Man wants to dock dog sitter's pay for eating food in his house. AITA?
When this man is concerned that he's a bad employer, he asks Reddit:
'WIBTA if I charged my dog sitter for the food she ate while staying in my house?'
My (49M) dog walker Catelyn (21F) has been working for me close to a year and during covid I’ve not seen a problem with her continuing to come over. She lives alone, as do I, and we were both social distancing. Though I’m now working from home, I didn’t want to stop her from working since she’s freelance and I understand other clients have let her go (without pay).
Last week I had to go on a business trip, and since the local kennels were shut, thought I’d see if she could stay over to look after them as I felt in the time I’ve known her, I trust her with my three dogs and my property.
She was thankfully able to help out and after a quick tour of the house and a show of how to work things etc, I told her that she was welcome to eat things from the kitchen if she wanted. Okay, now when I said that I didn’t think she’d actually eat everything in my kitchen. Within a week she’d made her way through all my frozen/fridge food, canned foods and drinks.
My cupboards were bare, all snacks and bread gone. Even my coffee was dangerously low. I know I said she was welcome to eat out the fridge/kitchen but I honestly didn’t think she’d literally eat everything.
When I came back and saw the empty fridge I pointed it out and she just acted like nothing was wrong. It was late and I was pretty gutted to see that I couldn’t even have cereal as there was none nor milk. I couldn’t even have toast. She’s a nice girl and I didn’t feel it right to have a go even though I was pretty livid.
I’m really unsure of how to handle this. Like it’s definitely strange what she did but would it be rude to charge her for the food? Or maybe take some money out of her next payment to make up for it?
Like I wouldn’t have minded if I came back to a few things missing, for example if she used some milk for cereal/tea or used a few eggs or whatever. And even if she did eat everything, I thought the decent thing to do would be replace it? I’m still floundering at this situation, and I’m at a loss at what to do. I don’t know if I should confront it or just leave it. AITA?
Let's find out.
alwaysbethered writes:
YWBTA. You told her she could have food from the kitchen and she did. Etiquette-wise I agree with you, but that's my own personal etiquette. Not everyone will think the same.
spiketailmen writes:
YWBTA. You told her she could eat the food. You set no limits or restrictions and it sounds like she had no reason to assume any. She probably ate your food all week instead of grocery shopping for herself to save money. Next time be clear and don't offer without limits unless you mean it.