A Nanny's Life

So as I sit here wondering what I'm going to write about today (and so many things are going through my mind) I'm thinking that maybe every once in a while (I can't pin point a real schedule) I'll write about a situation or a story to do with being a nanny.

Of course I am going to have to bring in back up for these segments because I have been lucky enough to have quite nice bosses over the years that haven't been too crazy.  I'm not sure whether that was just the luck of the draw or whether it has something to do with my judge of character (which I have been told is quite intact)....anyhoooo I think I will start with a story about a temporary job I had.

I had just finished my probationary period (the time when I had to work 9 months in a proper job before I could graduate the Norland College) and I was looking for a temp job in the UK whilst I interviewed for positions overseas in the good old U.S. of A.  I didn't want to get tied down to another full time job in London when I knew that I really wanted to be out in the States.  So I did a couple of temp jobs.....one of them being a baby nurse with a family not too far outside of London.  This was a very affluent family with a fully staffed household who were already quite well known to the college and had a bit of a reputation for going through nannies....but I thought...how hard can it be...it's just for 3 months!  I'll give it a try.

Like I said the position was to care for a newborn and they also had a 2 yr old girl. Each child had a nanny and each nanny had their own self contained flat (apartment) on the 3rd floor of the house.  I would work 5 days, 24 hours a day and then have 2 days off.  During those 2 days off the other nanny had both children and when she had her 2 days off I had both.  It was exhausting!  The baby barely slept, she cried a lot and I had my first real taste of as close to motherhood as I could possibly get.

Now you may ask where the mother was in all of this.....well....she was resting a lot of the time...and taking care of the household.....she did come up and spend some time with the baby and I would take the baby to her in the evenings to be fed.  This whole situation was a little (shall we say) 'unusual' to me but to each their own.....it's people like this that give us nannies a job. 

It was definitely an interesting job.  Not one that I would have stayed in full time but I was glad for the experience (after all, I could put baby nurse on my resume now).   Christmas fell a week before the end of the job, so I went back home to celebrate with the family....and had full intentions of returning but fell sick with a heavy cold/flu so thought it wise not to be around the baby.  During this time I had been offered the position full time but it was not what I was looking for so I politely declined.

A couple of weeks later I got a call from the agency at college for a chat to see how the job had gone.  They were looking for feedback on the day to day reality of the job so they could give applicants a better description of the position!  At the end of the conversation a very awkward "umming and ahhhing" came over the line.....the lady that I was talking to wasn't sure how to tell me what she had to tell me.  I had a dreaded feeling come over me as she told me that there had been a formal complaint against me logged with the college.  I was aghast....I had taken care of that baby in the best possible way, I was polite to the mother and the other members of family and staff, always a cheery disposition, I had even insisted we visit the doctor when I thought the baby had thrush on the tongue (which she had)....I couldn't believe there was a complaint about me!  I racked my brains at 100mph trying to figure out what I had possibly done wrong.  The voice on the other end of the line told me not to worry at all, the college was not taking it seriously as they had had some experience with this family before.....of course I had to ask what the complaint was.....and I could barely believe my ears when I was told "you walked around the house loudly in your slippers"!
WHAT????????      oh wait there's more..... 
"you walked around the house loudly in your slippers and you knew it annoyed Mr. X but you still kept doing it".

Well if that's the worst complaint they had then I was pretty chuffed!  I put it down to the fact that I turned down the job and they were so miffed about it that they felt the need to complain, and I definitely don't need to be around people like that!

This was my first introduction to the crazy stories I was about to encounter during the next 20 years of being a nanny.

Are there any nannies out there that have a story to share that feel will not implicate their jobs, relationships or reputations?  (And I don't mean my close friends cos I'm gonna need you and your stories to fill this blog at a later date).

HAPPY FRIDAY EVERYONE!