When the federal govt shuts down, it does not necessarily mean that travel in the entire metro area is bad. We live downtown and my nanny commutes via the metro. There have been days when the gov't shuts down and we have almost no snow in the city. The gov't policy, at least for our agencies, is that we are required to telework if we have child care so it is better for me if she can work on those days so I can work as well. My court-ordered deadlines generally don't move because of snow days in DC.

Requiring teleworking when the federal government shuts down just makes no sense at all. You can't telework without childcare, but the city is shut down. Who exactly is supposed to watch the children? I get that you need childcare PP, but the fact that you need to give your nanny "incentive" to travel, despite the fact that even the federal government has decided travel is dangerous, simply boggles my mind. How they can expect if of you, and how you in turn expect even crazier from her.

PP here who only pays half. When the federal gov't is closed, both my husband I are required to telework if we have childcare so we pay her in full if she works and only half if she doesn't. It is obviously better for me if she can work so that I can work. She also has paid vacation days and is free to use one of those if she'd rather be paid in full. I'm simply giving her the incentive to come to work assuming she is comfortable commuting in the conditions in our area but not leaving her completely without pay if she decides she can't make it.

Anonymous wrote:Our contract has a separate policy for bad weather based on federal government status since both my husband and I work for the gov't. If gov't is open and nanny decides to stay home, then she does not get paid. If gov't is closed and the nanny decides to stay home, then she gets paid half of what she normally makes.

Why half?

My husband and I are both government and we give 4 weeks paid vacation and 5 admin days. In addition we all follow OPM in our house - if government is 2 hours late, so is the nanny. If OPM gives us a snow day she is not expected to work. She still gets paid for those days, the same way that I still get paid for those days.

I'm very grateful for my employer. On serious snow days he always calls me to stay home. He doesn't want to risk my safety. He tells me, why would I risk your life If I wouldn't mine. Usually he works from home on those days. But he pays me for those days. To show him how much I appreciate those things I also go beyond our contracts. I think our work relationship is great because both of us respect each other as a human being and we don't nickel and dime each other.

I'm an MB and we give our nanny the same basic package--2 weeks vacation, 1 week PTO/sick leave, and paid federal holidays. She works 3 days a week.

There is nothing specific about snow days in our contract. I work in healthcare so will never be off, regardless of weather, but DH is federal so if they're closed I would be fine with her staying home (and getting paid). Oddly, this has never happened on a day she's scheduled to work for us.

I don't feel like snow days come up enough for me to feel like they must be in the contract--I feel like taking it on a case-by-case basis would work for us--i.e. if the weather was awful and she couldn't come, she could let us know the morning of. There have been days I've been sure she would at least be late, and she's been right on time, for which I am always so grateful.

Anonymous wrote:The problem with paying a nanny who takes the day off when her employers' professional offices close is that professionals generally need to make up the workload they didn't get done on the snow day by putting in extra hours in the days following a snow day. The professional does not get paid for these extra hours, but if the nanny works overtime to permit her boss to catch up on missed work, she not only gets paid, but may get time and a half. This is why we require our nanny to either use her PTO, take the day without pay, or make up the snow day either on the weekend or by adding a few extra unpaid hours to her normal workdays for a while. The point of guaranteed hours is the give the nanny the income stability of a salary, not to give her a windfall at her employers' expense every time there is a weather closure.

Only you are worried about any nanny getting a "windfall" at her employer's expense.
The words "windfall" and "nanny" don't even belong in the same sentence.
How funny you are!

"Not that I agree with this nanny, I don't and I think its an unreasonable expectation, but I wanted to point out that paying a nanny what you earn minus your mortgage, bills, and college savings, is not the same as working for nothing at all. Those are choices you're making with your money, but its still part of your income. A lot of people, including your nanny I'm sure, would be absolutely elated to have the money to pay all their bills, and have some for emergency savings, let alone college savings."

You misunderstood. It is not that PP does not net anything extra after paying nanny, mortgage, bills, etc. It is that pp is saying she basically net nothing more than what it costs to pay her nanny. That leaves no remaining money from what she earns to put towards bills, etc. again, this is fine if you work more for enjoyment or as a necessity of keeping a foot in the door for a bit - but most families using a nanny rely on MB's salary to help pay the typical expenses like housing, food, bills, etc

The problem with paying a nanny who takes the day off when her employers' professional offices close is that professionals generally need to make up the workload they didn't get done on the snow day by putting in extra hours in the days following a snow day. The professional does not get paid for these extra hours, but if the nanny works overtime to permit her boss to catch up on missed work, she not only gets paid, but may get time and a half. This is why we require our nanny to either use her PTO, take the day without pay, or make up the snow day either on the weekend or by adding a few extra unpaid hours to her normal workdays for a while. The point of guaranteed hours is the give the nanny the income stability of a salary, not to give her a windfall at her employers' expense every time there is a weather closure.

If I have the day off, then nanny has the day off, with pay. It isn't in the contract though.

Anonymous wrote:"Don't you love the mother who pays the nanny over half of what she earns? I do. "

Which boils down to working for no income once the MB factors in taxes. While that's fine if your work is sort of a hobby to you OR if you see it as essential to keep a foot in the door of work for awhile even though you literally make nothing for it. But there are not slews of people out there who are going to work for nothing at allto show for it once they net out childcare expenses seeing as how that doesn't leave anythign left over for food, mortgage, bills, college savings, etc.

This one MB's situation may be great for her and her nanny - but it really is an outlier in terms of being any sort of useful reference point for MBs who work in order to earn money for their families rather than simply to have fun.

Not that I agree with this nanny, I don't and I think its an unreasonable expectation, but I wanted to point out that paying a nanny what you earn minus your mortgage, bills, and college savings, is not the same as working for nothing at all. Those are choices you're making with your money, but its still part of your income. A lot of people, including your nanny I'm sure, would be absolutely elated to have the money to pay all their bills, and have some for emergency savings, let alone college savings.

Anonymous wrote:We have it in our contract. I'm a nanny and live walking distance to work, so I can always get there. If the government is closed, I'm off as well with pay.
Otherwise, we just talk and figure out what's fair.

Sounds most sensible.

"Don't you love the mother who pays the nanny over half of what she earns? I do. "

Which boils down to working for no income once the MB factors in taxes. While that's fine if your work is sort of a hobby to you OR if you see it as essential to keep a foot in the door of work for awhile even though you literally make nothing for it. But there are not slews of people out there who are going to work for nothing at all to show for it once they net out childcare expenses seeing as how that doesn't leave anythign left over for food, mortgage, bills, college savings, etc.

This one MB's situation may be great for her and her nanny - but it really is an outlier in terms of being any sort of useful reference point for MBs who work in order to earn money for their families rather than simply to have fun.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have work agreement language that basically says we will typically follow OPM, but on the occasion that OPM is closed but we have to work she is required to work or use PTO (she can opt for us to pay for safe transportation if we need her to work and she feels unsafe driving).

OP here. Thank you. This seems reasonable.

And regarding comment on irrational nannies, most things I have seen around this topic get nasty entitled responses from some bad apples. Then there are some wonderful , lucid responses from other nannies who I wished worked for me.

Don't you love the mother who pays the nanny over half of what she earns? I do.

We have it in our contract. I'm a nanny and live walking distance to work, so I can always get there. If the government is closed, I'm off as well with pay.
Otherwise, we just talk and figure out what's fair.