Nannies with no sense of time

[phyllis_p]

Okay, I know nannies are considered a Great Evil upon the Face of Simantion ......

But I've always used them anyway, and with good results -- until now.  At one particular house, they can't seem to track the parents' work schedule anymore.  Didn't need a nanny when the kid was little because there were grandparents, but the grandparents died and the kid needed someone for an hour after school.  The father called the night before to make arrangements; then an hour after he called, the nanny showed up.  Puzzled, he dismissed her.  Next day when kid comes home from school -- no nanny.  Dad calls and fires nanny, then Mom calls and hires one for the next day. An hour later, nanny shows up.  Mom dismisses her. Next day after school -- no nanny.

I ended up calling the nanny in the morning before dad left, on a "just for now" basis, and paying her for a whole day -- money's not a problem with the family.  Kid's a teen now, but before you know it he'll be bringing home a bride.  So I was wondering -- is this a common occurance? And is there a solution? If not, I can continue to work around, but after all this time using nannies without any problems, it's an annoyance.

Thanks,

Phyllis

[Ancient Sim]

Common bug, been happening since Uni.  Nannies appear in droves, never leave, stink the place out, fall asleep standing up in bathroom doorways ... I've had one die already and another only escaped it because I had to reinstall Uni and she got all her stats back.  One thing you must never do is make a nanny 'selectable', this somehow cancels out something and they can't leave.

[phyllis_p]

Common bug, been happening since Uni.  Nannies appear in droves, never leave, stink the place out, fall asleep standing up in bathroom doorways ... I've had one die already and another only escaped it because I had to reinstall Uni and she got all her stats back.  One thing you must never do is make a nanny 'selectable', this somehow cancels out something and they can't leave.

No, this is different.  She doesn't arrive in droves -- there's just one of her.  She leaves when I tell her to, doesn't stink up the place, doesn't fall asleep in the bathroom.  She just comes at the wrong time, and then doesn't come whe she is supposed to.

Phyllis

[Liss]

I all of a sudden have nannies that show up, charge you, and immediately leave.  The only way I've found to fix it is to lobot the nannies with the eye in the sky mod.  I had one toddler get taken away because of this, in a 'hood where I wasn't supposed to use mods or cheats except to correct bugs. I consider this a pretty big stinky cockroach lol...

[veilchen]

I'm afraid Ancient is right, it is a common occurance. You have been lucky that you have not encountered this before, but it can get much worse than that. That was, coincidentally the last time I ever used any nanny. I called, set up for schedule; a nanny arrived, I dismissed; next day -no nanny- and so on, just as you described, ad infinitum. I do have JM's baby-hacks, but the nanny bug still happened.

That was the last time I ever used the nanny, so I can't tell you if it will occur with the offspring's children. If things progress the normal maxis way, the bug is now in your game to stay, and may or may not re-occur on the same lot. But my bet would be that it will occur at random, on different lots. Others had nanny-bugs much worse, such as described by AncientSim and ZZ had nannies arrive in droves. I think she ended up with more than 6 nannies at the same time, and could not get rid of any of them. Nannies are also associated with the portal bug, and for that they don't even have to be hired. They are indeed evil incarnate, and I stay away as far as possible from them.

As far as I know there is no fix for that; if you want to continue using the nannies, you just have to work around the bugs. Should you ever come across the portal bug, search this site for 'crammyboy' or search on MTS2 for 'portal'

[gali]

If the nanny is called before the hour she has to come - she will come. No need to dismiss her, just continue the play as usual. For instance - she has to come from 3 PM to 4 PM. If you schedule her at 1 PM, and you have a day off, she will come. So, you have to schedule her after 4 PM.

But, sometimes, when I call a nanny for the next day, and she has to come at 8 AM - I always call at 7 AM  another nanny, "just for now", because several times the scheduled nanny didn't arrive, and I had to leave the mother at home.

[phyllis_p]

If the nanny is called before the hour she has to come - she will come. No need to dismiss her, just continue the play as usual. For instance - she has to come from 3 PM to 4 PM. If you schedule her at 1 PM, and you have a day off, she will come. So, you have to schedule her after 4 PM.

But, sometimes, when I call a nanny for the next day, and she has to come at 8 AM - I always call at 7 AM  another nanny, "just for now", because several times the scheduled nanny didn't arrive, and I had to leave the mother at home.

