Babysitting Hell
When I was a slip of a girl at 15, my mother said she had a babysitting job for me. All I had to do was look after two of her friend's children for the weekend while their parents went away, and I'd get one hundred pounds! At the time, this was untold riches, and so I accepted.

Of course, you'll already guess that the weekend was hell. I got there to find that one of the kids had Asperger's, and the other wouldn't let me alone for five seconds. I also had to feed a psycho cat and clean out two tortoises that stank of shit. The house was creepy and msot of the lights didn't work, and the house computer had such delightful entries in the AutoComplete as 'hottest pissing housewives'. It got worse when I realised that I was being paid just under £2 for each hour I was working.

Still, I figured £100 was a pretty good haul for a weekend sitting and watching kids' films, so when they offered me a whole week, Monday to Friday, while they went to Madeira, I accepted. This time, I said I wanted to be paid £2.50 an hour, £60 a day - I didn't think that was unreasonable for looking after two children, one with special needs, and three pets, cooking, cleaning, doing homework with them, and taking the kids to and from their school on my way to mine.

But no! They waited until they got back from their holiday - until after I'd done the work - and then the stingy fucking father said that if I wanted more money, then he wasn't going to pay me for all the hours I wasn't looking after them. This included when they were at school and when they were sleeping! I saw red at this point, but I believe my vague words were 'Give me the money I'm owed or I'll tell the police you left your kids with a teenager all week.'

They paid up, but I wasn't asked to sit again. They must have found some other poor sap to work for a pittance wage. The dad was such a cheap twat though, he told my mum that to rent their villa would cost £x for five people and £2x for ten people... because you know, an extra five people staying there would cost him twice as much. Mum, to her credit, told him where to stick it.
(Onion Terror, Tue 21 Feb 2006, 13:20, Reply)