Help! What should au pairs get in London? URGENT

[majorstress]

I'm paying £80 pocket money, all food, own room with new tv, dvd and radio. 3 x 3 hours English classes a week, just paid £137 for 12 weeks. Original agreement was this would rise to £100 this month, but hours were from 2:30 to 8 pm, 2 kids one at school one at FULLTIME nursery. She has talked me into letting her knock off at 6:30, and to let her off most of the housework which is ironing. The other housework is done to the minimum, very passive and helpless about everything, doesn't seem to know how to change a bed, or hoover, or cook despite talking about it all the time. I am finding myself working non-stop doing housework as well as a full time job, and failing dismally at coping with either, with continual colds and a back injury. Now she wants me to honor the £100 part of the deal. Am I a mug? a slavedriver? Should I find someone else? Quit my job? Kill myself?

er, Uwila, Barney IS the devil!

Blue, does your e-mail addres say something bout Jesus being "our" rock?

No, it's [email protected].

As a true devil-worshipper I saw the light when I realised the baby dinosaur is called BJ.

THAT explains how dd2 knew to start singing Happy Birthday Baby Jesus when Pyromaniac DH lit the Christmas pudding!

Here we go. I just gave her £16 for a textbook, and now she wants £12 for another one. You guessed, I just limply said yes, thinking, "hope you get something out of it back home." How did an AP turn into a cuckoo in the nest? I don't remember agreeing to buy everything in the shop for the English course as well as pay the fees, but no doubt I did sometime. THAT sort of thing gets remembered, but not to hang the bath mat up off the floor to dry after soaking it. I suppose I wouldn't mind at all if I was happy, right? That's right I admit is.

Poor you. Sympathetic grrr on the bath mat.

Are you trying gumtree too?

I've been reading this and my contribution is a bit off topic, but thought you'd enjoy: I put an add up on gumtree.com and had someone with the username 'skinheadpussy@..' reply! She said to pay no attention to her name, but really! It was an acct at a free provider - sheesh, if she couldn't be bothered to make a new one for replying to an ad for mother's helps, then, well, I don't know what, but it went straight to the 'no' folder.

At least it didn't read "skinheadpussyisourrock@..."

I think I just might laugh about skinheadpussy all weekend (sad life I lead).

Or "SkinheadPussySucksYourCock"....

Sorry, couldn't resist

I am LOL too . My aunt aged 60 is the originator of majorstress (an abbreviation of it) as a moniker, I think it has something to do with her son setting up the account for her, and her not realising. Maybe I should put that on my profile instead of my boring one that gives my real name. I cheekily wrote to someone who advertised in my area on gumtree in December, she got nothing at all, but I could give it a try I suppose. Also maybe the Cambridge agency has girls who want to move to London too.

Tanzie!!!!!shame on you

Hey, I thought Catholics didn't have to eat fish on Friday anymore.

(trying to raise the tone a bit...well not much )

Not in Poland...

I did try to tell her that Catholics in the UK only have to abstain on the Fridays in Lent and on Good Friday. She was horrified! The moral standards in the West were worse than she thought

HEPHELPHELP-Don't know whether to laugh or cry-trying to make the most of my nanny website subscription, I sent a mass email for the first time to all my hotlist candidates-guess who I still had right on the end of my list? Yep, Inertia appeared at the livingroom door late last night to say I had sent her an email-of course I knew right away, but said no (reflex lying). She went off to look again, and DH hissed what???? I hissed back what I had done, and he said EEEJIT! (deservedly) , then he said, say it's a virus (he does the reflex lying too!!!). SO I did and she seemed to believe me, luckily the wording was very innocuous and it did look a bit strange. Honestly, talk about sharpest tools in the shed, can you believe how dumb I am???? (don't answer that! She did spend the whole day on the internet, but really I think she may find we are paying way over the odds for what we are getting.

I AM getting some interest from likely-sounding types....hope it was worth it! If I could get someone who would join in and talk to us and not hide in their room all the time, or do anything without being told over and over, or play and do activities with the children, any of the above would be an improvement. sigh....

LOL majorstress! How awful!
But it's complete madnesss that you are having to scuttle around your own/ pc house like this. Get rid of her asap without a second thought.
Hope some of the people you contact via your 'virus' are the perfect answer.

Oh my! Surely, this means she has your profile numbner now, and has clicked on it to read your new description. Uh oh...

Don't suppose there's much chance this will engourage her to behave a bit better?

Don't be too embarrased, though. She's not worth it. Just remember how she won't take them swimming, and her refusal to take part in the family dinner.

She does pick up and take the kids to their school/nursery alright, and I need that, but I can't afford the loss of precious time with my own kids (instead teaching her English, the Knowledge of London transport purely so SHE can go out, and how to work household appliances), well over £100 pw additional expenses and the loss of my spare bedroom, which is only spare because the girls share. I think she is doing her best to improve, really, but from the starting point that I have adopted her as my own daughter, and want to fund her education, entertainment and yoyo/binge dieting and fitness training like a real mum would, even at the expense of my own health and home life. It's just sad, she is very immature and inexperienced, and the poor commmand of the language makes it impossible to train her. I intend to give the notice that I agreed to of one month, by then if she leaves abruptly I won't care, but she is clearly immune to hints (and a lot more than HINTS!) so I think she won't.

oooooh, dismisal and the time they spend in your house afterwards. That was a risk I was not willing to take. When I dismissed Lidka, she was told to leave that day and I stayed home to supervise. I also asked her for her keys to the front door before she walked out so that she couldn't have any opportunity to copy them. I just was not prepared to leave her in my home unsupervised when things had gone wrong.

The new description is not hugely different in duties from the last, but there are more words, the full quota allowed, like proactive. I am getting a lot more with-it types this time, either more sporty, educated, experienced or just more generally wordly.

I gave my previous au pair a week's notice. One or two weeks is normal - the shorter the better, really, as there's not a lot you can do if they did walk out on you so it's best to keep these things on a level playing field.

Under normal circumstance I would have give Lidka the 4 weeks notice required by the contract. But, as she was threatening to up and leave, I decided that I could not in good conscience leave an 18 month old child in her care when I wasn't really sure what she would do. I have to my child's safety before being polite to my employer. As I considered her lack of notice on the departure, and her threats to up and leave on a moments notice to be a breech of contract which put my child's safety at risk, I thought it within my right to dismiss her effective immediately.

If an au pair has not committed sucha breech than of course the dismissal should be as per the terms of the contract.

I'm curious: why would you draw up a contract with a 4-week notice period, when the convention for au pairs is one or two weeks?

Because if I need to replace an au pair, I want to have more than 2 weeks to do it. And, I think it's only fair to ask of her what I want myself. So, I put in 4 weeks either way.

I also pay the salary one month in arears at the end of the month, mostly to keep them from running off mid months, but also because that's when I get paid.