More Awesome Than You!

Am I the only one experiencing this annoying problem?  It was rare in my game before this last stupid patch, but lately it's been horrific.  Used to be that the problem could be fixed by moving my family to a different lot, but now even this doesn't work.  :o  Or is there a problem at the highest level of the Art Career, where Nannies can't add up the hours correctly?  Is this a game error???
Also, I keep getting the same damn nanny, Calista Despret  ::)  no matter how many times my Artist Sim fires her, then calls again and again on the phone to rehire.   What's up with that? ???  Since patching, I've also seen more and more instances of Nannies showing up on days off.  I thought the 2nd patch was supposed to fix this problem, not make it worse.   >:( 

calista despret will look a cowplant in the mouth, I swear...

Max

Have you been hiring her via the cell phone? If so-don't. Use the regular house phone. The only time I have had glitchy nannies showing up at all hours is when I have hired her using the cell phone.

I'll check that again when I next play, but I'm quite certain I've been using the regular phone, thanks.

max

You are right: OFB has problems with the nannies. When I hired a nanny, for the next day, some other nanny appeared in the lot immediately, and in the next day I always had 2 nannies at the lot. I didn't care, because they were bored, and sometimes interacted, so I let them stay.

But, when I exited the game, to play another family, and returned to the lot - no nanny came, and I had to call service again, and send my sim to work with the car.

I play now NL, and I don't have this problem at all.

I always use the home phone to call service personnel, do college stuff, do business stuff - never the cell phone.  The cell phone is only for calling friends.

I've noticed some weirdness in my game (OFB p2).  Several times I had a mother call right after the birth wanting the nanny to track her schedule, and the nanny said "You don't have a schedule to match" or something similar.  Now I wait until the next hour has ticked over before calling the nanny, and I haven't seen the problem again.

Also I have had a few one-off instances of the nanny coming over at the wrong time, usually just after the nanny has been hired to track schedule.  Or a second nanny turning up if the parent gets a promotion (with a later finish work time).  But they are always there at the right time, so I just ignore the problem.

The main problem I have with nannies is that they go into the kitchen and half-prepare food.  Then later when the parents try to macro -> eat they can't because of the half-prepared food on the counter.  I've tried using APO set up to deny autonomous (and yes, I remembered to also click lock on the APO) - thinking that the babycontroller sending them to get a bottle would be permitted but it would keep nannies from randomly wandering into the kitchen and raiding the fridge.  No such luck - the nanny went in twice later that day and left TWO half-prepared meals on the counter, just to spite me.

I don't have your nanny Calista Despret in any of my neighbourhoods.  In my older neighbourhoods I killed off the existing nannies (as that was required back then for lobonanny to work).  In my newer neighbourhoods I use DAC, so the neighbourhood doesn't have a nanny character until one is required.

I try not to use the nannies at all they are all weird, I always keep one parent at home or have the elders watch the kids. :)

Nanny schedules have *never* worked right for me: any change in work schedule of the parent who hired them completely messes the nanny schedule up, as does any child transitioning to teen.

I exclusively use dizzy's sitter now, and while these cannot be scheduled it is small problem to call them when needed.

Another alternative is to use Carrigon's Safer Social Worker hack, thus making all nannies dispensable ;)
I'm not sure if it has been updated to OFB though.

How does it work, is it a new NPC?

Dizzy's sitter mod replaces the nanny phone service with 'sitter': you then get to chose from either the nanny for the old dialog, or a number of  teen, YA, or adult neighbours (never could quite figure out who appears in the list or not).
When called this sitter shows up with the 'work' icon as a controllable Sim; after the adult returns from work/outing/date the sitter is paid (§50 IIRC) and becomes an uncontrollable visitor.
I often use this to get my YAs to babysit their siblings, or let Sims interact with their nephews and nieces.

The major difference with the nanny is obviously that you control the sitter and it is not a braindead NPC.

And there's also Christianlov's All-in-one and nanny NPCs, and DMA Sims live-in nanny NPC, any of whom are better than the brain-dead nannies in the game. :)

Some of us prefer the no-nanny, no-socialworker, no questions asked approach :D

I checked dizzy's sitter mod thread, and besides being compatible with Pescado's sshack, it also has a version that prevents the social worker from appearing, so I'll give it a try :)

Thanks for the suggestion, Jordi!  I'll give Dizzy's mod a try, too.   :)

Max

As annoying as they can be, I've never had a glitch problem with a nanny, other than the occasional showing up when they're not supposed to, or having two show up. Usually it's not a big deal.

