Difficult nanny situation

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09/04/2016 19:46

Subject: Difficult nanny situation

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Anonymous

So, we are kind of in a pickle. Sorry, it will be long, but I think that I need to provide full background. My nanny has been with us for two years now. Overall, she is good, but there are some things that in our minds she doesn't do well. We gave her a lot of feedback in July (and actually did not increase her salary because there was kind of a lot of negative feedback, though we did not tie the two, just gave her the review). She said that she understood, and promised to do better. In the last two months, some days were GREAT, and some days she was in bad mood, grumpy and made some mistakes, and the biggest "infraction" I addressed with her the next day after it happened. Last 4 working days were great. So, while she is I think good, if she quits I would not be very sad.

Based on where we are, she has to drive the kids around quite a bit. We provide a van for her for all kid transportation. I have told her a couple of times in the course of the year, when I notices things like "I think in this situation you drove too fast", or "I saw you cutting that turn very closely". In all cases she would explain that she thought that was safe, but she would be more careful in the future. She had 2 accidents in the last 6 month in our car with kids in it: one was in our driveway, and one on the road (with insurance and another driver involved, no injuries). She apologized for each accident, put the first one to fully not thinking and the second one claiming that she expected the other driver to turn. The second accident was determined by police to be her fault, but they did NOT issue a reckless driving ticket. So just an accident. Stuff happens. Also, she is in mid-thirties, American, grew up in rural/suburban areas, so has been driving from teenage years. So it is not like she doesn't have driving experience.

Now to the current dilemma: we participate in kids "car pool" from school, where one family picks up and drives 2-3 kids from nearby school and families take turns. So the moms in the car pool just informed me that they don't consider my nanny be a safe driver, and don't want her driving their kids. It is all about her speed, and they gave me a few examples when she was speeding enough for them to feel to make the determination. They had no information about the accidents (though they could have seen the beat up van). I understand them and don't think they are crazy. I solved the car pool by having my father now doing my portion of the car pool, but needless to say, I now worry about my kids, and whether my driving standards for nanny are not stringent enough.

My husband thinks that the nanny is just always running late, for everything, and tries to compensate that with speed. For example, she is notoriously 5-8 minutes late every morning, so when we see her in the AM going down our street pretty fast, she is speeding. Also, with the car pool, she was always late to school (my DD constantly complained that they are the last ones being picked up), and there was actually no reason for nanny to be late for those pick ups, mostly it was that she was leaving a bit late for the pick ups with no good reason.

I have to tell something to the nanny on Tuesday, because she totally expects me to tell her what are our days for the car pool. I also now don't think quite safe with her driving the youngest one to preschool/parks. After discussing with DH, I'm thinking to propose the following:
1. We will tell our and neighbors' concerns about her driving to the nanny.
2. We will put one of these dash cams/devices in our car that measures speed and records driver moves. It is our car after all. My dad has a device in his car and he likes it (he just put that for fun, but mostly to have proof against tickets).
3. We will tell the nanny that ignoring traffic laws (speeding >5 miles per hour) will be grounds for dismissal.
4. If nanny quits, she quits, no harm done. I'll even pay her for two weeks.

What do you all think? How offended would you be if the family did something like this (also given two accidents)? My biggest fear that she will be offended, not say anything to us, stay, and my kids have grumpy and constantly annoyed nanny. However, firing her seems to be very cruel, because if any reference calls me and asks about her driving, I would then need to tell them everything, so basically her chances of getting a nanny job involving driving are slim, and we all live in suburbia so driving is pretty much a must...

Am I also being too nice? Would you just fire her? The thing is if driving is an issue, another nanny might have other bad driving habits (like texting). This nanny had an OK diriving records that I pulled when we hired her 2 years ago (I think like 1 ticket in 5 years, no accidents).