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mumofone
30-03-2016, 10:03 AM
I'm considering not taking on a new client because we keep all getting ill and ive been finding im working too hard and not enjoying it. My only concern though is that if one of my families then leaves it puts me in a vulnerable position. I don't know whether to take on the new client just for added security. Has anyone been in this situation?

Jessymax
30-03-2016, 10:26 AM
touch wood- I don't seem to get ill, but my poor partner seems to even though hes rarely around them :(
I know its a different situation (although you say you arn't enjoying it at the moment) but I am slowly telling parents im stopping but for last 8 weeks I haven't advertised even though running full the money is v good much more than I will get in any other job but the thought of more children put me off!! x

mama2three
30-03-2016, 04:33 PM
Mumof one I have regularly been in a similar situation. I need to earn a certain amount to cover bills etc and worry that this job is so precarious , I could find myself going from as full as I want to be to being quiet in no time at all. I have a few fulltimers , so obviously if one leaves its a large amount to lose..( worse if its my 3 day twins!) I have taken on extra children because of this in the past ...because I feel like if I dont take it whilst its there then business may well be absent when I need it!

mumofone
30-03-2016, 05:47 PM
Mumof one I have regularly been in a similar situation. I need to earn a certain amount to cover bills etc and worry that this job is so precarious , I could find myself going from as full as I want to be to being quiet in no time at all. I have a few fulltimers , so obviously if one leaves its a large amount to loose..( worse if its my 3 day twins!) I have taken on extra children because of this in the past ...because I feel like if I dont take it whilst its there then business may well be absent when I need it!

Yeh, I'm thinking I'm going to have to take the extra business, it's just too precarious without it. Oh my goodness, 3 day twins, that's a good earner! :-)

Maza
30-03-2016, 06:21 PM
September is only around the corner. For me that has always been a time of some turnover - do you suspect some of yours might leave you around that time? It's all such a gamble isn't it?

Is there anything you could adapt in the way you work so that you could give yourself a bit of slack, so to speak? Maybe easier meals, activities which are easier to prepare/clean up?

bunyip
02-04-2016, 04:02 PM
I'm considering not taking on a new client because we keep all getting ill and ive been finding im working too hard and not enjoying it. My only concern though is that if one of my families then leaves it puts me in a vulnerable position. I don't know whether to take on the new client just for added security. Has anyone been in this situation?

I really do feel for you MO1.

The illness thing seems inevitable. I get far more (minor) illnesses now , working with 10 children, than I ever did working on the trains at an international airport where we had 1000's of passengers daily sneezing most the world's diseases all over us. :p

There are many paradoxes in childcare, and it's often worth recognising and stating the obvious to help us see and understand the picture. We're self-employed and make our own decisions, but paradoxically, we're forever hostage to the fortunes of other people. Our work depends on parents' work so, yes, it's always a precarious situation, leaving us tempted to take on that 'one more child' as a security against receiving sudden notice. The danger is that you get used to the money and then you feel you need that 'extra' child, not as a security, but as an essential IYSWIM. I say this just so you're mindful that you need to manage that possibility and not turn a solution into yet another worry: something I've certainly been guilty of before now.

It's not really a decision any of us can make for another; but if it helps, most of us have been in precisely the same dilemma.

With me, it's not so much about the money (although that is nice) since I'm definitely the second earner at Bunyip Towers (as Mrs B frequently reminds me. :rolleyes:) But I do like to control the numbers to what I find comfortably manageable and have what I see as a good mix or a good dynamic of different children.

I'm sure this must happen to a lot of CMs, though at the time I always feel like it's just my bad luck. Every now and then, just as I reach what I think is as close as I'll get to the perfect numbers/mix, something comes up and it's all blown sky-high again.

I was ticking along nicely just recently with a nice pattern of attendance. Then in the space of three days, three mums requested to change their days/hours. This includes one mum who started DS on 1 day pw; increased to 2 days; reduced back to 1; then split that into 2 half-days and now wants to consolidate back to one day, before ultimately (but not yet) having to decide whether she goes back to work, leaving us with DS plus new baby sister, or gives up work and removes DS altogether. (Phew! :eek:)

I somehow managed to accommodate them, only to receive a request for a short-notice new starter. It's someone we'd had visit last year and both of us agreed we'd be the right place for the lo, but mum didn't get the job she wanted. Then she had a sudden job offer a couple of weeks ago and needed an almost immediate start. Somehow, we fitted her in, right in the midst of the transition of the other 3 mums' changes. It meant us having 10 children across one day, not all at once, but with drop-off/collection times all strictly arranged to stay within the under-8's ratio. A close call, we had an illegal 15-minute overlap until one mum agreed to let me drop her DS early before picking up a schoolie. Phew! It still only works now because the holidays start this week and one schoolie has his 8th birthday before I have him again. Then it will settle down with all the children on their new hours................until the next change. (That'll be the mum who still hasn't quite decided on what to do after maternity with her second baby.)

Anyway, the point of me saying all this (OK, as well as venting) is to demonstrate the fine lines between how much of what we do being outside our control, and the need to take control of the bits we can control. Hence, you have both my sympathy for your situation and my admiration for approaching it in a level-headed manner.

One other thing, related to you feeling a lack of enjoyment. This is a personal comment, but I hope you don't take is as an "offensive" one. I get the impression from some of your threads that you are very thorough and detailed about everything. No bad trait in itself, and doG knows, I'm the same way inclined (making me either the best qualified person to point this out, or making me the most enormous hypocrite :p) It's sometimes worth reviewing (y)our modus operandi to see if we can't just simplify a few things, concentrate on what's really important and smell the roses a bit more...... or at least feed the ducks or join in more with the play-doh. :thumbsup: