Thursday

Sister Act

This summer, we used a pair of sisters to cover care for our 4 & 6 years old.  They were recommended to us by someone in our Church. The summer went pretty well. One of the sisters was flawless and one made some questionable choices, lost her patience and misplaced some important things, like a nebulizer.

Things have changed for me and now I have the chance to work full time through March doing what I love. I want to offer the nanny position to one of the sisters. I need to know how to phrase it so that she understands it is for her only. I don't want the sister filling in. This summer I was home most of the time, so when things went awry I could fix things. I was working from home, in the fall I will be working from an office in the city almost an hour away.

I'm hesitant because the one sister is remarkable, but the other sister is the Alpha sister.
Help??

Email isynblog@gmail.com with your questions and stories.

3 comments:

Former Nanny said...

How old are these sisters? If they are able to provide care full time during the school year, I will assume they are at least 18. That is old enough to understand that just because one gets something doesn’t mean the other automatically does too, be it a job offer or a free drink from a guy at a bar.

Call the sister you want to be your nanny and explain the details of the position. Say that since you will be away from the house this time, you want a single, stable caregiver you provide consistent daily care rather than switching off daily/weekly between her and her sister (or whatever the previous arrangement was). I don’t think there is any need to explain up front, “And I don’t want your sister filling in!” because one shouldn’t request time off until they have already been at a new job for a while. When she does eventually request PTO, it will likely be a few months from now. Chances are the other sister will have her own job by then and won’t even be an option to fill in so it may never even come up.

Anonymous said...

former nanny covered it all!

RBTC said...

i think you should make it very clear that sis cannot fill in - and the way former nanny said was very good - " we need one specific person to give stability", always make all needs clear - keep us posted