During 19 years of running an agency I have spent a fair amount of time supporting nannies who have had problems with their employer. The three main issues seem to be bad timekeeping, money payment or a personality clash that only comes to light after the nanny has started work. Usually these can be resolved by negotiation, but many nannies find that in a long line of jobs, statistically there is bound to be one that just doesn't work out.
Lucy Moss recalls, 'When I took my first job, my parents were impressed by the employers' huge house and garden. The salary had been agreed by the agency and we didn't discuss details of how I would be paid. I liked the couple, so it was hard to say anything when they both started to come home later and later. Then I hesitantly mentioned it to the mother and she said I must let them know if I had anything special on of an evening and one of them would be home early. But after four weeks I still hadn't been paid.
The mother said, "My husband is the business brain, he deals with all that side of things."
'When I told my parents, my dad wanted to go straight round and demand the money. I would have been too embarrassed, so I rang the agency. They offered to phone the family, but I wanted to handle it myself, so they advised me to write a letter to the couple stating what they owed me and asking for a contract of employment, saying that although I really liked working for them I could not stay on under current conditions. My dad put it through their letter box on Sunday and the next day, the first thing they said was, "We really want you to stay". They said they hadn't paid me because they were waiting for some information from the tax office and they'd lost the contract forms the agency had sent them. They gave me a cheque for what they owed, and the agency persuaded them to use a payroll company. They were fine about it - they were just very chaotic people who'd never been short of money themselves, so they couldn't understand how being paid on time was vital for the rest of us!'
Katie Smythe recalls, 'When I used to hear nannies complaining about their employers I couldn't believe it, because all my jobs over the years had been great. But last year there didn't seem to be many jobs around, until I took one that was sole charge, live in, with a good salary and in a lovely part of London. I remember that at the interview the mother had said she did like a nanny to be very tidy. I'm a tidy person, but I was no match for her.
'After taking the little boy to nursery and settling his sister for her morning nap, I'd clean up the playroom and do all the ironing. Housework seemed to be the priority. There was no way I could do any painting or craft work with the little boy. It would have been too messy. We did a lot of chatting and reading, and I was pleased when the nursery mentioned an improvement in his speech, after having a long line of au pairs. But the mother always found something in the house that could be tidier. She always seemed to find fault with things as she left for work in the morning, which depressed my whole day. I didn't realise how much it was affecting me until my best friend said that I did nothing but moan every time we got together.
The younger child had started to crawl and sleep less, but I had to leave her crying in the playpen while I did the housework just to keep up the mother's standards.
'My agency advised me to talk to her and explain that I was a professional and was there for the children. The next time she criticised me I did this in what I thought was a reasonable way. But the woman just said, "Excuse me, I am your employer and you will do what I tell you to". There was no answer to that, so I handed in my notice.'
Radka was rescued by an agency from a situation which is, fortunately, very rare. She came from the Czech Republic to a nanny job in a village south of Cambridge. The husband of the family met her at the airport. Radka says, 'The airport was a long way from their village so I was not surprised that only the father had come to pick me up, but I was surprised when there was no one else at home. He said his wife would be back the next day. What my agency did not know was that his wife had walked out and taken the children a few days before.
'He gave me some supper but when I said I wanted to go to bed, he put his arm around me and said he liked me. I pretended not to understand and said I was very tired, so he let me go to my room. I sat on my bed too terrified to sleep. Early the next morning I tried to use their phone to call my nanny friend Jana. I saw the father was asleep on the sofa with a bottle of whisky beside him, so I went out the back door and kept walking until I met a woman with a dog. She saw that I was very upset and let me use her mobile to call Jana, who phoned our agency and the agency owner came to fetch me.
The police were called and were very nice to me. In fact, people were all so good to me that I decided to stay in England and the next family I went to work for was great.'
One thing that all these cases show is that a good nanny agency needs to remain accessible to both nanny and employer after a job has started, so that either party can discuss any issues that might arise later on.
Helen Kewley is the proprietor of Nice Nannies Now in Huntingdon, Cambs.