Sometimes the amusement factor outweighs the annoyances too. The house I've been currently playing, I swear the Nanny is trying to steal the husband. She's always trying to chat him up and admire him, but she's downright mean to the wife, constantly poking and arguing with her.

I had some weird problems with nannies.  I ended up with two in a house that simply wouldn't leave.  They couldn't be dismissed, and no one could say goodbye to them.

Then I had a sim "shoo" one out of the bed.  Suddenly the screen came up asking "now that I'm off work, do you want to hang out?"  I said no, and she started to leave, then stopped.  She sulked in a corner for a while (really), then decided to eat.

Oddly, something set her gender preference, and she started spouting hearts for her employer.  The only interaction they had was "shoo" so I'm really stumped by that.

I clicked on her and found that the goodbye option was available.  I clicked "say goodbye to everyone" and she left.  The other nanny stayed.

A day later the whole process was repeated with the other nanny.  Again, oddly enough, the nanny's gender preference got set.  (She spouted hearts with x's for her employer.)

My sims were not charged for the many days they nannies were "working."

Getting back to the actual subject, this was with OFB patch 1, not patch 2.

I sorry everyone is having nanny trouble, but i'm glad it's not just me. I have had nanny's not show up....so the child is left home alone, or I have had them show up two at a time  :P
At least I now know it's just the latest patch and not the first sign of serious trouble. I would really hate to reinstall again  :(

This is probably worth a point-and-laugh, but I had a fortune sim who was getting rich quick with a bordello (DMA woohoo sims) on his home lot.  He got married, wife got pregnant, kid becomes toddler, wife is close to promotion so she hired a nanny to watch the kid until dad came home from work -- maybe 4 hours, tops.  Nanny comes, puts kid in crib, watches tv, then goes to the bordello, has some fun, and walks off the lot!  Fortunately, the sshack kept the social worker from taking the kid away, since dad was home within the hour. Mom got her promotion, so the nanny got canned.  They needed a bigger house anyway, so the bordello closed down and they moved.

I figure it was something in the DMA code screwing up the nanny code, but it sure taught me to keep the bordellos away from families. :)

I have started playing my Nannies with Merola's mind-control mirror so that I make make sure the babies are tended to correctly.  The other night I witnessed something I'd never seen before.  The Nanny queue'd up "Auto Bail"  action, with an icon of the mini-van.  I cancelled the action.  She paused then queue'd it up again.  Cancel.  Repeat.  Never seen this before.  Social Worker took away the baby.  It didn't break my heart, Mom was a slut who was playing revolving townie Woo Hoo.  Dad had remarried a rich sim and adopted the baby.  Life is much better for baby anyway. :)  Still, anyone ever seen "Auto Bail" before, or was that just me?

Did the sim that hired her have enough money to pay her?  I think I saw that a long time ago when a poor sim hired a nanny and ran out of money.

Yeah, she had enough.  She wasn't a rich sim, by any means, but she did have enough to pay the nanny. 

My guess would be that the Merolian mirror corrupted the nanny's job and selectable bits in the process, causing it to decide to leave.

No, the "Auto Bail" started after I installed Patch NL 2. With University it never happened - and I have Merola's mirror too, from the basic TS2.

But the nanny doesn't leave, even if she gets the "Auto Bail" queue. I cancelled it few times, and then let it run. The queue dissapeared, and she continued her work, until the parents came home.

I think, that some hack we have (it may be even Awesome hack) clashes with the Auto Bail - may be even Carpool fix. Nevertheless, if the nanny stays and don't leave, I can live with it.

To examine the event, I have to get out all my hacks folder, and see if I get still this queue. I don't do it, because I have kids in school, and they will make me nuts with the homework. May be I'll do it after they'll go to college - I don't have many hacks, and most of them are Awesome...:).

OK, I openned a new hood, and took out the hacks folder (NL).

The same event occured: I invited a nanny for tomorrow (science, 11 AM-5 PM), and at 12:00 PM today  arrived a nanny. I let her stay, and saw the "Auto Bail" queue appears and dissapears, but she didn't leave. The parents were at home. Tomorrow for sure I'll have 2 nannies...:).

It never happened in Uni EP, with all the hacks I have, which I didn't change until now, including Carpool Fix and Phonehack.

I can say for sure, that the NL Patch 2 is bugged.

Gali, thank you so much for testing that for us.  :)