This week may have been one of the most blistering weeks I have ever experienced in my life as I near my first year living "on my own" in New York. And folks, I don't just mean the rando-heat wave.
On Tuesday morning, I received an early phone call from my paid internship, saying that I had been replaced. {pause with me as we reflect on my life...how exactly does one get replaced at an internship???} Why? Because I apparently didn't give them enough notice about my having to leave for two weeks to do overtime whilst the parents were both shooting. Which ladies and gentlemen, I did in fact. So while I had every intention of going into work on Monday for a full two weeks of making up time I took off, well...that plan is now shot to hell.
I apparently then made it down to Tarturus (just so you know...I've been reading a lot of Percy Jackson. Which I HIGHLY recommend.) when the family I sit for decided on a whim to head to their beach house a week early before their trip to France. I may have actually balked. This therefore comes to mean...that I am literally out of work for 3ish weeks (I still work part-time as a B&N barista, but picking up spare shifts is hard to come by). This is also on top of that month long vacation in August.
After working as a professional babysitter/nanny for the past 10 months, been fired from a job (back in December) and replaced at an internship (this past week), there have been many many MANY lessons that I've learned. And many things that I wish to point out for some parents who decide to hire a personal babysitter/nanny. Here is my list, let's call it the "Babysitters' Amendments Or: Ways to Not Get Cussed Out":
1) Please respect that sleep is necessary. I like it. You like it. I need it if I am supposed to look after your kids.
2) If you don't plan to actually listen to how I'm doing with my life when you ask me, then for the love of baby Jesus DO NOT ASK.
3) If you hear me talk about struggles of making it on my own, it is NOT adequate to say "okay" or "that sucks". That is not empathy, that is privilege.
4) It is important for you to realize that while there are a growing number of young post graduates who become nannies/babysitters/mannies/etc., please know that there are many life goals we wish to accomplish before middle age. And staying with your family for a long time is not really in the cards.
5) I am not an accessory. Period. If you really have no reason for me to be with you while you are with you child/ren, I would like to leave.
6) While having an internship is swell, being able to have a job to pay your rent and bills is better. And it is a really-tall-roller-coaster-sinking-gut-feeling when you are out of work.
7) Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet when life is telling you to take a break and refigure some stuff out.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not the type to really sit on my a** and mope. I just happen to search for more jobs and mope. No sense in being unproductive.
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