Stood Up: babysitting rant

February 7, 2016

One week ago, midnight:


100% believed her.  OR at least 98%.
Ended up taking call with no child care (not ideal).

Tonight:


(texts referring to Saturday night were sent Thursday afternoon)

Confirmed for 6:30pm.
No answer to text at 6:45pm.
No answer to phone (got voicemail) at 7:00pm.
No one at door yet — it’s7:52pm.

BAH!  So for those of you who asked for tips on how to find great babysitters, clearly I still have some of my own learning to do.  Honestly, aside from one absolute gem (who has since moved to CA), I have not had good luck with millennials taking some babysitting jobs on the side of college/day job/whatever.  Instead, I am learning that career nannies (i.e. responsible adults who truly appreciate the work) are the way to go, even for weekend babysitting gigs.  College students seem to have great intentions until . . . they don’t.

For the record, we pay well ($20/hr is the going rate in our area, and I round up, and our kids are asleep for most of the job!).  And I am meticulous about scheduling in advance and confirming.  I did not send an extra confirmation text in this case, because on THURSDAY, we had that text conversation (“See you Saturday”) and the time confirmation.

AGHGHGHG.  Just needed to vent.  I’m annoyed about tonight but even more annoyed that someone would just . . . brush me off like that.  If it ends up being that she had a true TRUE emergency (i.e. car accident) I will feel really horrible about this post, but at this point I think that is unlikely (right?).  Either she got the dates mixed up (which would be . . . very weird to me) or she just forgot (not really acceptable) or she decided she had something better to do.

Okay.  Ending rant.  Guess we are not going anywhere tonight.

EPILOGUE:
Got text at 10 pm that she fell asleep and was really sorry and realized it was irresponsible.
I still think we’re probably done.

9 Comments

  • Reply Emily March 10, 2019 at 7:11 pm

    That is SO annoying! I’m sorry your night was ruined! We use family for about 90% of our babysitting needs but for the other 10% we use one of the kids’ teachers at daycare. They already know the kids and their reliability is excellent, presumably in part because they are professional child care workers and also don’t want to annoy a parent with whom they interact at their day job. I know A&C are not in daycare but do any of their preschool teachers do babysitting gigs on the side? It seems to be a very common arrangement where we live.

  • Reply zenmoo March 10, 2019 at 7:11 pm

    That is intensely annoying

  • Reply Marci March 10, 2019 at 7:11 pm

    Oof the worst. That is bad. So you missed your event? Career nannies or trustworthy housekeepers are good for us. They genuinely want to work extra hours. And when our housekeeper comes, she does the laundry too. Win.

  • Reply omdg March 10, 2019 at 7:11 pm

    The best scenario is to find a babysitter with some sort of external incentive to show up. Such as…. you know her mother, she really needs the money, she relies of good references from you for other jobs, personal indebtedness to you for something (this last one only goes so far). Sorry you missed your event! I hate it when they lie to you though. And ohhhhh could I tell you stories about our babysitters! I won’t though, because they read the internet. 🙂

  • Reply beth March 10, 2019 at 7:11 pm

    That is so awful! I can’t stand unreliable people in any aspect of my life. Sorry your plans were ruined.

  • Reply Ana March 10, 2019 at 7:11 pm

    Ugh, sorry! That really sucks. You gave her enough tries, I would NOT be relying on her again. Sure, she likely does feel terrible—great, she can "feel terrible" AND have the consequences of her behavior and will hopefully never do this again to another client! Its not going to end her life or even affect it in any adverse way to not have you as an occasional babysitting client, so I wouldn’t feel the least bit bad about letting her go!

  • Reply Ameena March 10, 2019 at 7:11 pm

    I am in the EXACT same boat…we had 3 girls that picked up Maya from school, each took one day a week. 3 months later and just one is left. They were SO FLAKY and then finally just said they couldn’t handle it anymore.

    I had such a different work ethic when I was that age. Lack of work ethic just drives me nuts.

  • Reply Jack helmen March 10, 2019 at 7:09 pm

    Hi,

    Thanks for provide this information…. I learnt some interesting things from this article… Thanks for sharing this details……

  • Reply baby sitters chennai March 10, 2019 at 7:09 pm

    Oh my god! This kind of irresponsible fellow are there , we have to find the really good caring person. Don’t worry and don’t search hurry berry just ask some details via mobile calling then its self you can find their responsibility.Thank you for sharing this issue.

  • Leave a Reply

    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.