Cancelled travel plans

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nanny here. Totally within rights to ask her to come in. Guaranteed hours are a two-way street. I guarantee consistent availabilty and you guarantee a consistent paycheck. That said, the courteous thing to do would be to offer to let her either take the time as unpaid or to use her week of paid vacation for those dates, and if she does work try to make it an easy week if you can. But no way should you feel you are stuck home with disappointed kids and suitcases to unpack while she goes on a paid vacation. That is not what guaranteed hours are for.

To the nanny who says she shouldn't have to sit home and twiddle her thumbs just because her boss is out of town, no, but you should be make flexible, easily-changed or -cancelled plans for those random weeks.

Long time nanny here. How would you feel if you made plans for that week? Bought plane tickets; booked a hotel and rental car? Would you so easily cancel your plans? Would you use your own vacation time even though you have plans to use that for your annual family reunion? Would you take it unpaid? None of these options seem fair. As a previous poster said, I am guaranteeing availability to you until you tell me that I am mot needed. I actually have it in my contract to say that I plan to use any additional time off that the family vacations and my services are not needed. I had a family try to use their vacation time as mine because I utilized the time off. That job didn't last long!

You ask for vacation time for those sorts of plans. That isn't what guaranteed hours are for.

[Anonymous]

OP, you are being totally reasonable. If I were in your situation, I would have asked my nanny if she could come in, and would have tried to make the week as easy as possible. If she had made unrefundable deposits for travel, I would have offered to split or pay those.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My contract discusses this in the guaranteed hours clause; you might want to revise yours for the future. Here is what mine says:

• Family agrees that Nanny will receive the guaranteed base pay 52 weeks per year, even if Family chooses not to utilize Nanny’s services for some or all of any given week such as for Family vacations and holidays. Guaranteed hours assume you are available to work, and that we have canceled. We have never had to cancel a vacation, but it could happen! In this case, your choices would be 1) come to work, 2) use paid time off, 3) take unpaid time off.

Nanny here. My contract reads that I am available until told that I am not needed. In this family's case, they would be sol as they said she wouldn't be needed. In my history, I've seen very few plans canceled last minute, and only one case where I had been told that I was guaranteed to not be needed. Of course, I travel with the kids too, so canceled plans if I was going aren't a big deal.