Hiring a Nanny

http://raganwald.posterous.com/hiring-a-nanny

by raganwald • 16 years ago

42 16 16 years ago

raganwald.posterous.com

AmberShah• 16 years ago

I agree with this line of thinking completely for any hiring where the quality of the job is important. Programming? Yes. Nanny for my children? Yes. Washing my car? Shrug.

And yes, for the short period I had a nanny for my son, she was paid very well (well above "market"). And now that my dad is watching my son full time, I pay him even more. I don't understand the people who balk at paying $100 a week for childcare. Yes, it's expensive (although a lot cheaper than a nanny, by the way), but it's your child! Geez...

jemfinch• 16 years ago

How in the world can someone get away with paying $100/week for childcare? I couldn't find that price (as a buyer) even in smalltown Kansas early this year.

prawn• 16 years ago

Got a couple of friends with kids here in South Australia and they pay $70 a day (USD and AUD currently almost on par) for pretty standard child care. I think they'd be quite excited were $100/wk an option!

tptacek2• 16 years ago

As a buyer of child care, I had a hard time reasoning about the point 'raganwald is making because he is (inadvertantly, I'm sure) parroting an argument that plagues child care provider discussions on craigslist and drives me nuts.

The argument boils down to, "I believe that children are our future, and you drive a BMW so pay me $30/hr."

Yes, child care is a key priority. It's not something one wants to cut corners on. But pricing is based on supply and demand. Complex currents and eddies of value, sourcing, disruptive innovation, and changing requirements define both those terms.

A lowball offer might represent the unrealistic expectation that "my problems" (competing priorities) are "your problems". You can then rightly point out that my problems have nothing to do with how your time should be valued.

But a lowball offer might also represent price discovery. The spot price of child care is at least different from season to season --- which is the typical market cycle for child care --- and probably different from week to week. Discovery is a reasonable way to price child care.

To the craigslist gadflies, I can thus point out that there's an ample supply of dedicated, quality providers --- if you're discriminating and know where to look.[1]

To 'raganwald, I can only say that just as my competing priorities in budgeting headcount aren't your problem, neither is your problem of wanting the market for your services to work like that of a master craftsman my problem. If you're getting outbid and outperformed by cheap interns, the market may have shifted out from under you without you knowing about it.

Just food for thought. However much his clients are paying him, 'raganwald probably doesn't get paid enough.

[1] I think we pay over the market median price, but we love our provider, and will pay a premium for consistency; that premium is attached to a business relationship that took time to form.

btilly• 16 years ago

I think we pay over the market median price, but we love our provider, and will pay a premium for consistency; that premium is attached to a business relationship that took time to form.

I'm in the same boat.

If I was better off, I would gladly pay a much better premium than I do.

raganwald2• 16 years ago

If you are reasoning about this post based on market forces and equilibrium and what-not, I have failed to communicate what was on my mind.

I wasn't thinking, "Pay me $450,000 a year because I'm Raganwald" any more than I was thinking "Pay me $30 an hour because you drive a BMW." What I was really thinking was, "If you give me the impression you are trying to underpay, by whatever irrational measure I have of under- and over-payment, I am going to wonder whether you value my services. And I want to work in a place that values my services."

The cash itself is almost irrelevant, and I think that's why perquisites like chefs and masseuses work even though a "rational" employee would rather have the cash. The company going to the trouble of providing a lot of perquisites is sending a signal that they consider the employee's work important, and that matters to some employees.

I'll let you know if interns are outbidding me. So far, they aren't for the simple reason that I employ two slaves to do most of my work for me. One I call "CPU" and the other I call "The Compiler." The more of my work I get them to do, the better my value proposition compared to interns ;-)

tptacek2• 16 years ago

I guess the real point I want to make is that child care may be a bad example, because there are a lot of providers complaining very loudly that they are getting underpaid (relative to the standard of living enjoyed by their clients), and it turns out to be very easy to ignore them and source quality child care anyways.

I liked your post, as usual. I'm just saying there was cognitive dissonance between the analogy you chose and the point you were making.

lsc2• 16 years ago

>The argument boils down to, "I believe that children are our future, and you drive a BMW so pay me $30/hr."

This carries over to a lot of things besides childcare. I mean, when you appear to be ostentatiously wealthy, service people assume that you are rich and try to charge accordingly. Early in my career, I drove a BMW. I mean, it was used, maybe 7 years old when I got it, but it was still a pretty nice car. (I was raised on Skinner and Montessori. this was my rebellion.) I mean, at the time, it was somewhat cheaper than a new honda civic, but unless you were a BMW enthusiast, you wouldn't have been able to tell it wasn't newer.

But it's funny how differently service people treat you when you drive up in a bmw vs. the beat-up 15 year old nissan I got after the motorcycle that I got after the bmw. It's not like the cars aren't comparable; I mean, the bmw would go around corners faster, and would blow the doors off anything "normal" in the 60-120Mph range, but as for 0-60 straight line performance? the maxima is faster.

I mean, I liked the BMW, it was a nice car... but it didn't help at all when I was trying to negotiate.

jon_dahl• 16 years ago

This is mostly true, but I think it leaves one thing out: risk. You can get a programmer for $40K that will be as good as a $80K programmer if you're willing to take a risk - e.g. folks early in their career who haven't proven themselves yet. You just can't guarantee it ahead of time. It's risky. And if you find someone awesome, they won't stay at $40K for long.

lsc2• 16 years ago

you can also make tradeoffs... e.g. the programmer who, say, has poor interpersonal skills, all other things being equal, will not be able to command the same wage as someone else who is just as good of a programmer with better interpersonal skills. If you can find a programmer who has a problem holding down their market value that you can deal with more easily than most employers, you can come away with a deal that is good for you and for the programmer in question.

run4yourlives• 16 years ago

This is probably not a politically correct thing to say these days but it bothers me that we see no problem in outsourcing the upbringing of our children to the lowest bidder.

If we spent half as much effort on our kids directly as we do on our personal passions (be they work, our hobbies etc) the world would be a better place.

Rest assured I'm not singling out or criticizing any particular person or their personal family choices, just observing trends that seem on the surface to have a net negative impact, long term.

petercooper• 16 years ago

I agree with you, but you can get grief both ways.

If you decide to go with having just one working parent (as my wife and I have - I'm the sole "breadwinner"), the working parent's motivations and intentions still seem to be questioned.

It's bizarre that anyone should have the gall to comment on how many hours I spend with my child (or not) when I'm supporting the entire family and allowing her the benefit of a full-time mom, yet it happens.

JoeAltmaier3• 16 years ago

I find it galling that people consider children to be something to be "outsourced".

Hiring a Nanny

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