Waging World War 3 with the Daycare

Ugh. Yesterday was not fun. Poor little Jake-a-boops had to go to the doctor and get shots in each of his extremities (and came back with four adorable little band-aids!), and then Ralph drove him all the way down to the cruddy little town where I work to drop him off at daycare. Ralph came to my office, then we both took Jake to daycare (so I could show him where Jake's supplies go, how to sign in, etc), then Ralph and I planned to go have lunch.

Evil Anonymous Daycare Center:

So we take him into the center and start to put his things away. Immediately, the administrator of the daycare launches into a tirade against us. "No! No! He can't stay!" Ralph and I look at each other puzzled. "But... I... have a doctor's note," I offer, knowing this is part of their policy. "Doesn't matter - you have to call." I refer to the sign on the door of the baby room which says "If you arrive after 10 am you must have a doctor's note." She says she doesn't care what the sign says, I have to call, too bad for us, Jake has to go home. This argument goes on for a matter of minutes, becoming heated and increasingly rude from her side. I am not budging. "But I've paid for the entire week. I've paid for you to be fully staffed and to admit my child - regardless of whether or not he attends."

Evil Anonymous Daycare Adminstrator:

Ignorant administrator woman tells me she can get the owner. "Good! Great! I'd love to speak with her!" I turn to Ralph with clenched teeth - "So help me God, if they do not let him attend today, I will take him out of here and NEVER come back." (I have no "Plan B", by the way...) In addition to paying for him to attend all day, we are now wasting an hour of our workday arguing, and an hour of commuting time for Ralph to bring Jake down to this crappy town and drive back up.

So after a few minutes, the owner lady comes in, and Ralph and I pleasantly introduce ourselves and rationally explain our situation. Rude administrator woman stands to the side, arms crossed, trying to contradict each word out of my mouth. We continue for a few minutes of not getting much of anywhere with owner lady, who tells us, "It's in the contract, which you signed [7 months ago], you have to call". I smugly ask her if she can recite each policy in her cell phone contract that she signed 7 months ago. She doesn't seem willing to tell me.

Less Evil, Semi-Nice Daycare Owner Lady:

The big breakthrough comes in when she says, "But in the contract, on page 11, it says that you can't bring your child in after 10 or before 2." Ralph says, "Wait, wait, wait - so if we bring him back at 2 he can stay?!" "Yes," she says. "Then why didn't she tell us that?" He looks at rude administrator woman. "If she had told us that - instead of being so rude as soon as we walked in - we wouldn't have even been having this argument!" Rude administrator woman walks out of the room - because she knows she's wrong!!!!

We had been arguing for 45 minutes at this point. It was now 1:30 pm. We all calmed down and "made nice" with owner lady, who assured us that administrator woman would be "talked to" regarding her behavior. We went to get some Rita's and brought Jake back a half an hour later. I will say this- the caregivers, the people who actually feed and change and entertain my child all day, are very nice people and I felt terrible arguing in front of them and the children. However, if this particular daycare did not have such abysmal customer service, they would have much happier parents. i used to think the other parents were crazy when they came in and made a stink about things - now I know why!

I felt like we went 12 rounds....

Rude administrator lady better steer clear of this ticked-off mamma. It takes all the self-control I have not to blast them (and her in particular) by name on the internet. And thank god for Photoshop and being able to vent on blogger....