The Slothful Moth

Ratcha fratcha, piece of wtf, holy hell!!

Incoming venting, freaking out, etc!!   You are warned.

As I’ve posted recently, Mrs Moth is going back to work next week after a year at home with Emma.

We had a daycare all lined up.

Unfortunately, over the past while, the operator of that daycare has done several things that have annoyed us, frustrated us, and had us second guessing using her service.

A friend who was also signed up to use the same daycare cancelled when it turned out her job wasn’t available for her to return to, and she had a HELL of a time getting her deposit back from the daycare.

Then the daycare operator decided to change our contract, with basically no notice, to ask for a full months deposit instead of the existing 1/2 month.

We were hesitant, but still felt Ok with the daycare overall, and so after a bit of checking into it, decided to OK it.

Then the daycare operator missed an appointment with Lisa (she was taking Emma there to hang out at the daycare for a while, as she had done a couple times already, to get her a bit used to it).  The operator just wasn’t home, and hadn’t called to cancel, reschedule, etc.

Lisa left a message and was called back later and informed that the operator had to make an unexpected trip to the hospital as she’d stumbled/fell on the stairs.  OK, good excuse.

They rescheduled the appointment for earlier this week.

Lisa went to the appointment, and the operator was AGAIN not home.  Keep in mind, this is a home-based daycare, so the home IS the daycare.

Lisa was, rightfully so, irritated and called and left another message indicating her frustration.

She later got a call back that the operator was again at the hospital, having “blood work” doen for some unexpected thing.  But again, no call to reschedule.  And you can’t tell me she decided on the spur of the moment to go to the hospital for blood work… she obviously knew about it ahead of time.

So… Lisa told her we were at a point where we were not happy with the way we were being dealt with, and were very concerned about her unreliability.  Part of it is the fact that we pay for daycare days even on days the operator has to close for illness.  This is somewhat standard here… but given she was unexpectantly cosed due to illness/injury twice in two weeks… yeah… not good.

On top of all that, on times when we’ve visited the daycare, there have VERY rarely been any other kids there… which is odd.

So, anyways, Lisa checked around and found a new daycare with an opening, that could start next week.  Less costly.  There are replacement providers in case the primary is ill or has to be away for anything, so basically there are no closed days.    There are other kids there all the time.

We also get some free days of care… we pay based on 4 weeks (20 days) of care, and on months when there are 21-22 days of actual daycare provided, we still only pay the 20-day amount.

We called references and got glowing reviews.

So, we decided to bite the bullet and go with the new daycare, KNOWING that we’d lose our months deposit with the old daycare (required to give a months notice to get the deposit back).

Then the NEXT wrinkle was, Lisa called the old provider to inform her, and to arrange to go pick up our cheques (we had given advanced, post-dated cheques for a few months worth), and was told that we are also on the hook for the first month of daycare, as per the contract.

WTF!?!

Lisa found the contract and looked at it, and indeed, it’s true.    In the case of less than 30 days notice, we lose the deposit, and are on the hook for the next month unless the provider fills the spot by the 1st…. which obviously won’t happen.

Fuck!!!  (sorry for my language, but this is incredibly frustrating.)

It’s our own damn fault for not seeing the writing on the wall sooner… we should never have given more money for the deposit.

We should have decided earlier that this wasn’t looking right, so we’d have been able to give a months notice.

We should have read/understood the contract more carefully.

So we certainly have ourselves to blame.

But damn it, we feel like we’ve been taken advantage of.

The only reason we are bailing on the daycare is because she has proven to be entirely unreliable, and lacks respect for us in that she never saw the need to let us know she was going to miss a scheduled meeting.

So we’re stuck by the damn contract that we signed… damn it!!

So now, assuming we still go with the new daycare, which we will… because I primary concern is Emma, and we don’t trust the old provider ay more… we have the deposit to pay for the new daycare (which luckily is just 1/2 a month)… we don’t get our old deposit back… we have to pay for a month of care at the old daycare, which we are not using… plus pay for the new daycare as the bills come up (every 15th and 30th of each month).

I think we’ve got the money to cover all that, but only barely, and it is a total piss off to be basically throwing all that money away… we might as well be flushing hundred dollar bills down the damn toilet.

So again I say Fuck!!!
*gasp … wheeze… huff… growl… drool … puff…*
Anyhoo… sorry for the rant… I just needed to vent, and this is a place for me to vent.

It’ll all work out… as I said, the prime concern is Emma’s welfare, so if we lose a bucket of money on the deal… OK… it’s a piss off, but that’s better than having Emma be in the hands of someone who has lost our trust and respect.

I just hope that we are able to rebuild the chequing account after throwing away this money to cover everything in the near future.  >_<