About a year ago, the ad agency I worked for let me go and while I looked for another job in advertising, I started babysitting to pay the bills. It was somewhat surprising to me how much I liked working as a babysitter: the hours are flexible, the pay is under the table, and you get to tell your co-workers what to do. However, things took an unexpected turn when June arrived and summer vacations began. I had assumed that with the kids being out of school my hours would increase. I was dead wrong; all my babysitting jobs dried up and I began to get desperate. Like, pricing-out-valuables desperate.
I get all of my babysitting gigs from a very well-respected site (that will go unnamed here). I began trolling the website multiple times a day and applying to everything in a 15 mile radius. “Looking for a nanny with infant experience” — hey, I was an infant once! “Must be fluent in Spanish” — dame trabajo ahora! “Must have your own car” — I could probably dig up a vehicle somewhere!
I was frantic, until one day I saw an ad for a nanny position posted by a woman named “Santina.” Keep reading »
