Assistant Help Again - Sorry Long

[gbcc]

I'm sure that you know that you already know this but you have to prepared to lose her friendship. Since she has been taking advantage of you, I wouldn't consider her much of a friend anyway.

Yes, I think this is why I am allowing it to happen. She really does help me out a lot around the home with fixing things, steam cleaning, general cleaning, her bf fixes my car ect. A true friend would be concerned about my business though.

[Janet]

My 2 cents....

I had the assistant thing going for a while and I truly hated it! The first one I had brought her 2 kids and they counted in my ratio. Also, she would call off quite a bit. She wanted special priveledges for her sons, too, and that always rubbed me the wrong way. We also had very different ideas about how to provide the best care. She was all about letting them run around, scream, yell and just do whatever they felt like as long as they were happy! I'm all about routine and consistency, which doesn't mean no fun, it just means less chaos. I was losing quite a bit of money by having her because of her kids coming for free. We're still friends, but we probably wouldn't have been if we'd kept working together. Another assistant just downright hated the job. She would go home at night and just be a nervous wreck. She had calling in issues, too. I think that this is a job that can be darn near impossible to do well if you don't have your heart in it! I really started to realize that I needed to be in a position where I wasn't forced to rely on anyone else and I went back to family care. Now I only need me and I know that I won't be calling in! I do have a friend who is a provider who covers for me if I have dr. appointments or the like. She also covers on the occasions when I have gotten sick. She covers my vacations and covers when I just want to take a day to catch up on cleaning or whatever the case may be. We work well together because we both want the same thing. We have the same basic philosophies regarding child care and I never have to worry about her flaking out on me or disregarding the policies that I have set in place or letting the kids break rules that they know are always the rules and that never change. I totally love my new assistant! She rocks! Granted, if she were here everyday then maybe things would be different, but that's why I opted to stay small.

[MarinaVanessa]

I would also change her salary position. This would be my first step. My younger sister (18) works part-time as my assistant after-school and such and I made it very clear at the beggining that I would only be paying her hourly. If she didn't come, she didn't get paid. Also if she called out (unless she's sick or has a valid excuse) I won't call her to use her. There is another friend of mine that is in the process of getting her Child Development associates and has a lot of free time. If my sister can't make it I call her. So my sister knows that if she calls out I may not call her to come back for a few days. I usually have my friend cover the rest of the week too so that it's in her best interest to help me out on such short notice. I just can't stand when people want to hang out and have fun and call outfrom work but want to put me in a bad spot at my daycare.

[Unregistered]

Maybe you could terminate her children that you care for. Then maybe she will quit. I don't know if you have a contract with her for the children, but I'm not sure if it matters if she doesn't pay for their care.