My AP seems to be ignoring me!!

[VirginBoffinMum]

My current Hungarian AP has been with me for six weeks now. She's 21 and very bright and well-educated, and seems nice enough. Her English is pretty reasonable. The kids like her too.

My problem is that I find I am having to tell her things half a dozen times or more, and even then she still doesn't do them. I am not convinced this is a language problem, and I am starting to tear my hair out. Problems this week have included:

Hiding in her bedroom after bringing the kids home from school, instead of supervising music practice and homework for at least 10 minutes as requsted, and/or engaging with the kids a bit.

Cooking the kids' tea so late they end up going to bed late and then are shattered the next day.

Taking washing out of dryer and crumpling it in a basket for days on end so it needs intensive ironing instead of just folding and putting away.

Repeatedly finishing the milk/bread/pasta/loo roll or whatever without telling anyone, raiding the freezer, or buying some more from the shop (she has a float for this purpose), then complaining there's nothing for tea.

Never tidying up before I come in from work so I end up walking into a house looking like a bomb hit it, with nowhere to sit down, and which I then have to tidy, as she has clocked off, or which the children have to tidy when they are too tired and fractious to do so without tantrums.

Leaving her coat/shoes/gloves/hat strewn around the hall.

Not making sure the kids have their stuff with them when they come home from school, and then hassling me when I am trying to get ready to go to work about the fact that they have no coat/shoes/clean trousers or whatever the next day.

Leaving windows open everywhere when nobody's at home.

It's as though she's just not thinking things through or taking any responsibility for anything. Does anyone have any advice about the best course of action? My DH suggested performance review like we might do at work, and I have done this twice but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears ...

Performance review a good idea. Also make her a written list of all the requirements outlined above to give her at the review. She may just be bad at retaining information and if she's got a list of bullet points in front of her she may be more capable of getting them all done.

Cheers nbee. I've actually given her a handbook I have written with everything in, and gone over it with her 2 or 3 times - we did that when she arrived.

I wonder if I should have a book in the hall and write all this stuff in each day as well? Or will that look too controlling?

I had a cork board in the kitchen. On it I had "The weekly Schedule" listing in broad terms what hours she was working, and when school was starting finnishing, when preschool starts and finnishes, and what days she is picking up and dropping off.
I also indicated what time to GET UP and start helping me with the morning routine, her free time, and what hours to be around and help with dinner/tea time, as well as weekly activities such as Football with toddler and Tennis with school age child.

Also on the cork board was Useful telephone numbers, Gp, me, dh, School, preschool, etc...
And suggestions for outings, toddler groups, soft play including opening hours , child friendly cafees, parks, etc.....

It was her one stop easy wall hung reference guide to EVERYTHING.

That sounds good, queentinsel. Do you think this will stop mine being so dippy generally?

It will help her not being confused about what her duties are.

I used this method with all three au pairs I had. (not at the same time, mind!)

maybe use a visual timetable so at a glance she can see what she should be doing.

God, is it worth it when you have to spend so much time chivvying someone along like this?
She'd be out so fast if she was working for me.

I half expect to be laughed at for this as anyone who has read my threads and posts about my aps will know me and the problems I've had. But I'm going to post anyway!

It does sound as if she has her feet well and truly under the table and it's as if it's her house to have the way she pleases (windows open even though this leaves the house unsecured, untidy and leaving others to do the tidying up etc.) I have had to say before to aps that whilst this is their home whilst they are here it is the home that dh and I have bought and things have to be done our way and kept the way we want otherwise we're changing for the sake of our ap. (I'm talking about her suggestions that we all eat an hour or more later each night, add salt to all our cooking etc which would be major changes to us.) I hate having to address problems but it has to be done. If it's falling on deaf ears then it's only because she thinks she can get away with it. A performance review is a good one and I need to do this with mine before she goes home for Christmas so that she comes back knowing that things are going to be run tighter than before as it's making me unhappy. Hth.

sounds totally lazy to me
can you get her agency to give her a warning or something?

Dinny, I wonder if you are right. I have actually rung agency for advice after your posting, and I am waiting for a call back. At the very least they might be able to give me some advice.

have they come back to you yet?

fwiw a friend of mine has, after 3 similar APs, found a male one and he is ACE

I really really really do not want to be accused of being racist in any way but we live in Hungary and this sounds like the issues DH tends to have in the office.

He likens working here to trying to change the shape of a jelly once is has been set. You can alter it a little but once you take your hand away it goes back to the shape it was in!

So some of it could be 'cultural'. Some of it could just be laziness.

VirginBoffinMum- you have my full simpathy. Whereas our AP is great with the children, she is a complete nightmare to live with! I've posted about her before, but I'll give you a little taster:

She has never helped to prepare the evening meal. She says she cannot, and therefore will not cook, so we make her evening meal for her. She then pokes around with her food, and complains that it is not to her liking and leaves her plate in the kitchen after feeding her dinner to the dog/bin.

She has never washed up after her evening meal, and has never offered to clear away for us either. We have started to buy her special food that she chooses as we were getting quite disheartened with her throwing so much food away because she didn't like it (despite it being on her very small list of food she DOES like). However, she has now started throwing most of that away too. DH is getting very cross at the amount of food/money she wastes every day. We took her out for lunch the other day and she ordered from the menu, left 3/4 of it, then asked for desert.

