Disappointed with afternoon sitter

[Anonymous]

We have a 20yo college student who was worked five afternoons a week for us since late January. Money is important to her so she’s always been reliable and punctual. This week we’re on spring break and she asked if she could house sit or do any work while we’re away. We agreed that she’d stay at our house with her boyfriend for one week, until the end of the day tomorrow 23rd to take care of our dog. She’s been sending me daily photos and updates and until this morning everything seemed to be fine. This am she sent a text to me and DH to say she’d leave early tomorrow am so she’s not home when we get back. We told her we leave tomorrow but we don’t get home until Friday so we expected her to stay through the end of the day tomorrow/23rd per our agreement. She sent a separate text to DH to say she’d come in tomorrow am to feed and walk the dog but otherwise she had left. I didn’t realize this until tonight and I’m pissed. She essentially left two days before we got back and 1.5 days before we agreed she’d leave.

[Anonymous]

Update - our neighbor went over and took our dog to their home, she’s never been alone over night.

[Anonymous]

Did you even ask her why?

[Anonymous]

I'd divide her pay per day and only pay her for the days she worked, and tell her you're very disappointed that she abandoned a member of your family after she'd committed to taking care of them and because of this you won't be able to hire her ever again. Get back your keys before you say this.

And I'd bring back a gift for the neighbor. Your poor doggo!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did you even ask her why?

I didn’t get to speak to her at all. She dropped me from the exchange and only texted DH.
But she left because she wanted to leave!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd divide her pay per day and only pay her for the days she worked, and tell her you're very disappointed that she abandoned a member of your family after she'd committed to taking care of them and because of this you won't be able to hire her ever again. Get back your keys before you say this.

And I'd bring back a gift for the neighbor. Your poor doggo!

Yes we had agreed to a daily rate and that’s all she’ll get. We treat her really well but it’s clear she woke up and decided to leave so she was sneaky about it. She could have called or texted me but she knew I wouldn’t be ok with it.

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand why you were only having her stay til Thurs night if you were getting back to the house til Friday? Why wasn’t she staying Thurs night originally? Having said that why does she need to stay at the house all day? My dog would be fine if you left after his morning walk and came back at his dinner time to feed him and walk him again. He’d be more confused about being alone overnight..

[Anonymous]

Money is important to her so she’s always reliable and punctual…… what does this mean? She works because she needs money, as we all
Do. I assume she’s reliable and punctual because she’s mature and behaving like an adult is supposed to.

[Anonymous]

This sounds out of character for her. Why do you assume sue just wanted to leave? Could there have been a misunderstanding on the dates?

[Anonymous]

Since she’s been reliable and punctual you should’ve paid her and consider her hours guaranteed. She probably thought about that and left you dry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why you were only having her stay til Thurs night if you were getting back to the house til Friday? Why wasn’t she staying Thurs night originally? Having said that why does she need to stay at the house all day? My dog would be fine if you left after his morning walk and came back at his dinner time to feed him and walk him again. He’d be more confused about being alone overnight..

We agreed to all of the details via text. She was to stay until Thursday evening but we were supposed to land Thursday evening. Our flights changed and she said it wouldn’t be a problem to stay over until Friday. Shes a college student and is only there mornings and evenings, not all day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This sounds out of character for her. Why do you assume sue just wanted to leave? Could there have been a misunderstanding on the dates?

There was no misunderstanding, in her text yesterday she said she knew we originally agreed she’d stay until Thursday but she was leaving Wednesday. She wanted to leave so she left. My guess is that she had another fight with her boyfriend but I’ve no idea. She was sneaky and dropped me off the text exchange when I told her we expected her to stay through Thursday as previously agreed to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Money is important to her so she’s always reliable and punctual…… what does this mean? She works because she needs money, as we all
Do. I assume she’s reliable and punctual because she’s mature and behaving like an adult is supposed to.

So leaving a day early and dropping the ball on her responsibilities is mature???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Since she’s been reliable and punctual you should’ve paid her and consider her hours guaranteed. She probably thought about that and left you dry.

She gets paid every Friday like the rest of us. Why would we pay her for days she’s not working? We’ve had to scramble to find someone else to come in today and we’ll be paying them for their services obviously

[Anonymous]

Looking at your snarky responses I see why she chose to communicate with your husband and not you.