Shaking here, hiding in my study. Very upset.
Nanny crashed the (lovely shiny, well kept, bought specially for her) nanny car whilst rushing a parking manoeuvre and did £350 worth of damage to a stranger's car and £400 worth of damage to our car. Costs of repair is roughly equivalent to excess (she is under 21 so it is high). Her first comment when it happened was that her parents would pay. I was very relieved as I am making practically nothing going to work at the moment, and in addition to this, recently my own car died and I had to organise a last minute replacement with an expensive HP agreement just so I could get to work reliably (I hardly ever buy cars and usually keep something going for 5+ years or until it's done 100k).
Now she is saying her father will pay for the other repair but not ours. Her reasoning is that when she arrived I said I would pay the first time she crashed but nothing thereafter. I did not actually say this - it was more complex and considered than that, and also at the time I did not think she would be flouncing off two and a half months later. In her contract it says she can be held liable for things like this, and the legal helpline said we could make a deduction from her final salary.
After discussion with DH we are (reluctantly)going to pay for the repair to avoid this dragging on and on, but I am left with a very bad taste in my mouth now. I said in my quiet scary work voice things like, "Well, if that's what you want to do" and "You have stampeded through our family's life" and "We will have paid £1100 to the agency and £400 in car repairs for someone who has only worked for us for 10 weeks, on top of your salary - we could have had a top nanny for that" and when she blamed her dad, said "You're still in teenage mode then". I then flounced off to the study before I raised my voice and really tore a strip off her.
It was probably not good to say these things but in my defence I am feeling extremely taken advantage of indeed now. Two weeks ago I was tucking her up in bed and nursing her through a cold like one of my own children (which she later told me had made her "deliriously ill" blaming the cold for her making lots of mistakes the next week, but in reality her top temp was around 99C, and indeed I had the same cold that week with a lightly higher temp and did half her job for her. Not that it was a fever competition, but you know what I mean).
This is really not easy and a very little part of me wants to bash her with a sofa cushion in the hope of knocking some sense into her. I think her parents should have done this years ago.