Abby Connolly
Working in a family business can be extremely complicated. Although working with family members on a family-run business may sound great, when things go wrong, it can really damage relationships.
One woman was recently held responsible for “ruining” her aunt’s small business when she stopped working there and decided to get a new job.
For a while, she worked as a graphic designer for a small business owned by her aunt. She and her aunt had a good relationship, and she loved the creative freedom she had through working for her.
Suddenly, working with her aunt took a turn for the worst.
There were suddenly intense deadlines that she had to follow, she hardly received any thanks from her aunt for her work, and she wasn’t getting paid enough.
She began putting less effort into her aunt’s business as she started looking for another job, which disappointed many of her family members. Whenever she tried explaining to them why she felt the need to get a new job, no one would listen to her.
While looking for new gigs, she switched from working full-time for her aunt to part-time. As a ploy to try and get her to stay in the business full-time, her aunt asked her to design a job listing advertisement. It was an ad for her old graphic designer position at the business.
“I was annoyed and hurt but did it anyway,” she explained.
“Since she wanted a full-time worker, I quit and submitted the ad to her as my final bit of work for the business.”
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