Nanny wants 5/1/2 weeks off - Update - Page 2

[meemee]

it seems to me you already dont have a great realationship and this vacation might work out well for all involved.

i am sure if she was a great nanny you would be coming here to vent, not to find out whether this situation is right or not.

i cant blame her for wanting to go on the vacation with her dh.

i do think its reasonable to ask for holidays to match. but to say hey i take my vacation in summer so you should too and make it law is not reasonable.

i see a v. different underlying attitude towards your nanny. i find the 'grateful' aspect can get icky.

i would just start looking for a nanny that you are happier about.

[mamabutterfly]

Originally Posted by Oriole

You can't promise her that her position will be waiting for her over here when she comes back. That's that. She is entitled to her vacation, as she is a person with free will and this sounds like an amazing trip, but she can't reasonably expect you to wait for her 5 1/2 weeks.

If I were in your shoes - I'd start looking for a new nanny without any grudges. If I were her, I'd ask if you would wait, but go on my trip to have the time of my life. I would not expect for the job to be waiting for me, as I understand that the family needs to cover the position.

I agree w/this.

[CatsCradle]

I don't know if it is common in the nanny business, but I wouldn't enter into any type of employment relationship with anyone else unless you have some sort of written agreement which defines the expectations of the parties. Doesn't have to be a formal contract but just something like a letter that has an acknowledgment line at the end...where the nannie or caretaker acknowledges that they have received said document. Sorry, that's the lawyer in me...but if these issues aren't addressed at the beginning of the relationship, it seems it creates opposing expectations and entitlements.

[Dena]

Originally Posted by CatsCradle

I don't know if it is common in the nanny business, but I wouldn't enter into any type of employment relationship with anyone else unless you have some sort of written agreement which defines the expectations of the parties. Doesn't have to be a formal contract but just something like a letter that has an acknowledgment line at the end...where the nannie or caretaker acknowledges that they have received said document. Sorry, that's the lawyer in me...but if these issues aren't addressed at the beginning of the relationship, it seems it creates opposing expectations and entitlements.

This is a really good point, and one I intend to follow in the future, given some of the issues I have had with nannies in the past. However, I think even a written agreement would not necessarily prevent new issues and entitlements from cropping up. For example, our last nanny came to me with several "take it or leave it" type demands toward the end of her tenure with us that I am sure she would have made regardless of how thorough a written employement agreement had been in place. Her response when confronted with the agreement would have been to tell me that her needs had changed and either I could accomodate her or look for a new nanny.

In response to the OP, I think five and a half weeks vacation is a lot for any job, but particularly for a nanny position, and her take it or leave it attitude would irritate me to no end, especially if said employee had already had six weeks off in the summer and that wasn't enough for her to "have some fun." I know good, reliable nannies are hard to find (believe me, I know) but I think I would be inclined to look for someone now to fill in while she was gone, with the thought in mind that if I could find someone great, that person would be my new nanny. Just my .02.

[34me]

If I had to go to the trouble of looking for, checking out, training, hiring, figuring out taxes etc.for a new child care arrangement I would not be guarenteeing her a job when she is done. And I would let her know it.

[isabella.4567]

Thanks for all the replies.

Dena - thanks for your understanding. Yes, I am irritated to no end by the nanny's behavior, in fact I have been fuming over this since Monday and it gets worse by the minute!

DH says I need to control my feelings, well I wish I could.

In fact we have been quite happy with our nanny so far. She is flexible, available pretty much whenever we need her and good with DD.

Maybe BECAUSE things have been good, I am so shocked by her attitude. It's not what you do as an employee to ask for 5 1/2 weeks off and not be willing to compromise for 4. I mean, are you kidding me - who gets even 4 weeks. And like previous posters said, well what she is saying by her behaviour is that she does not care about her job. I would not have expected that she does not care. Comes as a shock to me.

I sure have learned some things from this already - lay out expectations before you hire somebody and keep it to a business relationship.

[RockStarMom]

Originally Posted by isabella.4567

I have heard so many times from her how she needs more money and wants to work for somebody else also, but suddenly the money is no issue anymore and it has to be 5 1/2 weeks vacation, no less?

If she's said many times that she feels underpaid and actually wants to work for someone else, I would start looking for someone new...especially considering the fact that advance notice apparently isn't her thing and I wouldn't want to be left in a bind.

I'm a nanny myself, and I would never ask for that much time off! I feel guilty taking 2 weeks off at Christmastime! I think her demands are totally unreasonable.

[Logan's Mom]

wow, I couldn't even swing it to give someone 5 1/2 weeks off even if my dh and i took our vacation time seperately. he gets 2 weeks and i get 3 weeks.

that is a mind blowing expectation as far as i'm concerned.

[cattmom]

scheduling

It's not unreasonable to expect a nanny for a working parent/s to ask for a vacation well in advance and keep the time requested reasonable. That's simply because most working parents have to notify their own bosses well in advance, have limited vacation of their own, and have their own needs for time off throughout the year. In general, it is the parents job/s that supports the nanny's job, so the parents job has to be treated with respect - - without it, nobody gets a paycheck. I think there are some less experienced/mature nannies who see their employers as people with unlimited freedom, and don't really understand the normal constraints of an average workplace.

