I wanted to share a recent experience I had that I think could be helpful for hosts as far as understanding how things work on the sitter’s end. And also I think a good lesson for sitters in trusting their intuition, which can be challenging when there doesn’t seem to be anything outright problematic about the listing, etc…
We applied for a sit and the application was read within minutes, but after two days of not hearing anything I withdrew. They emailed us almost immediately apologizing for the delayed response and asking if we were still available. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, and felt a nudge to open myself back up to the opportunity. So we proceeded with scheduling a time to talk.
On Friday we had a video chat with the hosts, and all went well. They offered us the sit and we accepted. There was mention they hadn’t booked their flights yet, but I didn’t think that in and of itself was a huge deal, but it did raise a bit of a flag for me the way they said it. Since I had withdrawn my original application, I let them know they needed to invite me to apply and I would and then they could offer a confirmation.
In my experience, hosts typically do this pretty quickly, often within minutes of getting off the call.
They didn’t send the invite until Monday afternoon, almost 72 hours later, along with a message that they still hadn’t booked their flights, but that the dates ‘wouldn’t change more than a day or so.’
But based on our plans to do this sit, the day after we spoke, I booked one that ended the day this was one was to start and another the day this one was to end . While they mentioned they hadn’t booked their flights yet, there was no mention the dates might change. If they had done that, we would have told them right away we couldn’t commit, and to get back to us within X time with definite dates or else we would look for other sits.
So we had no flexibility if they decided they wanted to leave earlier or return later than the original dates. But even if our schedule was open, I wouldn’t have agreed to sit.
As a full-time sitter, not knowing the exact dates of their travel for some indefinite period of time would have hindered my ability to schedule other sits. If they decided to shorten their trip, it might have left us with a short gap in our schedule we couldn’t fill and we would have to pay for accommodation unnecessarily.
In their mind, a more casual approach to planning their trip, and slight alterations to the dates, probably didn’t seem like a big deal. I didn’t take it as any intentional affront to us or them not caring about our schedule,etc… It is just a good example of how hosts may not realize what goes into planning on the sitter’s end.
While some sitters may have more flexibility, and won’t need as firm a plan, that isn’t the case for most of us. If you are a host and the dates you are posting are not 100 percent definite, it would be helpful to note that in the listing.
If you are reluctant to make firm travel plans until you get a sitter, that is understandable; but once you find one, if you don’t finalize your plans relatively quickly, and confirm that sitter you liked, you risk losing them, as these people did.
I am sure they will find someone else but they really liked us because we were very experienced, and it is possible they may not get other applicants about whom they will feel as confident. Hopefully they do.
And for the sitters, the intuition thing. When they hadn’t replied in a couple of days, I just had the nudge to withdraw. It wasn’t any major bad feeling, there was nothing in the listing that gave me major concerns,etc…
It was just the usual feeling I get in these cases to just let it go and move on. And seeing how things played out, it validated that initial feeling. And I believe I felt guided to connect with them anyway to strengthen my belief in trusting that intuition. It wasn’t some horrible experience that caused us any major problems; we are already in the process of finding other sits for these dates, which should happen pretty easily given the number of sits in the general area in which we are looking.
I rely heavily on these gut feelings and it has seemed to serve me very well in the decade I have been doing this. Letting those feelings guide you is my number one tip I would give to newer sitters without a doubt.
and I suppose this information may not change anything, but at least the Sitter has tried to be clear.