The Story of That Time I Got Fired... sort of

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.