Herein lies the epic tale of my recent dismissal from service. All names have been changed because it amuses me.
Back in May, this guy (I will call him Mr. Sucky)
hires me as a part-time nanny for his 8-year-old. The kid is awesome,
but right away there are problems. First of all, I am hired to work 3pm
to 10pm, 3 days a week, but when I actually start, I seem to only be
needed 4 to 9, two days a week. Mr. Sucky refuses to make any sort of
schedule. He repeatedly claims he will email me over the weekend with
next week's hours, then never, ever does. I have to pester him repeatedly to get paid and to find out my hours. He disrupts my plans to
take the kid to Pirates 4 (which we were both quite looking
forward to), and will not clearly articulate why. It is a giant pain in
the ass, but I continue because I really need money, and I really like
the kid.
And then. Kid goes to visit grandparents 4 hours away "for a week". A
week passes. Then I email Mr. Sucky. Several times. I am eventually
informed that the visit will last another week, but I will definitely be
needed "by the middle of next week, I'll email you". There is no email.
I send a polite email on Tuesday of "next week". There is no response.
On Thursday I send a somewhat snippy email, mentioning the fact that I
have now been out of work for three weeks, and it would be nice if he
would please return my emails because I have no idea what is going on or where the kid even is. Once
again, there is no response. On Saturday, I call. Mr. Sucky does not
pick up. What a surprise! I leave him a rather annoyed message, which I
think I've earned at this point (but it wasn't abusive or sweary or
anything, just annoyed). I tell him that if he doesn't call me back by
Monday, I will assume that I am fired. Also, I tell him that it is
customary to dismiss someone by using some combination of the words
"you", "are" and "fired", in an email, phone call, or even a lowly text
message. I receive none of these things.
Mr. Sucky, while fairly benign towards his child, does not seem
especially engaged with or interested in him, and was totally
overwhelmed by the process of hiring me. Therefore, I doubt it was my
(pretty decent) childcare that was the problem, since I probably could
have taken the kid to a Slayer show and gotten away with it. Rather, I
suspect the grandparents offered to take the kid all summer, and Mr.
Sucky jumped at the chance for all that free childcare and abdication of
basic parental responsibility. Incidentally, this is a man who is in an
adult kickball league.
Mr. Sucky doesn't owe me any money (he paid up before the kid left),
but he screwed me over because I wasn't looking while I worked for him,
and I turned down a second interview at a very nice daycare to take the
job in the first place. Not to mention all the stress and hassle and
uncertainty while I tried to tell myself that I still had a job despite
the mounting evidence suggesting otherwise. Or the bond I formed with a
kid I'll probably never see again, and since his father isn't even man
enough to send a goddamn text message, I can't even get in touch
to send him a postcard. My only consolation is that New Orleans is not
all that big, so I may someday run into Mr. Sucky and be able to spill
my beer on him, take his Mardi Gras beads, or make him look bad in front
of his date. I guess I could invest in a voodoo curse, but it hardly
seems worth the effort.
And that, my friends, is why I am becoming a waitress.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
New Dolly I made!
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