She regularly leaves the house with the back door unlocked and several lights left on.

Today I came home to find her washing 3 items of her clothes at 90 degrees!

She's never offered to do any housework, besides her daily duty of wiping the kitchen worktops after she'd made lunch and then sweeping the downstairs laminate. She has not changed her bedding ONCE in 3 months, despite haing a brand new set to put on and full use of the washing machine.

She really upset me a couple of weeks ago when she accused me of being lazy! She said my dh does most of the cooking (tis true) and that she does most of the cleaning ((!) see above)) I had to set her straight by asking who did all the other cleaning, such as the bathroom, kitchen, windows, polishing, skirting boards, vacuuming, mopping etc etc ad infinitum. That soon shut her up, but not after she'd told some mutual friends how hard she has it here in terms of housework I feel like I have lost a lot of respect for her now, as she clearly has none for me. She will not take any direction from me, only my dh which is very frustrating.

So, VBM- I feel your pain! She is going home for Christmas for 3 weeks and I cannot wait for the break, I think it will do us all good. We need her to stay until July, and I don't want my children having to adjust to another AP, so I really want things to improve. Any ideas with the food situation??

Agency haven't called back. Last time I spend £400 on an agency fee, I can tell you.

Budafulsight, this was very interesting info and I had no idea Hungarians could be like this ... the only ones I know are quite like me!

Cupoftea, I am not sure I am in a great position to give advice on APs at the moment (!) but I would probably give up feeding her and just give her £30 a week food budget and a shelf in the fridge. It's amazing how quickly people learn to cook once they have to ...

My AP asked to stay over Xmas because she says she can't afford a flight home, so I won't even get a break from her then (she mooches around the house the whole time as well, and rarely goes out). However I am tempted to kick her out when I go on maternity leave at the end of Feb because I feel she is taking advantage of us. DH says it's a language problem but I work with young people the whole time and it looks like laziness to me, actually.

VBM, sorry I don't have much help to offer with your current problems but just wanted to say that I have had two Hungarian nannies and both were fab - trustworthy, kind, diligent etc. The most recent one left us in April when I gave up work and is still much missed. In fact, the boys almost fell out the door to welcome her back last night when she came to babysit! So my experience of Hungarians has been only positive.

She is taking the p*. Looking forward to a break from an AP is madness, they are supposed to make your life easier, not more painful. Give her the 2 week notice period to improve,(or whatever the notice period is in your contract) otherwise she's out. Use aupairworld, only about £30, loads of prospective au pairs. I can recommend German ones.

Agency have now sent an email saying they are not in the office until Monday and can it wait until then. As she is not pregnant, has not been arrested, and has not BBQd the children by accident, I suppose it will have to.

I'm currently debating whether to send an email summing up what I have said in my posts here, but I am wondering if it will all end up sounding a bit tit for tat and like we are just having problems living together, and she will come back with riposts via the agency about how bossy and unreasonable I am and so on. On the other hand, I am the one who is spending the money here!

MN jury, what do you all think - should I send an email summing up all my grievances, or wait to speak to the agency lady on Monday??

The agency will have an emergency number - ring it. £400 is a lot of dosh. (I know because I once wasted that amount on an agency that sent me an au pair that did not meet my first requirement: ability to drive)

Update - have emailed agency with details of woes put in a reasonably balanced way, asking for a second opinion on whether to a)continue with (apparently futile) performance review approach; b) give family or agency warning, or c) give notice.

Having had au pairs since 1987 I have now decided I am fed up of young women giving me the runaround, and that I should be quicker to act once they have had time to settle in, yet still fallen short of what I would like.

DH will probably tell me off for involving the agency and tell me I am being too fussy, but I will tell him yet again he is not having to face all this chaos on a daily basis because he is out at work all the time!

Honestly, sometimes I wonder how hard it can be to do a school run, do a bit of washing and rustle up beans on toast from time to time. I wasn't much older than this when I started running a school music department with a four year old in tow.

Further update - have forgiven agency, as they phoned me straight away after getting lengthy email, and actually were very nice and helpful, being most understanding as well.

They are getting the Hungarian partner agency to have a word with her and kick her up the backside. The general view is that there is probably a bit of confusion on her part that this is a JOB and she cannot just do what she feels like when she feels like it. I think that's quite a shrewd reading of the situation.

They've also offered to replace her if I want to give her notice.

When the Hungarian agency have a chat can you get them to chat with DS's office to remind them that they are also in a job???

Good luck!

Hehehe!

Cupofteaplease, get rid of your au pair! She's awful.

As for the food, stop buying special food for her. She either eats the food that your family eat or buys her bloody own!It's hard when you have someone in your home, you want to be nice and you want to all get along but really.... She sounds like a cheeky mare...

Oh lots of advice to give...
got to do school run now so will be back later x

Yes cupoftea, on reflection I think tryharder is actually right!! I think the point of no return may have come when she accused you of being lazy. I think I might have asked her to pack her bags at that point. Or at least the new improved assertive me might have.

Why o why o why are we so damn reasonable to these people when they are taking us for a ride????