An issue I never anticipated having
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Anonymous
| Thankfully we are out of the program now, due to working from home, our kids being a little bit older, and not wanting to deal with an au pair during Covid. We recently found out that our au pair was driving for a food delivery service while living with us, using our car, upping the mileage and using up gas that she did not reimburse most of the time. I never would have expected this to happen. I understand that the au pair stipend is not much, but we were extremely generous with her, covering a lot of her expenses that were unrelated to what we are already obligated to cover. I didn’t think that we needed to remind her that outside employment of this nature is a violation of the visa rules, but I suppose host family should keep this in mind from now on, and have that conversation with your au pair. |
Anonymous
| How did you find out ? |
Anonymous
| OHhhhh my. |
Anonymous
| Shame on the company for hiring an illegal worker (she’s probably not the only one). All the more reason to stress the rules wrt other work, and to keep close tabs on the car/not give unlimited gas/mileage. |
Anonymous
| I will ask her to pay me whatever she made in the time of her working hours. I will ask for 50% plus half of car maintenance, insurance for after working income she received from using my resources( car, gas) . And make sure she knows to not do it again. If she does, report abuse of visa and bye bye. |
Anonymous
Omg. You are really disgusting. Your poor children. |
Anonymous
OP here - to be clear this is NOT me. I would never do this. Our AP is long gone. The point of this post is to alert other families of this potential issue which I never anticipated. |
Anonymous
| Interesting, yet not surprising. How did you find out? |
Anonymous
| Yeah, how did you find out? Thanks for posting, good to know!!! |
Anonymous
| We found out through a letter she received from the company to our home that we thought was advertising. |
Anonymous
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This isn't new. My au pair tried to sign up to be an Uber driver 5 years ago, using my car. I found out after we rematched and she returned the phone I paid for without logging out of her email account. She didn't succeed because she didn't have a license here (she completely failed the driving evaluation I paid for, so it is kind of amazing that she even had the balls to try signing up as an Uber driver). I added a prohibition on doing this to my au pair handbook (but also have stopped using au pairs because they are unreliable in normal times, but certainly can't be trusted to keep my high risk family safe during COVID).
She also applied for nanny jobs through nanny agencies, which is the ONE reason an au pair agency will actually kick an au pair out of the program (I forwarded those emails to the area director). They can do anything they want to host families and kids (she almost KILLED the host kid in her next family, who had a food allergy), but God forbid they turn out to be disloyal to the agency, THEN they get sent home! 
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Anonymous
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I agree with the PP to add this to your handbook - no outside jobs. My last au pair was working in da club as a shot girl. Not cool.
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Anonymous
Thank you for bringing this issue up - will add to handbook. |
Anonymous
| Wow, who knew. Yes, will add to the discussion, NO OUTSIDE JOBS, not in da club or in the car. |
Anonymous
Ha--one of my APs Facebook feeds was filled with ads for clubs and I didn't think anything of it but now I wonder if that's what she was doing! |