Working for family

Goodbook

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Is this asking for advice? I have done it. And do it.
I think its a good thing if your family has a business or trade or skill to pass on that you carry on with it! Your relatives can teach you so many things you could not learn at the feet of a stranger. Or you would have to pay through the nose for to learn or slave for someone else.
Jesus after all worked with his dad Joseph as a carpenter and learned from him.


Some people say its nepotism but a family ought to care for its own offspring and not send them out to work for tyrants I reckon. In spiritual terms as a church we ought to be caring for others as well and theres plenty of areas of ministry that need harvesters.
 
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Goodbook

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Also, free meals and board taken care of, plus no worries about transportation. Its actually very good, to work with your family if you have the right attitude.

You might not make more money, but money isnt everything. The Lord provides what we need. I have been pondering why we offer ourselves as slaves to other people and then complain when we are in bondage. Of course slavery is alive and well today just moved to other countries, but egypt is present in all systems, people building great useless pyramids in return for a pittance.
 
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BFine

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Lately... I've been witnessing a lot of these
family businesses coming apart at the seams.

Christian family too... seeing it first hand as
relatives are splitting over who is "family"...especially
when one last name is on the business since
the patriarch started it many decades ago... now it's
all over...folks not talking because they don't have the
same last name...due to marriages etc.

The fancy wedding that took place in Oct. of 2015...
what a farce!
All family present, we walked in clueless as to what was
going on... then came the snubbing and the other side
of the family avoiding/not talking/refused to shake hands
etc... so very sad.
We are very grieved for our niece(who got married in Oct.)
she'd been in the business since she was a teenager... got
dismissed on her honeymoon!
Nephews ousted since they don't have the last name as the
Patriarch...after they got the boot, the business died... now
it's over and the family lies in shambles.

Hard to see this when it's some other family, heartbreaking
when it's your own.
 
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TravelerFarAwayFromHome

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Lately... I've been witnessing a lot of these
family businesses coming apart at the seams.

Christian family too... seeing it first hand as
relatives are splitting over who is "family"...especially
when one last name is on the business since
the patriarch started it many decades ago... now it's
all over...folks not talking because they don't have the
same last name...due to marriages etc.

The fancy wedding that took place in Oct. of 2015...
what a farce!
All family present, we walked in clueless as to what was
going on... then came the snubbing and the other side
of the family avoiding/not talking/refused to shake hands
etc... so very sad.
We are very grieved for our niece(who got married in Oct.)
she'd been in the business since she was a teenager... got
dismissed on her honeymoon!
Nephews ousted since they don't have the last name as the
Patriarch...after they got the boot, the business died... now
it's over and the family lies in shambles.

Hard to see this when it's some other family, heartbreaking
when it's your own.


I am really sorry to hear this

unfortunately, we Christians can be worse than non-Christians some times

you know, recently I was talking to this Christian lady, she has two children

one child has essentially "forcefully occupies" the other's share of inheritance

the other child reacted in the same way Abraham did with Lot, this child basically said the other can have it

I am not saying we Christians should always forfeit

but I do think that God sees, and He does reward those Christians who made the hard choices of taking the high road.
 
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Goodbook

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maybe some families start to prize money or have pride and that is their downfall instead of seeing it as working for the Lord and thanking Him. I don't know. My family doesn't have a dynasty like that, I mean working as in helping my dad out, its not a business as such because its community radio, its actually voluntary work.

I don't know the details of what you are talking about BFine. Did the niece marry her bosses son or something? I think that family usually means blood family, like legitimate sons and daughters who inherit their parents business or whatever, not the married partner. I would think the married partner would share the with their spouse and support him (or her) but not actually be involved in running a the business that was already established unless it was a joint mom and pop business.
 
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DiscipleHeLovesToo

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when i was unemployed and looking for work (any legal work that i could make money to pay some bills) a few years ago, my sister offered to 'let' me rake the leaves at a rental house to make some money. i knew that they typically used immigrants for such work, and from casual conversation with them over the years i also knew that they did this because (from their own admission) they didn't want to pay what a professional landscape service would charge, but since i needed the money i overrode my doubts and hoped they would treat me more fairly since i was her brother. they wanted the leaves moved to a huge pile about a quarter-mile away, so i spent a day building a box on my trailer to haul leaves with, loaded my tools and met her husband at the house, which is built in a hardwood forest area; the leaves were about 2 feet deep on the slightly less than 1 acre lot, and as he showed me where the property lines were i realized that this would take several days to complete; he said he had to go and that my sister would talk to me about the money. a few minutes after he left (i was already blowing leaves from the shrubbery around the house) my sister showed up and gave me a check for roughly one day's work at minimum wage plus gas money to drive there and back; i could tell that she was uneasy as she looked around the lot, and she thanked me for helping them. after she left, as i continued to work, i faced the fact that the money she paid me would just about cover my gas for driving there and back for a few days if i did the whole job (i never told her husband i would do the whole job because he never told me how much it was worth to them). i forced myself to think on forgiveness, and worked hard all day, removing the leaves from around the house and about a third of the lot, left in time to cash the check at their bank, and drove home. we haven't talked about this since.

