Anonymous wrote:Op here. Let me clarify. The communication issue was not kn my end. The parents explained I would be paid for Labor Day since I started that week and for the week. They did not pay as said. I'm not so mad about that but I do feel I should have been paid for Friday since I was scheduled to work and they canceled.
To pp - why shouldn't I have been paid for Thursday when I worked? Maybe you're ok with working for free but I'm not.
Sorry. I don't believe they said they would pay you for a holiday that began your first week of employment, unless it was as a "carrot" to get you to start a week earlier. But, it turned out you couldn't start until Thursday. I don't know how long it took to figure this all out, but I'm guessing that by the time you said you could do Thursday after all, they had already figured you'd be out all week and start next week as planned. I see Friday as possible contentious, but I also think that if they knew they were going to pay you anyway, they'd have told you to come in.
This was a last-minute request. You get paid for the hours worked, period. Your contract starts next week. I get that they are bad communicators. So don't work for them. But it's a pretty bad idea to basically see them as an ATM machine. I also get the feeling that they think you have been harping on the contract. If you've brought it up repeatedly, insisted you won't work without one, etc., then they are within their rights to also say that the contract is king, and until it's signed, you are not officially working for them as their full time nanny.
Now, I am the kind of person who can't stand ambiguity, and I would have told you straight out when I asked you to work the extra week that I was a) not paying for Labor Day, and b) considering this an "extra," "if-you-can-do-it" week, not part of guaranteed hours.