kind of agree with you about the calendar, but I find that a number of HO only use the site once or twice a year, and don’t really get too deep into the details of availability and calendars.
They just see a sitter profile they like and send a request - has happened a lot more recently since covid. So many HO looking for last-minute breaks when restrictions change.
I doubt that they even read full profiles sometimes. I state at the very start of my profile that I am only sitting in Scotland at the moment, but in the last few days have had requests for Manchester, Bristol, and Belgium!!
As far as the decline goes, don’t let it worry you. I will send a message BEFORE I decline the sit, HO have always then sent a short note thanking me for replying.
A few sitters have now said that because of the discussion on the Forum they are now writing more detailed Feedback of sits, not necessarily negative, but giving more information, which is at least a way forward, and a positive for the Forum.
Just need to get the other 90% of THS members on to the Forum!
That is sort of how it appears, struck through if booked through THS, but then if you’ve marked available they are blue, just white if not marked available or struck through.
It obviously is confusing for everyone, I try to explain when people offer me a sit, but sometimes I just lose the will!
Can I ask how you manage to keep your calendar up to date, I have never managed to quite fathom it out?
As far as I can see I am only able to mark dates that I am available on the calendar - I can not block out dates when I am not available.
So, for example. I am away this weekend so not available to sit - I can see no way to block these 2 dates on my calendar except for trawling through 363 dates marking them as available - am I doing something wrong?
Using Nov as an example,
If you were available for the whole month but were going to take the 16-19 off, you would mark your available dates as Nov 1-15, and add available dates of 20-30. That would automatically mark the 16-19 as unavailable. If you wanted to add the 24-25 as days off, you would need to change it to read available on the 1-15, 20-23, and 26-30. So, you can’t really mark when you’re unavailable, you just have to change the available dates. Hope this helps.
The calendar is useless. Since Sunday, I have clicked through at least 300 sitter profiles within a 5-hour drive in hope of finding someone for our upcoming Christmas sit because I have had no applications in 2 months. Of those 300+ sitters, more than 260 of them had no available dates for months and months on end. As someone who wants to be respectful of their unavailability, I do not want to bother anyone who isn’t available.
Then there are the 30+ that DO have dates available, so I reached out to most of these folks to see if they might want to do the sit - guess what, none of them are available either.
I am convinced that no one knows how to manage their calendar, or as I am reading here, it’s too much effort. For a homeowner trying to find someone, however, it makes it impossible with numerous hours (days) wasted throwing darts at balloons.
@mattersfact2 - the comment from @mars says it all. I do keep my calendar current, however, what I find seems opposite to logic is that the green shading means you are available, and the blank white mean you are unavailable. I was expecting the reverse. Given the numbers you’re showing of available vs unavailable, if you were also expecting the reverse, then that would explain the unavailability of those you contacted.
I just updated our calendar recently because we were getting a lot of invitations to sit over Christmas. We aren’t taking any Christmas sits on this year (or for the rest of the year for that matter), and are traveling throughout January, so it was easy just to start our availability in February and then select it through until June or July. I don’t particularly want to apply for sits too far in advance, so I’ll make future dates available once we’re accepting invitations/actively applying for an area.
@Snowbird, I actually only sent invitations to green. Most of the 300+ that I sorted through were white. That is why I am exasperated over why so many sitters are on here with ZERO availability. I suppose when they are ready to travel they may update that. But here is the thing - if I specifically enter dates that I need a sitter into the search criteria, then why is it throwing me a list of mostly unavailable sitters? I should only be seeing sitters that have green dates. Perhaps on page 10 of each state that I searched, there might have been more green dates, but I will never know because I had to go through page after page, state after state of white dates trying to isolate the green ones - who are also not available. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”.
@mattersfact2 I think the default for the Availability Calendar is white so unless sitters actually put in dates when they are available, their calendar will show white - unavailable. I keep mine fairly up-to-date (not including odd dates when I’m unavailable) and I don’t have an issue doing this.
I’d forgotten @temba’s point, which is important. Any sitters who find the calendar impractical and choose to not use it will display as unavailable. Many of those may still be active sitters. A sitter has to specifically enter what dates they are available.
You certainly seem to have put a lot of effort into this, and I can appreciate how frustrating it must be for you. I hope someone steps up and applies. Sitters, please note that a link to the listing is embedded in her username here. Click on it if you can be available for this sit.
@PHYTO are you asking someone specific, or just a general question? Sorry but I’m not clear on that. Availability calendars are displayed on all sitters’ profiles, after ‘pet care experience’. If you are a sitter, in your dashboard, scroll down until you get to ‘my sitter profile’ (and your photo is there) and you should see ‘manage availability’.
Hi @PHYTO If you look at your profile under Find a Pet Sitter (like home owners would see it) then scroll down to Availability and you will see the calendar with your dates crossed out.
You can certainly follow the route that @temba has suggested. You can also access your profile in the same area of your dashboard as I mentioned earlier, and where you have shared a screen capture. Under your photo in that same area, you’ll see a preview option. In your listing preview, if you scroll down you will see your calendar.
Days crossed out are those where you have a confirmed sit. If you do not have a confirmed sit, you will not see any crossed out dates.
If you do use your calendar, the available dates you have added will show in green. The default white is for days you are unavailable.
If you look at past posts about the calendar, you will see that many have asked for this calendar system to be reviewed and improved, to make it more user friendly.
