Seasoned Nanny employers or Nannys am I right to be miffed.................( bit long sorry )

[mummypoppins]

Just got to work and a bit pissed off!

Our Nanny has been with us for 9 months now. She is 38 and has 20 years experience. She is orginally from England but moved to Australia when she was 3 months old so all her nannying experience is there.

She has come to England because she wants to study Homeopathy and was attracted to our job because we have 2 school age children so she has time off during the day to study.

She is paid £270 n pw ( we live in the country in the midlands ). She has her own annexe with Kitchen , shower room , Tv dvd , free broad band etc and a completely paid for 3 yr old Scenic entirely at her disposal . She does not contribute to this in anyway apart from her own diesel ( althought tbh I dont keep too much in terms of tabs on her and if she paid for her private diesel out of the kitty I would never know ). I am very naughty too as I dont declare that she has the car for private use so neither we nor her have to pay tax on it.She takes it to College ( 35 miles away ) at least 4 times a month as well as trips to London and other places at the weekend.

She has had everything that she has asked for in terms of resources..........new Kitchen stuff for her kitchen, brand new leather sofabed and pine table and chairs for her annexe and a £100 fancy screen that she wanted to make her space look nice ( DH would explode if he new ).

I lent her money ( £500 ) in the summer to pay for her college fees and pay her early if she is going away and asks ( twice in 9 months ). We took her to Centre Parcs for the weekend for free and she didnt lift a finger when we were there or pay even for a round of drinks and we didn't count it as 2 days holiday.

She went to Edinburgh for the week in May and we ferried her to and from the airport ( 240 miles ) for free.

I bought her Tiffany jewelrry for her birthday in August.

Her contracted hours at 7am to 11 and 3 to 7pm no babysitting at all except as overtime at £10 per hour with full time to cover the holidays . She is supposed to do all nursery duties, food shopping ( she has an unlimited budget for this and always buys the best as she loves expensive things...........I have never complained ). In actual fact she did a deal with my cleaner ( who does 12 hours a week ) and the Nanny now does washing and ironing and the cleaner does all the cleaning ( incl Kids stuff ).

She runs errands if I ask and feeds cats if we are away for the weekend. She does the dishwasher during the week and will put a meal in the slow cooker on a Friday for the whole family friday evening. Quite often she finishes early on a Friday as my DH doesnt work Friday pm and so he will do the school pick up and just leave her to finish off unpacking uniform and then she clocks off.

She will organise play dates but only if it suits her. In the holidays she spent an absolute fortune on going out and eating out with the children which again I never moaned about.

All in all I think ist a pretty easy job...........we live in a huge house with a lovely garden...........she has her own patio and garden furniture.............we have a swimming pool too.............if we go out for a meal en famille at the weekend or have a takeaway etc we always include her.

I have taken her shopping at the weekend never mind if she buys magazines to read for the house etc etc.

NOW TO THE CRUNCH!

This week my husband is away on business and I am particularly stretched at work so I asked her if she would cover some etxra hours. It will be 4 hours over 3 evenings........ie till 8pm 2 nights and until 9pm on Friday night. She has said no problem and confirmed that she wants to discuss how she is going to be paid for all this time she is doing.

I AM REALLY PISSED OFF. We have 2 big holiadys coming up. She is entitled to 20 days plus Bank holidays but will have 27 plus Bh unless I ask her to work when we are not around. I feel that we should be counting the axtra hours as hours in lieu.

What is every ones view. Am I being fair to her. Is it a reasonable job ?

Yes, that's basically the point I wanted to make - I think that it is often really hard for nannies living away from their home countries to have much of a personal life at all (even if their material life is very comfortable) and so the month off, while it may seem like an unimaginable luxury to most of us, is necessary and justifiable for them in order to maintain their family relationships. Nannies need their own friends and families too .

She took holiday because "she said she was tired looking after the children all day long."

Completely agree with frannikin!

Also what about mums who look after their children 24/7 and are up half the night as well with their babies / toddlers

NannyL, just wanted to clarify the holiday thing: If we're away in the summer for 2 weeks, that's my nanny's holiday too.I don't expect her to work at all. She gets another 2 weeks of her choice and we do bust a gut to allow her to have them when she wants.
But if we're away and it's not her official holiday-then yes I do expect her to do the noncontact jobs that she usually does-as I've said elsewhere. I think that's normal.

sorry I havnt read the thread . I am a nanny of 24 years experience and I think she is taking the mick . Surley it is a case of give and take , She really is a silly woman to not see when she is well off . And as an after thought if she needed time off because she was tired from looking after the kids what the dickens does she think mums do , make the kids vanish into thin air when they are tired . When my boss is going to be late home , I work 815 to 7 15 . I look after 2 kids and I have my own . I dont ask for overtime because I know she would rather be at home with her kids than working and usually its only half an hour . She is so good to me in other ways like you sre to her that she really should see the wood for the trees . I am sure some one would bite your arm off for the job if she does leave . Best of luck .

