Anonymous wrote:I was au-pair in Germany and had a fantastic time with a wonderful family. The experience was so great that I decided to do another year in France and started looking. I had been emailing with a mother who seemed nice and easy-going and we were almost going to set up a phone interview when she sent me a list of the chores she'd like me to do. Now, au-pair rules in Germany and France are much more along the lines of cultural exchange and not slavery as they are in America, so an au-pair is supposed to work 20 hours a week, no heavy cleaning or cooking for the whole family, allowing time for language classes, at least one full weekend day free and a small stipend. This mother sent me a list of chores that was literally two Word pages long, including cleaning their pool, brushing several of their dogs, cooking dinners for the whole family, spring cleaning, keeping the garage tidy and a myriad other ridiculous things that had nothing to do with childcare. She kindly said she would do a schedule for me so that I could accomplish these tasks throughout the week in the mornings while the kids were in daycare and this way they wouldn't seem daunting. Considering I was to have the kids each day for 5 hours after daycare, I'm not sure it wouldn't worked out to 20 hours a week. She also said her current au-pair was feeling homesick and wanted to go home early... I'm guessing her current au-pair realised she wasn't going to learn any French and was spending the entire time polishing silver.

My then hostmother effectively forbade me going to that family (not that I was going to go myself) and then sent that French mother an email saying how she's not respecting the principles of au-pairing and giving the program a bad name and all that, and I have rarely loved my hostmother more - and I love her lots.

Anonymous wrote:I did some temp work for a family who had just turned 1 year old twins and a 2 1/2 year old. MB seemed nice and normal in the interview, but I quickly learned she was very wacky.

She had really strict rules about how much the kids had to eat, so you were literally force feeding them some meals. The twins would often be throwing food off their high chairs because they were finished, but she insisted you keep feeding them until the amount of food she deemed appropriate was gone. The portion sizes were huge and way too much for toddlers to eat on a regular basis.

She also had some other wacky things. You had to use a different wash cloth to wash and then dry each child's face after each meal, so you went through at least 9 washclothes a day. No wipes were allowed, so you had to use these cotton ball type things dipped in water to clean their bottoms. Sheets were changed daily. Sleep sacks and lovies could only be used once, so we went through 8 of those per day. Schedule was so rigid that if you got them down for a nap one minute past 10AM you got into trouble.

In the interview I was told that it was the nannies responsibility to cook simple, fresh and healthy meals for the children. I love to cook, so thought nothing of it. Come to find out her idea of simple meals were things like Osso Bucco and Rissotto with Pancetta and Grilled Asparagus. Great meals, but not easy or quick to prepare. Children were absolutely not allowed in the kitchen, so it was sometimes difficult to get mealts prepared, especially if it was something that took a while to cook

Anonymous wrote:I had one brief e-mail exchange with the mother and she was going to set up an interview. She never did. Then she called me out of the blue and asked me to pick up her six-year-old from school and told me that if I asked the teacher the teacher would tell me which one he was. She said since she didn't know me, she didn't want to leave me keys to her house but I could keep her son occupied in the park until she got home from work.

This mother had never laid eyes on me much less run a background check or check my references but she would trust me with her child but not in her house!!!

I laughed and said "No".

Anonymous wrote:I think we all have quite a few strange experiences. My one NF says I could probably write a book. My strangest interview experience was when I arrived 5 minutes early to the interview, and only the little boy and his grandmother (who spoke no English) were home. The parents had both left to run errands. They didn't forget about the interview, but I guess thought they could be back before I would get there? The grandmother had no idea what was going on, but she let me in the house, and I just sat on the couch. The little boy kept asking me to come look at his bedroom, but I didn't feel comfortable.


As for the strangest job experience: I agreed to work one day a week for four hours for a family who had four kids. I agreed to a lower rate because the older kids would be in school & the newborn with his mother, so I would only have to take care of one three year old. The first day that I arrived the mother refused to acknowledge my presence. I asked her to text me her phone number since we had been communicating through email, and she never did. She would just stare at me if we were in the same room.

The kids were 5, 4, 3 and 5 weeks, and ALL of them were in diapers during the day. I'm assuming that the older two were capable of using the potty because they were in school, but they wore diapers at home, and I was only allowed to change the diapers if they had pooped. They were essentially sitting in wet diapers from the middle of the night until the afternoon if they hadn't pooped.

The home was really strange as well. It looked like they had just moved in, but I knew through a quick search that they had lived there for 10 years. It was a huge house with multiple living and dining rooms, but only two of the rooms had furniture in them. The kids rooms were just their beds, and the playroom looked like it was barely touched.

It was sort of bizarre, so I decided not to come back after the first experience. They were so confused as to why I didn't want to work for them.

Anonymous wrote:Hmm....During one of my nanny interviews w/a woman (her children were all there as well), she specifically asked me, "Do you mind if I call you the hired help??"

I was floored. I wanted to respond, "Only if I can call you my hiring bit#@!!" But I bit my tongue.