How and when to be goo

Search of the Week!
As goo as it gets



I think that's my favourite typo ever.





My Dad and I were having a discussion a while ago about Celebrity Apprentice and I simply could not get over how much I hated Omorosa. I mean, really hate, and not even knowing her in real life or anything makes that even more disturbing. What is it about that woman I despise so much? I asked myself.

If I had to pick just a few things I think makes a person a symbol for everything wrong I see in the world it would be a combination of illegitimized self-importance, sub-par integrity and unprofessional emotional 'personal story' outbursts. I can't stand all three, and I haven't even mentioned being rude or anything. I don't enjoy that either but let's face it, anyone can be rude! Since you people don't read my site for nothing, though it seems that way most times doesn't it? I will share a totally hypothetical story we will call "When things are just goo for one person, it isn't goo for everybody" ... and if you think I'm unnecessarily getting myself in any hot water, I appreciate it, but I'm only going to remind you what kind of site this is and that you read it for just this exact reason. I make my own rules, there are volumes and volumes of potential material which I don't write about, so if blogging on the SCARY subject of what happens at work still frightens you then I'd stop reading now. It's all entertainment, people; all of it. Let's continue.


Once upon a time...
So I run a private daycare, I love doing it, I love the kids, I have a great relationship with parents. The first child I took back in September we'll call Child A (the one who kept telling me she was high.. I'll miss that) and her mother we'll refer to as, oh I dunno, Mother F. lol. Now since things were pretty new, I disclosed that fact to Mother F, and said that in the future there would be a lot of changes but in the meantime we can make room for Child A. Our agreement was for a certain rate per day, Child A would attend every day. This only happened maybe 3 times in 7 months, since Mother F quit or was fired from her new job and stopped working regularly. That meant Child A was now inconsistent and it was becoming a problem to run a regular routien. Amplifying the problem is the fact that there were a long list of demands from Mother F regarding care during this time that did not change at my end, though she changed hers. Some possible examples might be:

• no tv whatsoever, even if other children want to watch 5-10mins of a show during snacks
• special diet of food from home, causing sharing issues with te rest of the kids, as well as Child A repeatedly asking for food that wasn't hers
  
• toys from home, special damn bowls from home, things that had to be washed everyday and never shared with other kids
• give homeopathic remedies, without written consent this is a liability, and I also needed an emergency medical form signed that it is OK to call 911 etc in case of an emergency
  
• no formal contract
• weekly tax receipts
  
• food preparation demands including: never using a microwave, cutting and peeling things a "certain way" (even peeling skins of individually sliced cucumbers) and cooking a single burrito in an oven for 1 hour.
• going along with Child A when she decided to stop napping, which is basically the only break time, and have her either mutter to herself creepily or pass out and pee on something
• wanted pick up and drops offs of Child A to be generally "whenever" which isn't great for the kids schedules, and planning activities, and started needing me to charge only half-days even! It was almost pay per hourly at this point.
  

Other extras that amplified the problem of not attending regularly... Child A had actually not just been afraid but literally pee'd herself when she saw anyone male. She might even bawl her eyes out if she heard strange voices, male or female or both, (who were laughing with other kids) and absolutely always stiffened up around any man and asked to be carried even if they stayed completely clear of Child A. Also ice and garbage trucks were fairly scary too. We couldn't do anything if it was garbage day! And the best for last, of course, Mother F was an emotional basket case. She would cry and hug me and snap at me pretty consistently, like the stains the "hour in the oven burrito" left on clothes but that she insisted on bringing anyway, which was nothing in comparison when I heard how she spoke to her husband in front of me. Although things started out as merely trying to do something nice for someone (and gain experience while working out the details later) and giving it a LOT of time to pan out.. I had been communicating back that this was no longer a fair agreement for everyone involved.

Agreements like these work flawlessly and respectfully only when the terms are clearly laid out in contracts, to protect both parties, and in so much detail it's impossible to misunderstand. I hated that formality until now, but in the meantime I did try and fix things. It was a magnificent failure, and I lost my voice for a few hours because of it. I had a meeting with her for an hour and a half, non-stop talking, listening to pure opinion and nonsense as well as personal stories about their lives that I did not need to know to come to any agreement. Realizing temporary failure, we made a temporary handshake agreement to bring Child A no less than 2 times a week. Yes, people with integrity do still make handshake agreements... unfortunately people without integrity break them, and that of course inevitably happened. Mother F got sick and did not even call me for a week and a half. I dunno about you, but if my job didn't contact me for that length of time I wouldn't still consider that I had a job to go back to! So the failure of trying to speak with her in person previously gave me no choice but to address everything written in email .. yanno, stop using this as a cheap baby-sitting service etc. Not a big deal, not personal... please dear God don't make this personal. lol.

Hilariously though the response was an email ranting on about how I, personally of course, am unprofessional for not rushing to the phone after the weeks of no contact with me! lol.. but wasting over an hour talking in person would be totally professional. Maybe I should really take a business course on time management, hmm. Also professional? calling me obsessively, 5 times in the span of 10am-2pm on a working day. When you work around children you find about zero time to speak with anyone unless at a sheduled time or very quickly, and basket cases even less than that. Yes, less than zero, where you actually wish you could go back in time and not speak with them on previous occasions. lol. From the details about Mother F we can just assume what her reaction was, but even I didn't expect something so amature as what it ended up being: paying a weekly rate just like everyone else = extortion and manipulitive games! I "had another thing coming" if I thought people would agree to what they already have been when they find good childcare, especially happy to do so when all of their needs are met 100%. I mean let's be clear, she had absolutely zero issues with bringing her kid here and even gave an unsolicited reference for using the daycare to another potential parent just weeks before. Really forever assuring me I did exactly the right thing; she can pay the (absolute) minimum to someone else and be their headache instead.

The End.

Man, wasn't that a great hypothetical story?! If any of those events actually happened or any of those people existed, aside from me who does clearly exist, that would be pretty unbelievable.

To be honest when I come in contact with a control freak like Mother F and people like her, as strong as my impulse is to mess up their hair, I am ultimately disarmed by the pity I feel for their life choices. That must be such a massive amount of energy they have to put out just to function.. to maintain how important they think they are.. and to have everything in your life be a wreck because of another person you could not 'manage' - all I want to really do is ask

"Have you ever considered how often things seem to just happen to you?"

Just a question. Don't worry, this entry is never going to mysteriously disappear for anyone so feel free to come back and read it again. Also, Happy Easter everyone! :)