Is she taking the mickey?!?!?! I don't think she realises just how lucky she is to have you as her employer. not many employers would even have the decensy to ask if ok, and give a choice of doing or not. Blimey 4 extra hrs in return for car, own place with use of pool etc, holidays, unlimited money, and most of all your absolute trust by sounds of it.
I would say your being more than fair and completely reasonable.
As a nanny myself, I have had, luckily one okish family, who were pleasant enough but if they decided they didnt need me wouldn't let me know until last minute and that was without pay, and with no payrises over the course of employment (2 yrs)! My present employer (5 yrs) however is much better, more reasonable and also very flexible. The children who have all grown to be teens now are also a delight to be around. I was very fortunate to have found them and will be sad to be finishing up in nov when they emmigrate to india!
SOOOOO, knowing how things can work out i'd say you should put her in her place and if she doesnt like it, well like S88AHG said, you'd no doubt have a line of more gratious nannys queueing down the garden path, me included!!!!! good luck

so Mummy Poppins slinks back to the thread to thank all you lovely people for your support even the ones that didnt agree with me ( LOL ) to report that Nanny was as happy as larry when I got back last night...........more than happy to cover late evenings for an hour or so ( she only sits and watches Dr WHo with the children ) and we have agreed that if it is a true babysit then she will be paid or have time off in lieu.

Not sure whether she has done a bit of job hunting and realised that she is not badly off or what but all is now calm in our household. DC's bathed and happy when I got back.........meal in the fridge for me etc. BLISS.

On this basis of course I am not unhappy that she will have more holiday etc.

It is all about give and take and getting what you need out of the relationship.She needs time for study and a car and I need some flexibilty during the week when my DH is away so I can go out to work to provide all these things for her!

Sometimes however I think it is good to have these little wobbles.........It sends both parties back to their own corners to count their blessings. I would not want her to leave because when I walk out the door in the morning I know that my children will be safe happy and well looked after.

She knows that we will be generous and treat her well in return.

I cant thank you enough for all your support over the last few days. I will try and look in as often as I can and return the favours..........please feel free to CAT me any of you for legal advice at anytime...On the house!

xxxx

crikey, mummyp, you may regret posting that! btw, what is your specialism?

glad the chat went well.

good! Really pleased for you. What I forgot to say is I think a lot of nannies (ours cetainly) did was play on the guilt aspect of you not being there. And they make it come across as being a favour whilst it is their job!

Anyway glad it is all sorted mummypoppins!

BTW Are you specialized in competition law?

Bit late to this thread here, also a solicitor in private practice with a DH who works abroad from time to time. Hope I'm not too late to say something halfway useful.

We try very hard to be flexible to our nanny because about once or twice a year when DH is away I need to ring her at 6pm to say AAARGH I cannot get home on time and cannot tell you when I will be back. And all the days holiday over the contractual entitlement, the complete freedom on playdates, time off to go to the hospital with her DH, the odd day sick on full pay not SSP, all those things are for the nanny's benefit and generally at her request with no tally kept. I think you just need to be so terribly focussed about what matters to you in terms of flexibility, and what does not.

And FWIW, I would not agree 4 weeks off for an Aussie nanny. I employ plenty of antipodeans here, and they never take more than 3 weeks to go home. When we had an Aussie, DH did a week with the kids, we had a week with the family together, and I did a week with the kids.

Im a private client lawyer so wills tax probate care of the elderly trusts all that sort of thing . But my firm is a full service law firm ( apart from Criminal law ) so anything really.

Thanks Fridays child. Its really hard isnt it but we had a live in nanny so that we could be flexible and I dont know about in your case but my nanny drops the children at school at 8.30am and doesnt pick them up until 3.30 yet she is paid as well as a nanny who has preschoolers all day so i think a bit of flexibilty when we need it is not unreasonable.

Why do we do it eh...........its hard enough being a working mother as it is especially in the law and I reckon my husband is abraord for a quarter of the working year!

That sounds excellent Mummypoppins and means you did exactly the right thing in raising it-otherwise you'd still be simmering quietly and resenting her.
We always stress so much about things-communication is the key(she says who does exactly the same .......)

Oh, that's great. I'm glad it's all calm and everyone is happy in the mummypoppins household.

Now let's see... what kind of free legal advice might I like???