office politics
By CRIVAS
@CRIVAS (1815)
Canada
March 6, 2009 2:04pm CST
Although I am a stay at home mom, I am no stranger to office politics. I know that there are people out there who believe that working with your relatives is not a good idea. I am one of those people. Now I know that the number one reason most people think that working with relatives is a bad idea is because of work ethic. They feel that family members get special treatment and privlages and while I usually agree, this isn't the case today. You see my cousin works for her father, this is already a red flag. I cannot tell you how many problems this produces. Firstly the other employees feel a certain jealousy towards her because of her privilage. Truthfully though, she is not as privilaged as they make her out to be. My uncle is very hard on her at work, sometimes overly so. The reason he treats her this way, is so that the other workers know that she had to work harder just to get to the same place they are. She works mostly on commisions and does almost double the work load just to make the same money they do. Does this seem fair to you? What would you do if you were in my cousin's shoes? What would you do if you were in my uncle's shoes?
1 response
@deejean06 (1952)
• United States
6 Mar 09
Although I never worked for a family member I did work in a company which had family members. I saw your scenario firsthand. I did feel badly for the employee because I did feel that sometimes he received harsher treatment than the rest of us just because of the family connection.
If your cousin likes what she is doing and wants to continue, then she should. Maybe the grand plan is to have her take over the business so she needs to be tougher and know more?
