children's schedule, laundry settings, dd afterschool classes, etc, and she said "this is great!" but she just left it at her home keeps asking me again about things that are written down in there, like what time school ends.
c) She is disorganized. This I guess goes together with being absent minded. She starts a task and then leaves it halfway done, with things all over the place, like the ironing board, or the vacuum, etc. I also made her a schedule with what to do when and what time to be finished and she pretty much ignored it for the first few weeks. I told her it was important and she started trying to follow it for the last two weeks but hasn't been able to finish tasks on time.
d) To top it off, she hasn't been reliable. On the 5th day she left 2 hrs early because she was still bound by her previous job (but she didn't tell me until the day before). Two weeks later she took 2 and a half days off sick (granted, it seems the children gave her the bug but the children were not sick enough to miss school). And a week after that, she asked last minute for a day off because her family was visiting (the contract says she has to tell me 2 weeks before). Also, in the mornings she is not completely punctual. Not terrible, but on quite a few days she has been 5 or 10 minutes late, once even 20 min late.
This is the first time we are hiring a nanny and I am finding the process quite difficult and frustrating. I am at a loss now and I don't know if I should keep patiently trying to "train" her or if she is a lost cause.
I have tried showing her how to iron, how to cook, etc, and she has improved a bit but not fast enough. We have regular "performance reviews" when we sit for over an hour talking about what I expect, how she is doing, and she can tell me her concerns. However, what really worries and frustrates me is that very often she doesn't make corrections when told, even if I make a bid deal about it (certain things that are important to me), she still keeps doing it the same way and then says "so sorry! I forgot!". She seems sincere but I start to feel like I will never be able to trust her with the 1 yo, because even if I tell her exactly how to take care of her and avoid dangers on the street, etc, I cannot trust that she will remember!!
I also start to feel like she is (perhaps inadvertently) manipulating me somewhat. She tells me all her problems, for example the days before she took the sick days, she kept complaining all day long how bad she feels, how worried she is that she has to take antibiotics, her back hurts, etc. She's tried many times to tell me that the work is too much but I have had cleaning ladies before and I clean myself and I know how long it takes, same with cooking and laundry. She tells me that the job is too difficult because I have told her exactly how she needs to do it, but I only started telling her how to do it when she showed that she was way too slow and inefficient. The truth is that I have tried to be friendly and understanding with her but I start to feel taken advantage of.
To summarize, I don't mind training someone, if they are the right person, since it will pay off in the long run, but I am wondering if perhaps I should take these signs (not applying corrections when told the first time, complaining/not handling criticism too well, asking over and over the same questions and unreliability over the first month) as proof that she is not worth the investment.
My worry is that it was hard to find her, and at least she is a lovely person, we get along and the children love her. We already had an even worse experience with the first person we hired, so I wonder if this is the best we can get for the money we can afford to pay??
What do you think? Should I keep searching? Of if I keep her, any advice on how to get her to improve??
Thank you so much for your advice!