I have employed the most fabulous Nanny. She makes Mary Poppins look like Cruella Devil. I loved her, the boys loved her, she loved us (I hope!) and it is all going to be lovely and wonderful happily ever after. She is going to do Arts and Crafts with the boys and make sure there is no sign of it left by the time I get home - music to my un-arty-crafty ears.
The whole 'being an employer' thing is a little grown-up for my liking however. 'Yes of course I can sort out your tax', I gushed, whilst inside actually thinking 'Shit - how the hell do I do that?!' Luckily, there are very efficient Nanny Tax agencies that do all of this for you, for a certain fee of course, and there are a ream of highly efficient sounding ladies with cut-glass accents at the end of the phone answering all my really rubbish enquiries quickly and correctly, and if they have a slightly patronising air about them then I am choosing not to notice. I was doing really well on the phone to their payroll help department earlier until they asked me if I figure I had just quoted them was gross or net. 'No idea', I said, 'but if I had to guess I would say gross'. Apparently however guessing is not the way forward when you are sorting out somebody's payroll...
I am doing everything correctly though and have downloaded a very officious contract from the agency. During the customisation of this contract though, I found myself deleting a clause about never drinking alcohol around the children. What if I got home early and decided that I wanted to treat the lovely Nanny to a little tipple in the garden one summer's afternoon? It would be dreadful to be in breach of one's own contract wouldn't it? Better to be safe than sorry in this house. ;-)
I hope that I am going to be a wonderful employer. I just need to keep her away from any of you lot. Particularly Shelley who might tell her the story of how I rearranged the washing up on the drip tray when she moved into the flat and told her 'we don't do it that way'. I'm not quite sure which 'we' I was referring to... Poor girl - doomed. ;-) x
Friday, 13 February 2015
Thursday, 5 February 2015
Jobsworths
I have had a vaguely irritating day full of encounters with flaky, inefficient people not really doing their jobs properly, which never really sits particularly well with me. As The Greek reminded me earlier, 'Darling', (he didn't call me darling, it will just annoy him intensely if I misquote him), 'you need to remember that not everyone is as good as you'. I duly stated that they should therefore all be fired with immediate effect.
My rumblings continued after the end of school when I discovered that my Green bin hadn't been cleaned after it had been emptied today. I pay the princely sum of £3.50 a month for this to happen and it hadn't happened for the second time in six months. I got hold of the bin cleaning man who told me it hadn't been cleaned as there was a banana skin at the bottom of it. I retorted that if a banana skin hadn't fallen into the lorry as it was being emptied then it was hardly my fault. Did bin-cleaning-man expect me to upend myself into the bin and retrieve it myself? When he started suggesting I found a long stick-type object to remove the banana skin so that the bin could be cleaned I decided to quickly end our standing order relationship. Jobsworth.
What was therefore going to tip me over the edge this afternoon? Craft, that's what. I am not a craft-mother. There are no paints in this house. Much of the boys artwork gets recycled without even surviving the walk home. I am the least artistic person you could meet and remember my art teacher giving up on me at the end of year nine and allowing me to sit on a desk and read a book whilst my classmates charcoal drew me - suited me nicely! We had a long and detailed email from Sebi's class teacher today telling us (parents) how we needed to provide an inverted box for technology on Monday. The box could not be resealed with sellotape as this could not be painted on top of so we needed to use masking tape or double-sided sticky tape (neither of which I had in the house, obviously). There was no way that was going to the shops to spend MONEY on equipment for CRAFT so I decided I would just be clever and make my own double sided sticky tape by folding normal sticky tape over and over on top of each other so that it stuck together. Read and learn and save yourselves. It is a really shit solution. Don't bother. I'm a stubborn cow though and as I'd started I was most definitely going to finish. Sebi now officially has the most rubbish inverted box with which to start his technology project. If it was Zak I would be worried that it is that rubbish that people would laugh at him. I don't worry about stuff like that with Seb - he has his mother's eyes... This is another reason I am looking forward to working full-time again. In a few months time I would simply delete the aforementioned email as I will be way too busy and important for that kind of caper. Or I will delegate to the Nanny (yep, Nanny, whoop whoop, another blog post to follow on that one), or the scary cleaner or in fact any of the Ward staff really... ;-) I'm waiting for Seb's class Mums' Facebook group to start collectively whinging about the box, I may even join in this time. They love a good whinge - previous whinges including Cathedral visits being too Christian, not being informed about the Year 1s visiting another classroom in the school day etc.., I have to be sure not to log onto the group with wine in my belly as I may start typing and offend; heaven forbid. I should just leave the group, but it is useful when it comes to things like finding out about boxes that need creating for craft activities...aha! That seals it then, (not the box, that is definitely still only partly sealed)!
