What to do

[Anonymous]

Sitter has been watching DD about 10-15 hours a week for two months now. She is on the young side (mid-20s), but has experience as a full time nanny and I thought overall she was professional enough. Last time she watched DD was last Wednesday and before she left, we confirmed that we would not see her on Friday (she had a doctors appointment and canceled on us) and the next time we would see her would be today. Normally, she texts me the day before she's supposed to come when there are schedule changes so when she didn't yesterday, I texted her yesterday evening to confirm today. I texted and called her a couple more times today, but no response and she did not show up this morning. I can think of three likely scenarios: she's had some major emergency that prevents her from contacting me (God forbid), she forgot due to the holiday weekend or she found another job with more hours and is ghosting me. Of the three, the second is really unlikely because she's very on top of our appointments so either something horrible has happened or she's dropped us. We've had a good relationship up to this point, but it's happened to us in the past that young caregivers will flake or drop us because it's easier to them than dealing with the unpleasantness of letting a NF go. How long should I give her before I stop giving her the benefit of the doubt and assume she has dropped us?

[Anonymous]

Do you have anyone's contact info that knows her? I had something happen and ended up in the icu. My employers couldn't reach me and knew something was wrong because I call if I am 2 minutes late. They ended up reaching out to my boyfriend and he let them know what was going on.

[Anonymous]

I would keep reaching out and force her to say "I dumped you for a full time job" because I'm a bitch like that. I'd also immediately look for someone else.

[Anonymous]

Probably got an offer for better pay.

[Anonymous]

She likely does not like confrontation and since she is working such little hours, she may not even consider this an actual "job."

So yes, she is ghosting you.

I honestly don't think she ever took this position seriously so I would just let her go.

To be fair....
Could there have been something that you could have done to turn her off from the job.
I.e., job creep, low pay, micromanagement, coming home late, strict rules, etc.

Next time go w/an older Nanny.
30+ would be better.

There's no guarantee that the next one will be better, but usually older Nannies tend to have more maturity in dealing w/important issues.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Is it her only job, OP? It wasn't clear in your post that she only worked for you. Do you not have any people in common who may know her number? There may have been an emergency like the others have said.

I am in a similar situation to your nanny, have you been paying her the correct amount and on time even if you got back early? Have you been changing her schedule regularly (That really annoys us nannys even if we don't let it show). She may have disappeared as she was fed up and felt the confrontation wasn't worth it for the lack of hours. Either way, to not even send a text is unprofessional and I would leave a voicemail saying if you don't hear back by the end of the week, you will have no option but to fire her. That said and giving her the benefit of the doubt, she may be very ill in a hospital so tread carefully and hopefully you will find someone who knows her so you can get in touch.

[Anonymous]

Is it her only job, OP? It wasn't clear in your post that she only worked for you. Do you not have any people in common who may know her number? There may have been an emergency like the others have said.

I am in a similar situation to your nanny, have you been paying her the correct amount and on time even if you got back early? Have you been changing her schedule regularly (That really annoys us nannys even if we don't let it show). She may have disappeared as she was fed up and felt the confrontation wasn't worth it for the lack of hours. Either way, to not even send a text is unprofessional and I would leave a voicemail saying if you don't hear back by the end of the week, you will have no option but to fire her. That said and giving her the benefit of the doubt, she may be very ill in a hospital so tread carefully and hopefully you will find someone who knows her so you can get in touch.

[Anonymous]

This is OP. I found her through a sitter website so don't know anyone in common. We are her only regular job (as far as I know), but she still takes occasional jobs. I do have the contact phone numbers for her references and believe she still works for some of them, albeit on an occasional basis. Would it be improper for me to contact one of them? They probably wouldn't know her current situation, but might have an emergency contact as they have known her much longer than we have.

We've definitely been fair with her. Aside from paying her the going rate for a native English speaking college grad, there has been no job creep, micromanagement, coming home late etc. The schedule changes and cancellations have been 95% her doing; the first time we canceled on her was for the July 4th weekend and if she had been better about honoring our schedule, I would have made up the hours to her. She has actually been kind of demanding and maybe the fact that I don't cave every time makes her think I am being unfair. For instance, she's asked to switch schedule many times. When she asked to switch from Friday to Thursday last week, I said we couldn't and her response was "you said your schedule over the summer was flexible." That was true when she was coming just 2 days a week, but when we upped her to 3 days, this wasn't the case anymore. There have been times here and there when she has been less than professional, but since they were minor, I let them go because there is a lot positive about her, too. Maybe this is all coming back to bite me in the a**. It is just really upsetting that despite doing my best to be a good person to work for and a good person in general, it wasn't enough to warrant the minimal courtesy of even a text to say she is quitting with even just a day's notice.

[Anonymous]

OP again. Just remembered that she was fired from her last job and without outright refusing, she would not give me that employer's contact information. She told me she was fired because she needed to get surgery and had to be unavailable for a while and so her MB up and fired her. I still wanted to speak with her ex-MB, but she said that the ex-MB wouldn't return calls. She had so many excellent references that I let it go, but now I'm wondering if there was more to it (as there usually is) than what she said.

[Anonymous]

Hmm, with all this new information you gave it seems she is ghosting you. I am sorry.

[Anonymous]

I guess by now you know she dropped you. Sorry, OP.

[Anonymous]

No, I wouldn't call any of her past references OP.

It is clear by now that she is likely okay, she seems to just have quit on the spot.

The very least she could have done was send you a text/email if she didn't want to tell you in person.

[Anonymous]

OP, did you reach her? When you called does the phone ring?

I really hope she is OK physically, and then there is no excuse of what she did to you. Why can't people just say "I quit"? What are they afraid of? It's a free country!