Nanny Laura came over yesterday and spent half the day with us. She does seem to adore Allie and was trying to get the feel for our routine so far. When Allie went down for her nap, we talked about the terms of her employment. There were several points we had to negotiate and I think we’ve reached a compromise on all of them.
* She wants her average day’s pay (which includes any overtime) on holidays that she’s getting off. We asked to just pay her base time. We ended up agreeing to her request.
* She wants 10 days of vacation a year, to start accruing immediately, and wants to be able to use them immediately. We wanted to abide by the typical rule of her being able to use 10 days vacation a year starting with her 2nd year of employment. The compromise: she starts accruing immediately and can use those days immediately, but if she takes a 5 day vacation in the summer (like she wants) but has only 2 days accrued, she’s not getting paid for the other 3. But then she suggested getting paid as an “advance” on her vacation days, and Mr. W agreed. So pretty much she’s getting what she asked.
* She wants health insurance, but it’s expensive at $400/month from her estimate. The compromise: She pays for it on her own, but once Mr. W’s renters start paying their rent regularly, knowing it could take 6-8 months, we pitch in for half. This was her idea of a compromise, and we agreed. She felt bad that Mr. W is 5 figures in the hole from lack of rent collected but still paying mortgage on the place.
* On days when we don’t need her (such as when we have vacation or are home for a day to take Allie to a doctor’s appointment) but that she’s able to work, she wants full pay, including any overtime she would’ve worked had we needed her. We offered her half. She said she needed regular income for her financial stability and refused to take any cut due to our not needing her. This was troublesome, considering we used to take 4 weeks of vacation a year, so including holidays and her own 2 weeks of paid vacation, we’re basically paying her for something like 2+ months when she’s not even here. So my offer of compromise, which everyone agreed to, was that on days when we don’t need her but that she’s willing and able to work (not including her vacation or holidays), we can “bank” it as “credit” with her. She gets paid for these days with the understanding that on an agreed-upon Saturday or a holiday that she otherwise would’ve had off, she’d come and take Allie for some time without charging extra, so Mr. W and I can have a date, or go see a movie, or go have a meal, go to the gym, etc. That way, she would roughly be working the same number of hours annually that we’re willing to pay her for, but with the days rearranged.

Rebecca has said that she’s very professional, and I’ve found that to be true in her requested work benefits. Most nannies don’t make all these requests, and health care? Really? We’re not corporate employers. So I feel a little disgruntled that she has so many demands that are out of the ordinary for nannies, altho I also feel that her demands are not unreasonable for someone taking employment. She’s never done the nanny thing before so she’s treating this as she would a regular corporate job, altho she makes allowances keeping in mind that it’s not a matter of bargaining with a company, we’re people who are still trying to survive and we have physical limits on what we are ABLE to pay her, it’s not a matter of what we’re WILLING to pay her.

She looked very relieved when she left and gave me a hug, and I’ll type up the agreement at some point (I gave her a copy of our notes and terms). But we still have the understanding that the first few weeks are “trial;” if she finds she can’t survive on what she says is a paycut from what she’s used to, or we find that we can’t afford to pay what we’d agreed upon thus far, we’ll have to figure something else out. I’m thinking the “something else” is going to be daycare. I’m just so sick of this, and I’m totally stressed over how we’re going to do the week she wants off in the summer so she could vacation with her kids. If there were someone out there who knows Allie’s routine who come stay with her for a week, we wouldn’t need a nanny to begin with. Maybe I could take a personal day, Mr. W could take another personal day, and my mom could take the other 3. But she’d have to be here at 6:30a and it’s a long drive. *sigh* I feel like I should be relieved with a nanny in place (like I was with Susanne, who in retrospect was giving us a hell of a deal), not more stressed, like I am. I’m hoping Laura “proves herself” in the next few days so that I’d feel more comfortable, because right now altho I feel like her heart is in the right place with baby care, she’s rusty. She did offer to take the sleep book (“Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child” by Dr. Marc Weissbluth) and read it to understand my parenting/sleeping philosophy and to “brush up” on her infant knowledge. So far, my impression of her is that her priority is her kids and she’s willing to take a lot of time off to be with them, which is great as a parent, but I’m afraid it’ll screw us as her employers. She already asked for Wednesday afternoon off of this transition week so she could go with her daughter to see a church’s Easter exhibit and run a personal errand. True there’s some flexibility since I’m still on maternity leave, but I don’t feel like she’s that concerned with our needs as much as she is with her own leisure activities. Again, fine if you’re in a corporate job, the work can wait, but in this job, we’re dealing with a human baby and parents needing to feel like they’re leaving this human baby in competent and caring hands.

So yeah, after ironing out the details with Laura, I’m still not “feeling” like she’s a fixture. It could be just angst from my imminent return to work, as Mr. W suggests, or it could be intuition again.