Life With Clay

Unbelievably, we are once again looking for an afternoon sitter for Clay—our ninth in the past two-and-a-half years. At least we knew this one was coming. Our current sitter is headed back to college in mid-August, so we have a little more breathing room than normal.

I recognize that I’m letting loose the shriveled, scabby-headed curmudgeon that stomps around inside my head, but as I read through emails on Care.com, I just want to offer four pieces of advice to prospective sitters:

1) Try to keep the number of misspellings and typos to less than, say, eight or nine. Per sentence. It just doesn’t inspire confidence, especially if you have a graduate degree.

“i have hade many experience with disable kids.”

” i am very interested becuase i have experience and schild care adn i am also a music teacher … “

2) If you don’t have the skill set and can’t spell, maybe this isn’t the best position for you:

“I have alot of experience in the health care buisness … “

3) I’m a fan of brevity, but give me something beside a lack of punctuation to work with:

“looking forward to meeting you ang your son” (that was the entire message from one applicant)

4) And, maybe most important, we’re glad you’ve managed to stay out of jail, but you might not want to seem overly anxious to mention it:

“I do not have a criminal record and have not been in the back of a police car.”

Good to know on both counts. Might be a better time and less graphic way to bring it up, though.

I’ll send the old editor back to his corner now, mumbling irritably to himself, spittle flying this way and that. Just give us a minute. We’ll be fine in a minute.