Nanny sick ALL the time - WWYD?

[Anonymous]

If she's burned through a year's worth of PTO in 5 months, then any future sick days or "accidentally" mis-scheduled vacations are unpaid.

For me, this would be an easy conversation. Between DH's employer & mine, we have X amount of back-up care days available to us each year. It's plenty, it's generous, and I would be blown away if a nanny required us to utilize all of it. If she came even close in her first few months, I'd let her know that I have no intention of purchasing a 3rd back-up care plan out of pocket and that the whole point of employing a nanny is to have easier, more reliable care than daycare. If she can't fill that role, then this isn't a good match.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did you find a new nanny yet?

[Anonymous]

Obviously, she cannot stand you.

[Anonymous]

Also, as a lot of people here have alluded to, work out an accrual system for vacation and sick days. Anything she takes before the time is accrued is unpaid. I learned this lesson the hard way also, when a nanny quit early in her second year after taking all of her leave. I then had to cover more leave for our new nanny, but since that accrued, I didn't have to worry about covering more than a year's worth if we parted ways.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, as a lot of people here have alluded to, work out an accrual system for vacation and sick days. Anything she takes before the time is accrued is unpaid. I learned this lesson the hard way also, when a nanny quit early in her second year after taking all of her leave. I then had to cover more leave for our new nanny, but since that accrued, I didn't have to worry about covering more than a year's worth if we parted ways.

Nanny here. I have an accrual system, but I don't have to wait to take my vacation. If I left early, my last check would have the days I used above the accrued days taken out. I would not wait a year before taking my vacation, or have one lone day that has accrued, which likely has to be used prior to the end of our contract year. This has worked out well for us. You do run the risk of a nanny leaving without any notice, but if she has a professional history you will be very unlikely to run into that situation, not if it is a respectful and mutually beneficial relationship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nanny here. If she's used that much PTO, it would be a red flag, but not necessarily a firing offense unless it went over her allotted PTO/sick leave.

The firing offense (to me) is that she didn't make sure she was positive about your vacation dates when she booked her own travel, then she expected you to cover that week rather than rescheduling and swallowing the costs. There is zero reason that that level of disregard should be tolerated, and it doesn't matter if she's been with you 5 months or 5 years.

+1

MB here and I agree with this. You can't fire someone because she's sick (although if she gets sick all the time maybe caring for small children is not really a good line of work for her) but you *can* fire her for the vacation mixup. That's crazy, and after how caring you've been about the sick stuff she should have eaten the costs involved and cancelled or rearranged.

Give her 1 month and start looking. You deserve to have reliable child care, and someone who has consideration for your time. Think about the vacation issue, not the sick thing.

[Anonymous]

Get a new nanny, why do you want a sick person take care of your kids ? when a person is always sick or often sick something very serious is in the system. what about if it something contagious like HIV or TB or etc why is she sick often? I don't trust people who are always sick . It could be depression something psychologically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get a new nanny, why do you want a sick person take care of your kids ? when a person is always sick or often sick something very serious is in the system. what about if it something contagious like HIV or TB or etc why is she sick often? I don't trust people who are always sick . It could be depression something psychologically.

Wow. I feel like this doesn't even deserve a response but I had to. Plenty of people who have chronic conditions or poor immune systems do NOT have HIV or TB or anything of the sort. I personally have chronic sinusitis and have had multiple surgeries to fix my sinuses. It's bad. NOW after several surgeries I rarely get a sinus infection, but prior to the surgeries I was someone who was sick ALL THE TIME. I called out of work more frequently than I wanted to. Some days I pushed through, but until you've suffered from chronic sinusitis like I have, you have no idea how debilitating it can be. And that's just one example. This really disturbs me that you wouldn't "trust" me because of a chronic condition that I have no control over. Trust me, there are PLENTY of conditions out there that lead to constant sickness and have absolutely no relation to something like HIV.

