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| Ain't no party up in this bitch! |
Looking at my
Nanny Guide you would think that all the nanny experiences I've had have been fluffy and fun and full of joy, but nah. The truth is, my experiences babysitting for the city's elite have been less than stellar. In fact, I think I can count on one finger the family who was actually decent all around – and even they were a little cold and penny-pinching by regular standards [the "jackpot" family].
Here I will unveil the sad and ugly truth [as well as how inexperienced I was when I first began]. You think wiping up shit and soothing screaming toddlers is a pain in the ass? Well, working inside people's homes is harder than that, and working for entitled white bitches is the absolute hardest.
My very first nanny job was a 50 hour live in with a ladder-climbing wife and mostly absent and terribly homely father. Their son was 3, and cute and shy, and was a super easy kid to take care of. The wife bought no real food to eat [although it was supposed to be provided for me], paid me terribly [$6 an hour] and ironically, the same day another nanny clued me in to how abused I was being, my boss decided it wasn't working out and let me go. They also kept kosher, which is a huge pain in the ass for anyone who doesn't – or for anyone who doesn't care how or why the fuck their food mixes on a plate. Jesus Christ, I just cannot deal with people's OCD eating habits and religious peculiarities. [As if "God" gives a fuck!] Pluses: She introduced me to Devachan haircare and paid me $50 more weekly than a competing employer in order to effectively poach me. Another plus, her Chelsea loft [and accessible rooftop!] were super dope. Minuses: She didn't hold up her end of the deal and was paying me less than minimum wage [and no overtime]. Overall rating: C-.
By the end of that week I had gotten two new nanny jobs, with two fairly nice women who hired me on the spot [I love when this happens]. The first was a French stay-at-home Mom with two boys and a personal driver who lived in Chelsea. The French lady was super accommodating, paid me super well, but never really let me do anything. She was always around and was always taking over the tasks she'd assigned me to do, including school pick-up and drop-off of her eldest son [an easy $25 trip]. Her 5 year old son never warmed up to me though, and her younger son was far too coy and attached to his mother to really interact with me. I always sensed the childrens' discomfort and that along with the Mom's unwillingness to let go made me slowly back out of that arrangement until I was no longer showing up [yeah, I had no sense of courtesy back then – but it was more ignorance than rudeness]. Overall rating for the French Mom? B-.
The second part time job was with a Playmate lookalike in SoHo who had an adorable and sassy 3 year old daughter [she wasn't really a playboy playmate, she was just a MILF who looked like one]. I worked with the Mom in SoHo for months; throughout her separation, her late nights slaving at a 2nd job, her brother moving in and her new life dating. Depression hit me hard about 8 months into the job, and after one particularly difficult morning I told her I couldn't make it. I think she even tried to give me a second chance, but I was so embarrassed I decided to let the job go completely. To this day I feel a tinge of regret over that, as she really didn't deserve to be stood up in such a callous way. She paid me fairly, she was so so good to me, and there was one cute night where she told me that she and her daughter loved and cared about me very much. I sent her daughter a birthday/thank you/I'm sorry card later that summer to make amends, but needless to say, the bridge had been irreparably burned. SoHo Mom easily got an A.
I took a break from nannying after that, since I wasn't really feeling as though I was healthy enough to be dealing with people and their children in such close quarters. I felt immense guilt and sadness for doing people who were so good to me dirty like that. Who had I become? I often wondered. Eventually, I forgave myself as best I could, snapped out of the funk, and moved on.