don't work for your family; they expect more from you because you are their relative, and will eventually try to take advantage of you because they expect you to treat them better than you would an employer you're not related to; human nature.
 
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BFine

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  • maybe some families start to prize money or have pride and that is their downfall instead of seeing it as working for the Lord and thanking Him. I don't know. My family doesn't have a dynasty like that, I mean working as in helping my dad out, its not a business as such because its community radio, its actually voluntary work.
I don't know the details of what you are talking about BFine. Did the niece marry her bosses son or something?
*Example: Let's say the Patriarch's last name is Smith...
and he only wants those in the family with the last name
of Smith to be working in the business.
In the case of our family...the nephews lost their jobs for
sticking up for their sister (who married in Oct. 2015.)
The grandfather(patriarch) fired her while she was on
her honeymoon.

[Our niece married into an Asian family...who have their
own businesses.
Our niece worked for her grandfather and grandmother...since
she was a teenager... The grandmother died last year.]



Unfortunately for the Smith's, they don't have the business
acumen of the relatives who lost their jobs... they planned
this expansion and that failed...they kept trying to find
other ways to revive the business (without the former
methods that the non-Smiths had used) nothing worked.
Now the business is gone and the auction is this month.

The patriarch planned this after his wife died...when that
happened last year, things changed very quickly.
He quickly brought in his sons etc...to take over things, sadly they didn't want the business but bowed to their dad's wishes... from then on we noticed changes in their advertising, their business page on Facebook was taken down etc...our niece had been doing a beautiful job advertising the business and interacting with their customers...not only did she promote the business she also worked as an interior designer (which WAS part of the business.) They deal in high-end furnishings/renovations... which would of further improved the family business since she married into a prominent Asian family who build fancy homes/apartments and would be sending some business their way...Sadly, this wasn't to be.

At the wedding in Oct...
We knew something was really wrong when the patriarch didn't toast his own granddaughter...didn't

even dance with her or nothing.
After that, I wondered why they even bothered to attend the wedding... sigh.


I think that family usually means blood family, like legitimate sons and daughters who inherit their parents business or whatever, not the married partner. I would think the married partner would share the with their spouse and support him (or her) but not actually be involved in running a the business that was already established unless it was a joint mom and pop business.

*That would be nice but in the case of "The Smith's"...
only Smiths can be in the business...according to the patriarch...who is now a sad older gentleman who's
kicked aside his non-Smith relations and lost the business.
I only recently learned that they didn't even do Christmas together...which is truly unheard of...they've always had holidays together...when will this madness end??
 
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Goodbook

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Oh ok well some families want to keep their family 'name' ie. If it smith and sons. It doesnt matter if you marry into their family and are super at business, it will go to the sons and if they are hopeless at business it doesnt matter, an outsider would be viewed with suspicion.

The way most patriarchal societies work is everything is handed down to the males. In asian cultures women hold up half the sky but they are dispensible. Because women have children, marry out etc.

I think its the same in corporate culture..bosses dont promote solely on merit, they will look at family connections. There has always been class consciousness. And women will have a glass ceiling they cannot break through. Because most of the working world is still run by men, it is their domain.

I was watching suffragettes the other day, movie about women gaining the vote. But they give up a lot. One lost her life and another her son for this cause. (This was in england). Nz was the first country in the world to give women the vote, but we are post industrial age so working conditions were not as harsh here, but even so..a working womans lot is never easy.
 
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DiscipleHeLovesToo

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Luk 12:51-53 KJV
(51) Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:
(52) For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three.
(53) The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.


