family business

My father, mother, and I started the family business when I was 16 years old. It's a brokerage, I was actually speaking to big league people who made upwards of even a million dollars a year and executives to big companies and they didn't even know how old I was. My father says I was the youngest he knows of to do this. But I moved on to other things. As a broker it's a tough job you get screamed at a lot, I still work with him off and on when he needs help in the office. He tried to teach my brother but my brother is not the type who likes to work the phones and fax paperwork. He gets restless. I do plan to go back to it someday, but honestly no matter how well it pays I wouldn't want the stress at this time of my life. You have to be completely tied to a phone 24/7 dealing with the growers (my father does mainly fruits and vegitables and plants in the seasons) to the warehouse to the shipping company to the trucking company to the driver who doesn't speak english a lot of times to another warehouse that ships to the stores. It's been tough on my dad to accept that it just isn't what my brother or I want to do right now in our lives. He tells us how much money he made that day and he does for the most part have a good attitude that gets him through it, but whenever we go out to have a simple meal at a resturant and that phone rings and he's on there fighting with some guy because he's got some rotten tomatoes and calling the other guy to get the paperwork to file a claim and all, it's just a reminder that I can't deal with it right now at this stage in my life. Your mental health is so much more important in the end, but it's a comfort to know that I am lucky to have a family business to fall back on, something I could be in a wheelchair and still be able to do from my home if need be. If I take on the full company some day I would not expect my children to take it over also or even work with me as long as they did something with their lives. Everyone has to choose their own route in life and a career they can live with.