Ready Kids › First Job Ready › Badge 3 › Lesson 3.2
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Your ride home, arranged first
Have a way home that does not depend on the person paying you, agreed before you accept the job.
1Watch
Quarter past eleven
Quarter past eleven
The parents come home. Dad is loud and cheerful, keys in his hand: come on, I'll run you back. The sitter's phone, on the side, shows four percent. The film ends on her looking at the keys.
20 secondsHe is a nice man. He has also just come from a party. Watch what the film does not tell you.
2The idea
Never dependent on the person paying you
The person who hires you is paying you. Making them your ride home as well gives them a second job, at the end of their night out. Sometimes it is fine. Sometimes they have been drinking, or they are late, or the car is full, or they forget. Your ride home is your family’s plan, not the client’s promise.
This is not an insult to the client. Adults who hire sitters expect the sitter’s parent to have a plan. If a client offers a lift as a bonus, your parent decides in advance whether that is ever OK, and under what conditions: sober, on time, and your parent knows about it before you get in.
3The idea
The standing plan
Agreed once, used every time.
1. Default: a parent or a named adult collects you at the finish time.
2. Backup: what happens if they cannot. A second named adult, or a taxi your parent books.
3. Client lifts: yes only under your family’s conditions, and never if the driver has been drinking.
4. Phone charged, and a charger in your bag.
The plan is made at your kitchen table, so it never has to be made at theirs. Nobody makes good decisions at quarter past eleven, standing in someone’s hall, with a cheerful man holding car keys. The whole point is that you do not have to decide anything then.
4The idea
Kai's three endings
Kai’s plan: his dad collects at half ten. Backup is his aunt. Client lifts only if his dad has said yes that night. Ending one: parents back on time, dad outside. Ending two: parents back at eleven, dad waiting in the car for half an hour, Kai home by ten past.
Ending three: dad’s car will not start at quarter past ten. Kai messages, dad rings the aunt, she is there at twenty to eleven. The client never had to drive in any of them. Kai never once had to decide anything at the door. Boring, every time. Boring is the aim.
5Decide
Dad says: come on, I'll run you back. He has had a couple of drinks. Your dad is ten minutes away. What do you say?
Pick one to carry on.
6Your turn
Three endings
Three endings
The same evening ends three ways: on time, an hour late, and the client offering a lift after wine. For each, you pick what happens next from your plan, and the card shows the message your parent gets.
Every ending has a boring answer. Boring is the aim.
7Find them
Which of these belong in a standing ride-home plan?
Tap the ones that count.
Find all 4.
8Say it
Not a refusal, a fact
Say it warmly. It is not a no. It is what is already happening.
“Thanks, but my mum's already on her way.”
You will say this to someone who means well. It still stands.
9Do it
Before you leave this page
Sit with a parent and agree your standing plan: who collects, the backup, and your family's rule about client lifts. Write it on the same page as your résumé.
Tick it when you have done it.
Lesson done.
Your ride home is agreed before you say yes. It never depends on the client.
Next lesson: You are allowed to leave