I babysat again long after that for a family so clueless, I can't even begin to tell you. The Mom was a dumpy looking "always overwhelmed" type, who seemed like she'd been dropped in NYC fresh out of Nebraska or something. Their house was a mess, and the kids knew no rules or normalcy. It was chaos. The housekeeper was feeding them nachos for dinner [and not even the good nachos, just tostitos with microwaved cheese on top! What?!] The 8 year old girl was the bitchiest child I'd ever met, and had that child run into traffic one day in my care? Well... [*shifts uncomfortably*]. The 5 year old son was a nice kid, but impressionable, and therefore followed his sister's badass lead, and the baby was so used to its mother, he couldn't be touched or even looked at without resorting to a helpless shriek. Kids, I tell ya. I barely lasted two weeks, and when the Dad [who looked about 75] called to tell me they wouldn't need me the next day, I said “Ok” and hung up without even asking why. I can't even remember what they paid, all I know is that shit was terrible. Grade: D
Then there was the family I babysat for for about a month. They were cool and easygoing but one day they came home from dinner with these odd looks on their faces. Soon after they texted me that they didn't need me anymore since Grandma was taking over, which was a nice cover-up for what I knew was actually going on: they were getting a divorce. Grade C+
There was once this nice family who hired me...they looked straight out of a catalog those two. But during the interview I noted that the Mom looked very pale and gaunt. They told me she was on bedrest. And then I think two weeks before I was supposed to start the job, they emailed me to say she
had a miscarriage.
Womp womp womp. Sad story.
In late 2009 I finally hit the jackpot baby! I got a temp nanny gig making $750 a week, cash. And although I was hella tired [it was 50 hours of care-taking for 1 baby boy], the $3000 I made that month coasted me for a whiiiile [I'm resourceful, when I wanna be]. Thereafter, I watched the kids on the couples' date nights, and slowly they grew on me and I came to highly respect them as a family. They seemed to just be normal people who worked hard, who spent their money in responsible and understandable ways, who treated me with the utmost respect and made my job easy. Unfortunately they moved down to Virginia a year later, but I remember them fondly and probably felt more of a bond with them than I did their children [am I supposed to say that?!] They got a solid A.
Last year I worked what was probably my longest job [10 months] for a “nice” if not, really cheap couple down in Murray Hill. The father was sometimes lewd, but he made an effort to get along. His wife came off a little shrewish, and made me do annoying things like write down everything I did everyday with the baby. I let it slide because it was her first child, and people like that always tend to be a little overbearing. What I wasn't crazy about was her passive-aggression or the fact that they were so cheap, that they would schedule vacations around holidays in order to avoid paying me for both [they would just pay me vacation – which was at half my regular rate. Sigh.] Okay, so you don't think that's cheap? Well how about the fact that they let me go [without cause] right before Christmas with no severance or bonus pay? Yep. Told ya. Cheapskates. I'd grade them a B-.
But I think this last couple takes the cake. And I think I should have paid attention to the signs. But maybe it was my fault for only paying attention to these signs → $$$ [Don't get me wrong, they were cool, funny, smart and laid-back Australians who weren't requiring a whole lot, but there's no way I'd be willing to work 60 hours a week if the money wasn't superb.] So the first warning sign should have been that I had to track the wife down for a phone call [which went well] and then pin her down for an interview [which also went well]. The hours for this position were on the extra high end [plus occasional extra hours], but the lady was paying a hefty $20/hr, for one kid. Which is pretty remarkable, and kind of made up for the fact that she wasn't paying overtime. [Yeah... do the math. It was my best paid job offer, ever]. So the interview went fine, and they sent me a work agreement to review the next day, signing the email off with "excited to be working with you". A few days later, we were still negotiating and I told them to call me, so that we could speed up the process and reduce the confusion that was mounting via email. I never got a call from the husband or wife over the weekend and since they were two high powered individuals, I let it slide. I did send an "Are you busy?" text on the Sunday and got an email saying they'd update me later. So I got the update, and it was that they'd given the position to someone else.
Son.
I was fuming. Not only because I felt misled [I never knew about another candidate - and we were also in the midst of ongoing negotiations], but also because I had to return everything I had mentally bought with money I hadn't gotten yet! I had to wave goodbye to all the opportunities that paycheck would have brought me. They said the decision had nothing to do with my skills, qualifications or a need for greater flexibility which confused me even further and just made me feel like they were backpedaling. She ended the email by saying that I could call her if I wanted to talk. I remember blinking, looking at the screen curiously, and saying very flatly: "Oh... I am not in the best place to call you right now. Oh no, I am not."
So obviously, the lesson to be learned here is that nannying can be great if you find a fantastic family, but it's an industry notorious for nuttiness and disloyalty [on both sides, truthfully].
Australian lady gets a big fat F! F for Fuck this lady, and Fuck this profession. I'm finally working for my damn self!
