Do any of your aupairs BLOG?

[mishmash]

and would you have a nosey to see what they may be saying about you. I am certain if my AP knew I posted here and on other forums and knew my nickname she would have a nosey - wouldn't bother me cos it is never juicy stuff anyway.

I had an au pair who had one. Sometimes she left it open and I had a peek. She never said anything bad, about us, so that's OK.
Another au pair, though, left her email open, I had a peek and she said: 'being an au pair is easy, just stick the telly on and relax'!!! Shortly after she told me she wanted to go, because of a course. Again she'd left her emial open and she told her dad that she left because we found someone else! Big fat lier. Of course, next time I had her dad on the phone I said innocently: 'I'm sorry to see x go. It's a shame she can't move that course.' Of course I was more than happy for her to go, but it was nice to have a little revenge and drop her right in it...

email even

Thanks for your honesty Belgianchoc. Reason I asked is cos I'm a little disappointed with AP today - she has a blog - reason I know is she left it open one day.

Anyway I have a nosey every once in a while to see if she seems ok but her last post was about the awful week she had and it is 100% exaggerated. We have all been sick so she worked a bit extra Mon and Tues, gave her extra time off Wednes, she was sick Thurs so had day off. She made it sound that she had worked an awful lot of overtime and also as if she was up with DD during the night.

My sister was here for a couple of days and between her and my other sis they stepped into the breach. Her comment about our house on Wednes evening and Friday was it was like a zoo and it sounded as if she was looking after my kids and my sisters and a friends child which was absolutely not the case. There was one if not both of us (as in my sis and me) here the whole time and the kids were no trouble at all. She never seems to mention all the nice things we do with her or for her Thats my little rant over.

I get on really well with her and go out of my way to include her in everything so am a little bit hurt that she made things sound the way she did.

hiya

hhhmmm i think to be honest shes probably feeling a bit stressed and maybe she felt akward in the situation and unsure what to do and she was just venting on the blog. at the end of the day the blogs meant to be PRIVATE and as long as she does it without naming you or your family members then who cares?

everyone exaggerates a little when theyve had a bad day. as long as it doesnt reflect in her work then maybe this is just how she deals with her feelings.

id say stop snooping after her - or else you might find something nasty about yourself written and if uv been snooping then you deserve to

Well if blogs are meant to be private don't put them on the WWW

anonymous then not private

its certainly wasnt shown to the OP therefore wasnt intended for them to see.

she was just venting, everyone needs a good b*tch and rant every so often

Mishmash, I'd be tempted to leave a comment on her blog!! Of course blogs are not private - as Alipiggie says, if they are, why put them on the www?

Perfectly acceptable to look at a blog - it's not like looking in a diary, after all!

Mishmash - I have replied to your email.

Stop looking at her stuff.

When I was an au pair, a friend of the woman I worked for looked at my diary, couldn't undertand English but told the woman her name was mentioned several times.

It's hard enough living with another family the whole time. She is entitled to write whatever she wants to about HER LIFE.

If the blog is on a computer that is in the au pair's room, then it is like looking at a diary or anything else she has lying about.

There is such a 'them and us' attitude here I don't know why you bother having au pairs.

Yes a blog is anonymous but unlike a diary which is written to be private a blog is written to be shared. and if the Au Pair is writing stuff about your family then they could be sharing sensitive/confidential information.

Its a tough one cos you don't want to snoop, but on the other hand you don't want your families foibles exagerated and spread across the WWW.

Its tempting to say - oh she doesn't mention names in the blog but it can be quite easy to figure out (or at least anrrow down) who someone is from clues in a blog.

I think that my rule (a hindsight one which may not help anyone now) would be, - you are welcome to use our broadband connection but please be aware that we keep a check on what sites are visited by ALL members of the household. We won't be able to access your private email but we will be able to see a list of all sites visited and how much time you spend on them.
Also, the confidentiality part of our contract/agreement includes things such as online blogs/message boards.

I agree blogs are for the WWW. Some of our AP have done blogs. I once read our AP blog and couldn?t stop laughing. She wrote about how the house had become a battle ground with our dog ( was really the size of a handbag and getting on in age) and she was petrified of it and dog used to urinate in her shoes in protest to her arrival, she thought it would never be believe should she complain, as we always make a point of saying, dog is house trained with excellent manners.... she wote how she must pretend to like the dog....
She also wrote about when her mother came to stay when we were on holiday and she forgot to close the freezer door. ( I can recall this) All the food was defrosted and AP and mother spent the entire weekend making meals with the contents of the freezer, reading cooking books, looking for ?typical English Cuisine? and nipping to Tesco for ingredients to put in hot pot and casserole?s?( BTW I never cook these anyway)? in hope that we wouldn't be very cross!! It was very difficult to even be slightly cross when they went to so much effort. It was interesting to see AP side and also some things were much exaggerated and of course had a really good moan about the children.

No SN it wasn't shown to me but yes our names are mentioned and Pointy I didn't invade anyones privacy - the history is there plain and clear on MY home pc.

Mrs. S - hmm - nah I wouldn't do that - got your e-mail and will respond = get that MSN sorted missus!

Artist - pmsl - and I can see the point your making.

But I don't like untruths and this blog just sounded off to me - venting or not it wasn't the truth!

Sunnyjim - would be interested in your Confidentiality Agreement - we had this with our previous nanny but wasn't included in the AP agreement.

CONFIDENTIALITYIt is a condition of employment that now and at all times in the future that, save as may be lawfully required the employee shall keep the affairs and concerns of the employer and the household and her and its transactions and business confidential.

Your duty of confidentiality includes online confidentiality.
Names or indentifying details of family must not be mentioned online.

Whilst we support the use of online forums for support and advice we retain the right to monitor postings made to these sites realted to your relationship with us.

Internet blogs/ forums and websites are within the public realm and as such have no right to privacy.

You will have access to our internet connection for personal usage.
You are not permitted to use any of the household computers.
You must ensure that any device that you connect to the internet via our connection is appropriatly firewalled and that you have an up-to-date and effective virus checking software package. (we can help with this)
Your internet usage during working hours may be monitored.
Site history is logged for ALL access on our home network.
No illicit or illegal or offensive material should be knowingly requested, sent/ forwarded, accessed, published, downloaded or obtained by you via any Internet or Email service.

If we find that you have accessed illegal material, or if you have breached the confidentiality agreement online all computer privelages will be withdrawn.

Its still getting checked over but thats what we intend to use - it may seem ahrsh but we work form hoem and so we have a whole host of considerations about the stability and security of our system. Basically AP isn't using someone's home PC, they are connecting into a broadband business network.

AP can bring their own PC but we can't let them use ours due to nature of work files on them!