[Anonymous]

You hired her and I assume failed to question her about her past sickness frequency so yes I agree with you, it would be a pretty horrible thing to do to let her go over things she can't control. You are stuck with her so suck it up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You hired her and I assume failed to question her about her past sickness frequency so yes I agree with you, it would be a pretty horrible thing to do to let her go over things she can't control. You are stuck with her so suck it up.

No, she's not. The vacation thing is enough of an issue that she can be gone due to just that.

[Anonymous]

While she may be genuinely ill, you must do what is best for your family at this time.

If she really has her own medical issues, then it would be in her own best interest to get the care she needs.

I would let her go if it were me.
Reason being is that reliability is HUGE when needing a nanny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You hired her and I assume failed to question her about her past sickness frequency so yes I agree with you, it would be a pretty horrible thing to do to let her go over things she can't control. You are stuck with her so suck it up.

What!?! You are not entitled to retain a job simply because you were hired. Who told you that? Does your mommy still it your meat for you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You hired her and I assume failed to question her about her past sickness frequency so yes I agree with you, it would be a pretty horrible thing to do to let her go over things she can't control. You are stuck with her so suck it up.

What!?! You are not entitled to retain a job simply because you were hired. Who told you that? Does your mommy still it your meat for you?

Because, were women and we need to stick together. If she is doing her job right otherwise, the you can't fire her for being sick, it's illegal. Would you fire her for having too many pregnancies? Do what's right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You hired her and I assume failed to question her about her past sickness frequency so yes I agree with you, it would be a pretty horrible thing to do to let her go over things she can't control. You are stuck with her so suck it up.

What!?! You are not entitled to retain a job simply because you were hired. Who told you that? Does your mommy still it your meat for you?

Because, were women and we need to stick together. If she is doing her job right otherwise, the you can't fire her for being sick, it's illegal. Would you fire her for having too many pregnancies? Do what's right.

OP said: "And if she's not sick, there's some other reason she's not here."

Given that she's 1. using tons of sick leave, 2. calling off for other reasons and 3. can't bother to doublecheck vacation dates and then expected the family to cover her vacation last minute, yes, OP is quite within her rights to fire for cause. If the unemployment office has any questions (and if she files and says she was fired for using sick leave, they will), all OP will have to do is provide whatever proof in the form of texts, emails, notes or letters that prove that the nanny was taking other days last minute when she wasn't sick and show proof of what happened with the vacation. If she were using contracted sick leave early in the year, but hadn't gone over the contracted amount and was fired solely for being sick too much, OP would have issues, but that's not the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You hired her and I assume failed to question her about her past sickness frequency so yes I agree with you, it would be a pretty horrible thing to do to let her go over things she can't control. You are stuck with her so suck it up.

What!?! You are not entitled to retain a job simply because you were hired. Who told you that? Does your mommy still it your meat for you?

Because, were women and we need to stick together. If she is doing her job right otherwise, the you can't fire her for being sick, it's illegal. Would you fire her for having too many pregnancies? Do what's right.

OP said: "And if she's not sick, there's some other reason she's not here."

Given that she's 1. using tons of sick leave, 2. calling off for other reasons and 3. can't bother to doublecheck vacation dates and then expected the family to cover her vacation last minute, yes, OP is quite within her rights to fire for cause. If the unemployment office has any questions (and if she files and says she was fired for using sick leave, they will), all OP will have to do is provide whatever proof in the form of texts, emails, notes or letters that prove that the nanny was taking other days last minute when she wasn't sick and show proof of what happened with the vacation. If she were using contracted sick leave early in the year, but hadn't gone over the contracted amount and was fired solely for being sick too much, OP would have issues, but that's not the case.

Oh and yeah, no, we don't need to stick together when someone isn't upholding their portion of an agreement. I'm not going to put up with an MB who is consistently late by over an hour and doesn't pay me for that time, nor am I going to put up with an MB who doesn't want to pay me for 1+ days per week because she no longer needs me, but she isn't telling me that I have the day off until I'm ready to start work for the day. It goes both ways.