MVWJ was at a day care in the basement of a residence the summer after my freshman year of college. My boss, K, was infrequently down there with us (there were three of us looking after 13 children under the age of three), but had specific ideas about the way things ought to be done. For instance, we were forced to take our lunches at the exact times dictated, regardless of whether we were in the middle of something. At lunch time, food had to be prepared, kids needed to be fed and cleaned, diapers changed, beds made and everyone laid down for naps while no one was left unattended. Noon was when the first girl was supposed to take her lunch break and I was supposed to leave at 12:30pm, leaving the third girl essentially on her own during the busiest time of day. K viewed overtime as stealing her money and I was chastised for leaving half an hour late, though I was sorely needed.

K had a highly impractical schedule for each day. If she found us off-schedule, she lectured us. Of course, if she was with the kids, she deviated more than anyone, putting fussy kids down for naps because she didn’t want to listen to them cry. Two of the kids in our care were K’s children, who were by far the worst behaved. K became upset if she came downstairs and found her unruly son in time out, even though he often hit other children and called teachers names. He had been kicked out of several preschools and she left him with us when she got tired of dealing with him. At one point she told us we weren’t allowed to put him down for naps because he no longer needed them, leaving him up to pester us on our time off and the only chance we had to accomplish the huge cleaning tasks she left for us, which included bleaching toys and polishing the stairs of her home.

Worst of all, she was stingy. Halfway through the summer, she took to locking up the supply closet, where the cleaning materials and trash bags were stored, to prevent waste. She claimed to have lost the key, but she “found” it pretty quickly when she needed something. She bought the cheapest materials for the day care, but had nice things in her home upstairs. She eliminated morning snack time, saying the kids didn’t need to be fed between breakfast at 7:30am and lunch at noon, because she didn’t want to pay for food. We took to sneaking them snacks, because if we didn’t, they would completely break down around 10am. K also shorted our checks. She attributed it to the computer system she used “rounding” on our times, but often it was too big an error for that explanation. At any attempt to discuss it, she became belligerent and self-righteous. If pressed, she would print off the hours record and show it to you, then take it away with her, leaving you no chance to examine it closely.

I loved the children and the girls I worked with, but it was a toxic work environment. In my three months, five families left the center and four employees quit, not counting myself. I left at the end of the summer to return to school and I would never go back.