Working with family

My first experiment working with family was the summer my dad hired me to work in a fish processing plant. I hated working for him. We would be the first to arrive every morning and the last to leave every night.

The job was made for men with hair in their ears and stink between their legs. I was 14 and had neither at that point. My old man would push me harder than my 40 year colleagues. With sweat pouring down my forehead, he would tell me to go faster. I was already going twice as fast as the two pack a day future heart attack victims, but I wasn't going fast enough for him. I didn't take smoke breaks. I didn't talk about the drunken escapades from the weekend before.

I was 14 but I worked harder than most of the others for half the pay. He didn't see it and I momentarily hated him for it.

It was years later that he confessed that he pushed me harder so I wouldn't follow in his footsteps.

Forgetting the life lesson of working with family, my wife joined our family business 5 years ago. In training her, I was now the dictator, with emphasis on dick. I didn't realize how mean I was at the time. She would come home pissed at me almost every night. Staff noticed my behaviour and it strained not only the team but also my family at home.

I love my wife very much. I never wanted to hurt her. Yet in business, I was extra hard on her as I was trying to teach her the same level of scrutiny I expected from all my staff. She was extremely talented in running her restaurant. Her strengths were a perfect balance to my weaknesses.

We agreed one night that we both wanted to stay married to each other. We both wanted to stay in the family business. So we had to create boundaries if this relationship was to work.

Here are the rules we formed for a happy healthy working relationship in the family business.
1. Leave work at work. Leave home at home. If you are fighting about something at home, don't bring it to work.
2. Make time at work to talk about work stuff. Have a lunch meal together once per week to discuss anything important.
3. Promise to stay out each other's way. If one needs help, one needs to ask. Otherwise it will be assumed everything is fine.
4. Learn what will not work in the business relationship. In my case, my wife didn't like it when I told her what to do. Even if I knew what had to happen, I had to let her figure it out for herself or wait for her to ask for help.
5. Create an organizational chart with all of the necessary roles in the company. Decide who will assume which roles. Then revert to rule #3.
6. Lastly, don't be a dick!