Unfortunately, poor Stu is working away for a few days so I have nobody to take my random grumpiness out on. Fortunately, I can open the Veuve with no danger of sharesees and let my grumps float away on some bubbles. Fortunately, I'm still not dying and need to remember the pure joie de vivre that comes with that!
x
My rumblings continued after the end of school when I discovered that my Green bin hadn't been cleaned after it had been emptied today. I pay the princely sum of £3.50 a month for this to happen and it hadn't happened for the second time in six months. I got hold of the bin cleaning man who told me it hadn't been cleaned as there was a banana skin at the bottom of it. I retorted that if a banana skin hadn't fallen into the lorry as it was being emptied then it was hardly my fault. Did bin-cleaning-man expect me to upend myself into the bin and retrieve it myself? When he started suggesting I found a long stick-type object to remove the banana skin so that the bin could be cleaned I decided to quickly end our standing order relationship. Jobsworth.
What was therefore going to tip me over the edge this afternoon? Craft, that's what. I am not a craft-mother. There are no paints in this house. Much of the boys artwork gets recycled without even surviving the walk home. I am the least artistic person you could meet and remember my art teacher giving up on me at the end of year nine and allowing me to sit on a desk and read a book whilst my classmates charcoal drew me - suited me nicely! We had a long and detailed email from Sebi's class teacher today telling us (parents) how we needed to provide an inverted box for technology on Monday. The box could not be resealed with sellotape as this could not be painted on top of so we needed to use masking tape or double-sided sticky tape (neither of which I had in the house, obviously). There was no way that was going to the shops to spend MONEY on equipment for CRAFT so I decided I would just be clever and make my own double sided sticky tape by folding normal sticky tape over and over on top of each other so that it stuck together. Read and learn and save yourselves. It is a really shit solution. Don't bother. I'm a stubborn cow though and as I'd started I was most definitely going to finish. Sebi now officially has the most rubbish inverted box with which to start his technology project. If it was Zak I would be worried that it is that rubbish that people would laugh at him. I don't worry about stuff like that with Seb - he has his mother's eyes... This is another reason I am looking forward to working full-time again. In a few months time I would simply delete the aforementioned email as I will be way too busy and important for that kind of caper. Or I will delegate to the Nanny (yep, Nanny, whoop whoop, another blog post to follow on that one), or the scary cleaner or in fact any of the Ward staff really... ;-) I'm waiting for Seb's class Mums' Facebook group to start collectively whinging about the box, I may even join in this time. They love a good whinge - previous whinges including Cathedral visits being too Christian, not being informed about the Year 1s visiting another classroom in the school day etc.., I have to be sure not to log onto the group with wine in my belly as I may start typing and offend; heaven forbid. I should just leave the group, but it is useful when it comes to things like finding out about boxes that need creating for craft activities...aha! That seals it then, (not the box, that is definitely still only partly sealed)!
Unfortunately, poor Stu is working away for a few days so I have nobody to take my random grumpiness out on. Fortunately, I can open the Veuve with no danger of sharesees and let my grumps float away on some bubbles. Fortunately, I'm still not dying and need to remember the pure joie de vivre that comes with that!
x
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