Change in pay, what to do?

[Anonymous]

I'm a part-time nanny that works in the mornings. For the past year I've been paid hourly but was given the entire wage (given pay for 5 hours a day for 5 days a week) even if the parents came home early because I was keeping the entire morning open for them (our original agreement), which is a very difficult thing to do because I have another job. I would also come earlier/stay late sometimes and would buy the kids snacks/crafts every once in awhile and would never asked to be reimbursed because I felt that everything evened itself out. For my past three paychecks (for the last 3 weeks) the parents have been asking me to come later, have been coming home super early too, and only giving me pay for the hours that I'm actually there. They haven't mentioned anything about this change in pay "style" and also never give me notice of when they will be coming home early or asking me to come in later, or even canceling on me all together as I'm on my way to their house. If they would give me more notice, I would certainly schedule to work more in my other job (but I never have enough notice to do so). Obviously, I will bring this up to them this week. If they don't agree to going back to our original agreement, how much notice do I need to give them before I quit and find another job?

[Anonymous]

I had this happen to be in my one of my current jobs. I work 15 hours a week (2 days, 7.5 hours each day). I am paid a set weekly salary of $250 for those 15 hours which was agreed upon from the beginning. Back in December, the grandparents started showing up about an hour early each day to relieve me and I noticed that all of a sudden, they were subtracting 2 hours from my paycheck. I had a chat with them about how we agreed from the beginning that I was paid $250 no matter what and they changed it back.

Just have a talk with them and tell them what you told us here. If they refuse to go back to what the original plan was, I always believe that 2 weeks notice is the best.

[Anonymous]

They want you to get another job. Don't worry about giving notice. I'll bet they already have something else in place and don't know how to break it to you. There're just not into you anymore. Crappy that they're behaving like that. Cheapscates.