This blog is basically a rant about nepotism. Just thought I ought to warn ya ahead of time…. 😛
Nepotism (or the hiring of family members) is fairly common practice in small businesses (and large!) across America. I currently work for a small company–under 100 employees–and the owner of that company employs a family member to do a very important part of the business: The billing, a.k.a. how we make our money. This family member also does the payroll. Did I mention this was a very important position in the company?
I have worked for this company for a while (a half a year or so) and for the most part, I love my job. The work is varied, the coworkers easy to work with, the boss is super nice, and I even really like this family member, as a person. Friendly, outgoing, and smart all describe this family member to a T. What does not describe this person is attentive, or particularly devoted to doing the job well. Why care? This person has the job no matter what, after all.
After months of having to deal with upset employees whose paychecks were messed up (again) the owner has finally decided that since this family member can’t do the job correctly, that I should double-check all of the payroll before the checks are cut. Notice, nowhere in the solution is firing the person who is making the mistakes. If it were anyone else who was screwing up this much, that person would have already been out the door. Lucky me, I already have a stressful job, so I’m already going crazy just trying to keep up with my own pile of work. The idea that I have enough “spare time” to do someone else’s job also is laughable. On top of having no time, I have also found that it is really difficult to do this since the family member is never around when I am trying to double check the work, so I don’t have any way of asking any questions or bouncing any ideas off this person. I don’t know what this person has done, so I don’t know if what I’m doing is right. *Beat head against wall*
I wish I had some sage words of advice to give right now, so I could feel smart and say to everyone that if they’re dealing with this problem, this (whatever this is) is all they would have to do to fix the problem. I unfortunately don’t have a clue. I had a very stressful and headache-y sort of day today because of nepotism, and so if I was going to have any sage advice to give, I would surely use that advice in my own life too. Unfortunately, my idea well has run dry.
Anyone else ever had to deal with this before? What happens when you can’t tell the owner that their child ought to be fired ASAP, and you’re stuck dealing with the mess because of it? If anyone has sage advice, I would surely love to hear it.
Signed,
Hava the Anti-Nepotist