:)
 
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Goodbook

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when i was unemployed and looking for work (any legal work that i could make money to pay some bills) a few years ago, my sister offered to 'let' me rake the leaves at a rental house to make some money. i knew that they typically used immigrants for such work, and from casual conversation with them over the years i also knew that they did this because (from their own admission) they didn't want to pay what a professional landscape service would charge, but since i needed the money i overrode my doubts and hoped they would treat me more fairly since i was her brother. they wanted the leaves moved to a huge pile about a quarter-mile away, so i spent a day building a box on my trailer to haul leaves with, loaded my tools and met her husband at the house, which is built in a hardwood forest area; the leaves were about 2 feet deep on the slightly less than 1 acre lot, and as he showed me where the property lines were i realized that this would take several days to complete; he said he had to go and that my sister would talk to me about the money. a few minutes after he left (i was already blowing leaves from the shrubbery around the house) my sister showed up and gave me a check for roughly one day's work at minimum wage plus gas money to drive there and back; i could tell that she was uneasy as she looked around the lot, and she thanked me for helping them. after she left, as i continued to work, i faced the fact that the money she paid me would just about cover my gas for driving there and back for a few days if i did the whole job (i never told her husband i would do the whole job because he never told me how much it was worth to them). i forced myself to think on forgiveness, and worked hard all day, removing the leaves from around the house and about a third of the lot, left in time to cash the check at their bank, and drove home. we haven't talked about this since.

don't work for your family; they expect more from you because you are their relative, and will eventually try to take advantage of you because they expect you to treat them better than you would an employer you're not related to; human nature.
Dont work for anybody that wont pay you a fair wage just cos they friends or family as a favour. I have refused to put myself in positions that you describe. For example a church lady was like this to me and others expecting others to wait on her hand and foot when she was ill and do housework for nothing. And others doing proofreading, which is a skill thats s also time consuming and requires focus and concentration to say the least, which i am trained for its not actually an unskilled job. But i found that people who said they were christian wanted people to do it for nothing. Also, gardening which is hard work and actually skilled work too. I am not doing that for someone else for nothing, i expect at least to be paid for my time or a meal.


These people thought they could freeload. I find that when people who say they are christians and thus you would think ok shes a sister, are not being christian when they ask that of you.

The other day i got my hair cut by one of my chirstian sisters who i study bible with, shes a hairdresser, of course I paid her to cut my hair!
 
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Goodbook

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You can offer services as a gift, but it is up to you to be a cheerful giver and decide who to give your time to. Dont do favours for people, i find that those who ask favours tend to have conditions i.e, church lady bossing round anyone who cleaned for her. If i cleaned for someone i wouldnt want them there bossing me round while i cleaned, and also, to be upfront about any pay before you do the work.
 
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Goodbook

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Another thing that you will come across is people treat immigrants like lesser people in the working world thinking they can do the work for less pay than someone else who is not. Thats why so many caregivers are not even family and are paid much less. Despite the fact that family memebers ought to look after each other and they KNOW the relations needs and preferences and even language better than a foreigner.
 
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BFine

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Oh ok well some families want to keep their family 'name' ie. If it smith and sons. It doesnt matter if you marry into their family and are super at business, it will go to the sons and if they are hopeless at business it doesnt matter, an outsider would be viewed with suspicion.

*Only the "Smith" name is on the business...when the sons saw how things were going, one of them left the business.
The other one stayed and things continued to go down hill.

Just so you know...when our niece married, her husband has
his own business (he wasn't coming into the Smith business at all.)

The way most patriarchal societies work is everything is handed down to the males. In asian cultures women hold up half the sky but they are dispensible. Because women have children, marry out etc.

*I referred to the inlaw as "patriarch" because of how he is acting currently.
He had not mentioned anything about

the non-Smiths ever being dismissed from their jobs until after his wife died...after much thought and conversation we've had with other family members very recently...we're thinking he could be suffering
from major depression.
Unfortunately...there also appears to be a lawsuit being
filed against him.


I think its the same in corporate culture..bosses dont promote solely on merit, they will look at family connections. There has always been class consciousness. And women will have a glass ceiling they cannot break through. Because most of the working world is still run by men, it is their domain.

*Our niece is in a very tough spot, she's worked in her grandfather's business for 17 years...she was dismissed and can't get a reference...she's only worked for the "Smith" business since she was 16...she's 32 now.
Her brothers only worked in the
business for 1 to maybe 2 years...they are doing fine because of having other jobs and good references from previous employers...both of them got hired and are in better positions than they had when they worked for their grandfather.



I was watching suffragettes the other day, movie about women gaining the vote. But they give up a lot. One lost her life and another her son for this cause. (This was in england). Nz was the first country in the world to give women the vote, but we are post industrial age so working conditions were not as harsh here, but even so..a working womans lot is never easy.
 
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