[HollyBearsMom]

Our nanny gets 3 paid weeks vacation and 5 paid sick/personal days. All scheduled time off must be requested 2 weeks in advance and must be mutually agreed to at the time of the request.

This is a business relationship first and foremost. As an employer I have some pretty strict state and federal guidelines that must be adhered to or I can be sued. She is entitled to unemployment insurance and (god forbid) she is hurt on the job she is entitled to workman’s comp. So I we have a employment contract that outlines everything, I mean everything- household "rules", job responsibilities, hours, vacations, personal computer use, expenses, the works.

So to answer your question yes, I think it is unreasonable to expect 5 1/2 weeks off but from personal stand point not unreasonable to ask. You are welcome to say no and she is welcome to leave. However in my case since I have a legally binding contract I would not have to pay out any unused vacation time, she couldn’t sue for unemployment, etc if she broke her contract.

All that said I have a very close personal relationships with my sitters. I mean they are caring for my child! How could we not get close? I would like to think that if she was burnt out and had an opportunity to go to Hawaii with her husband she would discuss it with me and offer to help find creative solutions so that it worked for both of us.

I say let this nanny go and use the 5 1/2 weeks to find someone you love and to develop a contract up front so you (and the nanny) don't find yourselves in this situation again.

[provocativa]

perhaps you need a new nanny, but you could also look into filling her time off with a mama in need. especially when beginning separation, or falling on hard times, many mamas who wouldn't normally consider a nanny position would take one temporarily. you could check in the finding your tribe area here for a mama in your area, or on active local homeschooling e-groups if you know any homeschooling families, check at la leche league meetings for someone who might try to manage with yours and their newborn for 5.5 weeks. more risky would be to check at a women's shelter, but you could get a backround check and a resume from anyone there. even very capable women end up in such places. i know i am a tv-free homeschooling mom with a work at home microbusiness and decent cv. i am working on a plan to leave dh, and such a temp job would be literally life-changing for a woman in my position.

[isabella.4567]

So we hired a new nanny (I will call her N) while our old nanny (I will call her O) is still on vacation and we love her. We have to make a decision if we take the old one back or want to keep the new one.

DH is leaning towards taking O back in order for DD to have continuity in her live. N will likely start college in fall which might or might not be locally and could be gone then. O will be around until 2011 or even longer. (Her DH's sponsorship runs out in 2011 and they might go back to Brazil then but they might stay here).

I have a hard time "rewarding" O with giving her her job back after she showed us she does not care a lot about her job. She did call three times to talk to DD but other than that did not make any effort to show that she really wants her job back.

Would you rate continuity and who will be here longer over anything else like DH?

DD loves them both (although when being asked she is leaning towards O but she did spend 18 Months with O). N has a driver's license and a shared car which O does not, N cooks dinners for us and puts toys away which O does not.

[stik]

N sounds lovely. If you think she could meet your needs for 12-18 months, I would go with N.

I had nannies as a kid. My family is still in touch with some of them. Others we definitely are not. Honestly, my parents were much more important sources of continuity than my nannies.

[MoonJelly]

I feel the same way as I did when I first read your initial thread. You need to base your decisions on your nannying needs and not on whether you think "O" is grateful or ungrateful or that she has the "nerve" to ask you for a vacation.

Regardless of who you choose, it is a business relationship and you need to treat it as such. An employee has the right to ask for additional leave and you have the right to say no (or yes). And your answer should be based on whether you can manage it or not and not on the fact that you are bothered that she asked you.

If you want her back, take her back, but it's not fair to treat her negatively over something you came to an agreement on. And vice versa, if you don't want her back, don't take her back and don't spend anymore time fretting about it.

I would not want to go back to an employer who thinks they are rewarding me by "letting" me come back. That's not a fair playing field and you are setting the stage for future problems in your business relationship.

[isabella.4567]

So I thought I share the end of the story with you ladies.
After debating for weeks and already having told the old nanny that we will take her back there was yet another incident in a series of many that indicated that she really does not care about her job and we told her finally that it is not going to work out.
Within 2 weeks after our final decision, she was back in Brazil with her husband, despite the fact that our neighbor was going to hook her up with a new job.
To make such a big move within such a short amount of time tells me that they already had been seriously thinking about going back to Brazil and it explains her attitude towards her job and why she would not compromise for a shorter vacation.
Also, when she said good-bye to our neighbor for whom she also had babysat sometimes, she said: “I am sure my employers (we) would have been so upset if I had started working for them again after my vacation and go back to Brazil now, after 2 weeks.” Meaning no matter if we had given her the job back or not, she would have gone back to her home country. That was their plan. The only thing I still do not understand is why she told us she will be available throughout 2010 and that they have no plans to move if that apparently was not the case.
Coincidentally she also got her Green Card right before they went back to Brazil, so who knows, maybe she was waiting for that and wanted a job until she had the Green Card in her hands.

So in the end, yes, it turned out to be a permanent return to where she came from. I wish she had been more open with us about her plans and had spared me months of misery and wondering but at least finally I got some clarity why she acted the way she did.