Okie dokie story time #2- Daycare!
I applied to a small Mon-Fri daycare business that had 3 locations in my city. Age range was 6 weeks to 5 years. I had literally zero experience with babies and was rather unsure about smallish children in general, but they offered me a deal where I would take training classes that they paid for and get my Child Development Associate's from that. Sweet deal, that's the equivalent of two years of college. They offered me a "substitute" position to start off with which was a) annoying for me, going between locations and b) a ridiculous thing to do to someone with zero experience who needs to be trained. Whatever, it was a job in the education field sort of.
First week, I did training with a lady who would become my coworker and worked twenty hours at the main location about an hour bus ride from my house. Barely learned anything besides how to play with kids. Second week, I worked 40 hours in another location mostly by myself as a sub for a toddler teacher! No training no help no nothing! Thank god the infant teacher had the patience to teach me how to change a diaper. Wow. But yeah just me and 2-4 toddlers the entire week. They knew I had zero experience and knew nothing and yet!
Anyway, that location was closer to my house and the teachers kept going on leave so I was assigned there permanently- with the person I had trained in with. It was great, actually, I honestly loved that job. Especially when I essentially gave my friend a job there too. :D The problem was always with the management, though.
- Our location director showed up four hours a day to complain at us and be annoyed at the kids. Didn't even close or open? And we answered the phones most of the time? I'm still not sure what she did.
- Our timecard program was constantly on the fritz and we had to write down our hours and turn them in more often than not. Not even on official timecards- just... post its and index cards and on one occasion a napkin.
- The owner of the daycares was almost always straight up short on money and asked us to hold onto our paychecks for up to a week instead of...
- Cutting back on the amount of food ordered. The main location was her baby and every day cooked literally 3x the amount of food needed for everyone in the building. Meanwhile at my location, the teachers often went without just to make sure the kids had barely enough. We supplemented them with our own food, too.
- We often ran out of supplies midweek and one of us had to run to Target to get enough wipes/diapers/paper towels to last us through the end of the week. We were never reimbursed.
- Classrooms at the main location got new stuff all the time, but my location had the teachers scavenging thrift stores and yard sales. Also not reimbursed. We also had like no outdoor toys- the kids played with red solo cups and plastic spoons in the sandbox.
- The kids were WILD before my coworker and I got there and made them understand discipline. The previous teachers had just let them walk all over them. Once there were clearly defined rules, their behaviour improved drastically.
- Out of 26 kids in my location, two were diagnosed special needs and ~10 were evaluated by a professional observer as undiagnosed special needs. No consideration was given to any of them for this. Thank god my friend and I both had experience with neuro-atypical kids. We quickly found out what worked and what didn't with them and developed great strategies.
- Despite being advertised as a pre-k learning center, there were no lessons and barely a schedule. This improved, but no thanks to management.
- I went through being partnered with four different toddler teachers in six months- I was essentially the teacher, but without the pay. The others were just there because they needed someone qualified in the room, while I did all the work.
Anyway. I was classified as a Toddler Teacher's Aide for that location, with my friend being Preschool Assistant Teacher and our reliable coworker as the Preschool Teacher. We ran the show. I cooked sometimes because our cook was often out for terrible reasons, and did a better job than she did every time. I was still occasionally dragged back to the main site to work, but whatever that was fine. Except for the time the owner was like "oh I need you Monday thru Wednesday", which turned into thru Friday, which turned into thru the following Friday. I was very irritated at that bull. And then.
The owner told us she was closing the third site. Yikes.
So everything got merged into our location, except for the kids. Cool, no longer as sadly poor. But the owner was still letting people go and cutting hours left and right. And then she decided she wanted to give up our location. So she made a deal to partner with our Preschool Teacher and take a year to transition everything over to her. Cool. In the meantime, while they were transitioning that, the owner lost the main site because the people who owned the building wanted it back. And all her poor management skills were catching up to her. But that's not to do with me.
So we're now the same business, just with a different name and owner. Half the staff was retained (there were only eight of us and people were quitting left and right), and the new owner brought in... her family and friends. Suddenly, everything my friend and I had worked toward helping our coworker achieve meant nothing, because she hired people she liked better. We were quickly made redundant. She was lucky, and got a job offer elsewhere. I just eventually quit- AFTER being dropped to part time, which was apparently meant as "on call", as I usually was getting my hours in a text the morning of. I couldn't live like that. I am a creature of routine.
It was heartbreaking to quit because I loved the hell out of those kids. I spent six months with them- that's a hell of a long time in the life of a tiny child. I met the babies when they could barely roll over, and when i left they were walking! Amazing. But so sad.
Anyway, I keep ending up in crappy businesses and staying because I get settled easily and put up with a lot of nonsense.
