Open Letter to Wee Watch Vancouver

Dear Michelle, facilitator of Wee Watch Vancouver.

You are a very bad person. At least this is how I think of you. I don't really know for sure because you never return phone calls or respond to emails.

I can only imagine how hard it must be managing the juggernaut that is Wee Watch, I'm surprised you even have time to eat. You must swell with pride knowing your Wee Watch empire is so vast you don't need new clients; you can just ignore them, like you did to me.

When my wife and I started looking at part-time daycare options for our son, someone recommended Wee Watch. It sounded like a perfect fit, so I investigated further. I got excited when I visited your website. Wee Watch seemed like an excellent, well-run organization. I imagined how we'd get to know each, maybe have tea and crustless sandwiches, and wax poetic about child care and other worldly affairs. Wee Watch was going to be our new best friend.

"Contact us, we're here to help" your website promised. So I emailed you, you didn't respond. I called you, you didn't call back. I tried again and again - zippo. It was like my high-school love life all over again; you were ignoring me.

After a few weeks of fruitless searching, I thought to give Wee Watch one more try. By now I wasn't expecting to hear from you, but to my surprise you called me back. You sounded like a wonderful woman, so friendly and sweet. Maybe we were going to share those sandwiches after all! We chatted for a bit, I described our needs, you promised you'd make some calls and get back to me.

Buoyed by the possibility our child care search was over I waited by the phone, and waited, and waited some more. My beard grew long and itchy, but I stayed by the phone. The sandwiches grew stale, then moldy, but still I waited. After two weeks I was bewildered, did I miss your call while I was in the bathroom? Or maybe when I nodded off? What could it have been? After some deep soul searching it finally hit me - you just didn't bother to call back.

Will I ever recommend Wee Watch to anyone other than my worst enemies? No freaking way! I could not with a clear conscience suggest that anyone trust their children to an organization that communicates so poorly, treats their clients with contempt and has such awful manners. The simple courtesy of a return phone call might not seem like a lot to you Michelle, but to a parent on the hunt for good childcare in this city, it means everything.

So you see Michelle, that's why I think you are a very bad person. Okay, so maybe you're not bad in the way Ted Bundy or Pol Pot was bad, but I bet they at least returned phone calls.