Well, the problem with this is that she was coming at 9 at night, so I suspect by 3 the next afternoon she would be long gone.  She was supposed to "track schedule," not come "just for now."  When I'd made arrangements before, she always waited and showed up about 15 minutes before a child was due to be home alone.

Anyway, thanks for all your input, folks (I tried to post this before, but my connection lagged and the response didn't post).  I've read about all these other instances -- multiple nannies, nannies who don't go home, stinky nannies, passed out nannies -- and even had one who did the last 3 before the Maxis patch came out.  But I've never had one who came at the wrong time and didn't show up when she was supposed to be there.  Being a curious person, I still have to wonder whether these are all different problems that manifest with a single "object" (the nanny,) or whether they are all manifestations of the same problem.  I suppose I'll never know ;-)

Anyway, thanks again, folks.  I truly appreciate it.

Phyllis

[ZephyrZodiac]

Just turn the existing nannies into babies with SimPE and let the game generate new ones - they just MIGHT be OK for a while..............

[vecki]

But I've always used them anyway, and with good results -- until now.  At one particular house, they can't seem to track the parents' work schedule anymore.  Didn't need a nanny when the kid was little because there were grandparents, but the grandparents died and the kid needed someone for an hour after school.  The father called the night before to make arrangements; then an hour after he called, the nanny showed up.  Puzzled, he dismissed her.  Next day when kid comes home from school -- no nanny.  Dad calls and fires nanny, then Mom calls and hires one for the next day. An hour later, nanny shows up.  Mom dismisses her. Next day after school -- no nanny.

Question: Are you calling using a normal phone or a cell phone?

When I had Nina Caliente call using a cell, the nanny would show up the hour after calling, regardless of when Nina was working, and leave while Nina was at work, and the toddler playing on the floor.  Eventually the toddler passed out and the Social Worker appeared to take her away.  I quit that one without saving because Nina hadn't done anything wrong.  Next time, I tried using the normal phone, and the nanny was able to track the schedule fine.

I now always use the normal phone for services and I haven't had that problem since.

Mobile phones are for socialising only!  If they're lucky enough to get one!  And that's only if I'm feeling generous and have remembered to put a mobile dispenser on a community lot!

[ZephyrZodiac]

I don't think I've ever used one to call a nanny, but they work fine with the repairman, delivery etc., so why the freaking NANNY!!!!  Because the nanny is totally b******red!

[phyllis_p]

Question: Are you calling using a normal phone or a cell phone?

When I had Nina Caliente call using a cell, the nanny would show up the hour after calling, regardless of when Nina was working, and leave while Nina was at work, and the toddler playing on the floor.  Eventually the toddler passed out and the Social Worker appeared to take her away.  I quit that one without saving because Nina hadn't done anything wrong.  Next time, I tried using the normal phone, and the nanny was able to track the schedule fine.

I now always use the normal phone for services and I haven't had that problem since.

Mobile phones are for socialising only!  If they're lucky enough to get one!  And that's only if I'm feeling generous and have remembered to put a mobile dispenser on a community lot!

Interesting.  I was using a cell phone.  I'll have to give it a go with the regular phone next time we have a child in that house.  Thanks for the tip!

Phyllis

[Process Denied]

I have had some nanny and adoption probs recently also.  They seem to arrive a day late.  When you call at 4:00pm,the baby is suppose to arrive at 10:00am the next day,well,she is showing up the following day.  Really annoying because they have to take off two days instead of one.  This is also happening with the nannies.  They don't show up on the day I call them.  They show up the folowing day.  Somehow my time is screwed up.  But it doesn't ALWAYS happen.

[ZephyrZodiac]

The flamingo of weekness might help with the adoption problem as you can select a day when the parents-to-be are home anyway, and the game then reverts to where it should be at midnight.  They are in the Sims2 section of Livin-it-up.net under Hacks and Cheats.

www.Livin-It-Up.net/

I've just checked the URL and the site appears to be unavailable at present, but I wouldn't think it would be for long.

[Venusy]

Actually, it could be significantly longer, as the site has been in finacial difficulties for quite a few months. This has been quoted from the last mailing list update, dated 30 July 2005;
"Yes folks, primarily for financial reasons, at this point the end is inevitable for our site, merely a matter of when."
I suppose you could use the Insimenator's Temporal Mod to change the weekday instead.

[ZephyrZodiac]

That is a shame - it was still up a couple of weeks back!  I think the trouble was all the donation items were still for Sims1, so maybe they weren't getting so many donations as they used to.  Does the same thing apply to their forum, I wonder?