Running (a little) late

[Anonymous]

My nanny's hours are 7AM-6PM M-F. They are guaranteed hours, so whenever we are home early we let her leave without docking her pay. Admittedly, that is not often (maybe once every two or three months?). I usually get home between 6:05 and 6:15 each night and some nights my nanny seems annoyed. Yes, I know I'm late, but isn't it part of the nanny's duty to be flexible? She is not outright rude when I get home but is curt with her answers when I ask about their day and edges towards the door. Who (if anybody) is in the wrong here?

[Anonymous]

MB here. On days when you suspect you're going to be late, be courteous. Text nanny and just let her write out how their day went. Don't engage in convo when you're already running late. You have no idea if she has somewhere she's trying to get to by a certain time.

[Anonymous]

Are you paying your nanny extra for the times you're late?

[Anonymous]

MB here. If you are routinely up to 15 minutes late then you need to pay her for that time and adjust her hours. You need a nanny whose working day is 7-6:15. It is not her responsibility to stay late for you regularly, especially without being paid. If you let her go early sometimes that is nice but that does not beholden her to you. Nor does being let go a bit early 3 or 4 times a year mitigate an almost daily lateness.

Would you be ok w/ her arriving 5-15 minutes late in the morning routinely? I sure wouldn't.

I think it's really disrespectful of you to treat her this way.

[Anonymous]

You are in the wrong, she is feeling taken advantage of and rightly so. You should pay her an extra hr each time you are late by even 1 min to make up for this.

[Anonymous]

she'sworking a very long day and wants to leave, preferably on time. stop yapping and let her go as close to 6 as possible. text her when you know you're running late, which is presumably at least thirty minutes ahead. either change her schedule, or make a point of getting home on time. or hire another nanny to take over after 40 hrs a week.

[Anonymous]

OP here -- not trying to be disrespectful. The times we have let her go early though have been early by a few hours and we've always been flexible if she needs to go to the occasional drs appt etc. she doesn't get paid by the minute, no. She is salaried and we don't dock her for snow days either. It all evens out in the end. Is five to fifteen minutes really enough to warrant a curt attitude? She would just spend those extra minutes in rush hour anyways

[Anonymous]

MB here. Are you for real?

[Anonymous]

WOW smdh at OP

[Anonymous]

If you want detailed discussions about the day, you need to be arriving earlier or paying your nanny to stay later.

I'm a nanny, and for me personally I think 5 minutes is a reasonable buffer- and that goes both ways! If I arrive within 5 minutes of my start time, I consider that "on time". Same for MB in the evening. At that 5 minute point I anticipate a quicker handover than normal, but still having a quick recap of the day. At 10-15 minutes late I'm more likely to be dashing out the door when you arrive.

Think of it this way, if you arrive 15 minutes late, and then expect a 10-15 discussion about the kids' day, that's almost half an hour late that your nanny is staying. That unpaid time adds up fast!

[Anonymous]

OP, you may think of your nanny as salaried but the truth is that she is legally an hourly worker and needs to be paid accordingly. She is to be paid for all time worked, and overtime for all of these chunks of time you are late.

Your cavalier attitude towards this, and your routine lateness, are absolutely worthy of a curt attitude, and frankly - unless you are paying $25/hr, you should be prepared for her to quit.

I am as respectful of our nanny's time as I want her to be of mine, or would want anyone else to be of me. Her day ends at 6 pm unless we have asked her previously to stay late for some reason, or something horrific happens to make my commute home a nightmare. I structure her hours and my day to ensure that I am home by 5:45 so I have time to change, see her for a minute, and allow her to leave on time without it being stressful. If I'm going to be late unexpectedly (which happens maybe 3 or 4 times a year) I let her know and am profusely apologetic. If I'm more than 5 or 10 minutes late without scheduling it in advance I would pay her - though this hasn't ever happened.

You are really in the wrong and you're giving the rest of us a bad name.

[Anonymous]

You are 100% in the wrong. Who cares if the three or four times a year you've let her go early, it was by a few hours when the rest of the year you are routinely late? 15 minutes late 5 days a week adds up to an extra hour and fifteen minutes of work a week. That's ridiculous and you should be thanking your lucky stars she's only curt with you and hasn't quit.

[Anonymous]

How would your attitude be if he were 5-15mins late regularly?

If you're fine with this- thn maybe he is a bad fit and you need someone more go with the flow like yourself.

If you'd gt cranky about this- there's your answer. Nannies hav lives and evening obligations too.

[Anonymous]

As a nanny who works 10.5 hours a day I can tell you it makes me so mad when my bosses are late. If my end time is 6:30, I want to be able to leave at 6:30. But the family is almost always late by at least 5-15 minutes. It seriously sucks because I can't even, for example, plan to go to dinner at 7pm with my family because I never know how late I will be getting off work. You need to get home on time. 11 hours is a long day, I would not recommend just paying her extra bc at a certain point it's not worth it in my opinion.

[Anonymous]

I left a nanny position(in between the one I have now and my prior family) because the family was late daily, changed my schedule daily, and I wasn't hearing from them until 10 or 11PM at night about times for the next day. This all happened my first week of employment, after being told my hours were 630-430--with Fridays off. They also asked me to work that Friday, Saturday, and to sleepover Sunday into Monday. I didn't work that weekend and I quit by Sunday night. (This is coming from a nanny who worked 12-15hr days at one time!)

This is a lot more than being 5-15 minutes late daily, but it really put into perspective how important it was to work for a family that is respectful of my time. It was something that I even brought up when I started interviewing again.

I would really think about your lateness and change her schedule/your schedule, whatever you have to do. Your thought that it all evens out is simply not logical.