4 ms·

The other big difference is in a family, with rare exceptions, no matter how poorly you do, you don’t get fired or sacked. And, they also tolerate a lot more m

by mc32 5y ago

The other big difference is in a family, with rare exceptions, no matter how poorly you do, you don’t get fired or sacked. And, they also tolerate a lot more meanness and uncouthness than a company. You don’t get fired for not following an employee handbook or code of conduct. In a family you get away with a lot. At work a minor transgression will get most non top managers fired due to lots of reasons but mostly liability and fragility from other “family” (colleagues).

seanmcdirmid 5y ago
> The other big difference is in a family, with rare exceptions, no matter how poorly you do, you don’t get fired or sacked. Your spouse can always initiate a divorce if your performance is lacking and fails to improve. Divorce on such grounds is quite common, I would guess.
- mc32 5y ago
  Yes, legal families can do that but most of the time it’s triggered by extreme cases. Blood families expel you much less often. But this reminds me of the owner of Ritual coffee who had to “ban” and fire her husband from her shop because someone upset at where he parked (to do work for his wife) called him the “N-word”. And he enraged asked, did you just call me “n-word?” So it wasn’t his doing, but a perp, but answering the perp in kind got him blacklisted by the “community[1] and professionally by his own wife. [1]meaning busybodies who likely never patronized them store but felt they had to show their virtue. Never did they go after the instigator though. No, it was the guy defending himself.
  - borski 5y ago
    Do you have a source for this? Not that I don’t believe you, I just have never heard of this and would love to read more about it.
    - mc32 5y ago
      It was in the local papers: https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article252033033.html https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article252033033.html
- jrs235 5y ago
  Your analogy seems to be comparing the employee/employer relationship to a marriage rather than a family. If the employer is the parents of the family (more power/control/etc.) and the employees are children... Anyways, using the "we're family" idea in a company is bad because everyone's familial history and experience is different. For some "we're family" means regardless of how abusive the parents are, the children are to always submit, stay, and support them. For some, "we're family" means we don't tolerate laziness and lack of getting chores done and there are consequences for such. In other families that laziness is just tolerated. If a company wants to "be family" they better make sure everyone has a clear understanding of what that means or dig into the familial history and experience of all hires (I wouldn't recommend this). The better analogy for a company is "we're a team". People typically have a better understanding of how teams work.
karimmaassen 5y ago
I remember (can't find it anymore) a company whose CEO specifically hired people for life, considering them to be part of the family and as you wouldn't fire your sibling or child, they would not fire someone if they were to have prolonged issues. Rather, they'd try and help them for as long as it takes. It created a completely different dynamic in the company where no one feared for their jobs if they had issues.

by mc32 5y ago

seanmcdirmid 5y ago

> The other big difference is in a family, with rare exceptions, no matter how poorly you do, you don’t get fired or sacked. Your spouse can always initiate a divorce if your performance is lacking and fails to improve. Divorce on such grounds is quite common, I would guess.

mc32 5y ago
Yes, legal families can do that but most of the time it’s triggered by extreme cases. Blood families expel you much less often. But this reminds me of the owner of Ritual coffee who had to “ban” and fire her husband from her shop because someone upset at where he parked (to do work for his wife) called him the “N-word”. And he enraged asked, did you just call me “n-word?” So it wasn’t his doing, but a perp, but answering the perp in kind got him blacklisted by the “community[1] and professionally by his own wife. [1]meaning busybodies who likely never patronized them store but felt they had to show their virtue. Never did they go after the instigator though. No, it was the guy defending himself.
- borski 5y ago
  Do you have a source for this? Not that I don’t believe you, I just have never heard of this and would love to read more about it.
  - mc32 5y ago
    It was in the local papers: https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article252033033.html https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article252033033.html
jrs235 5y ago
Your analogy seems to be comparing the employee/employer relationship to a marriage rather than a family. If the employer is the parents of the family (more power/control/etc.) and the employees are children... Anyways, using the "we're family" idea in a company is bad because everyone's familial history and experience is different. For some "we're family" means regardless of how abusive the parents are, the children are to always submit, stay, and support them. For some, "we're family" means we don't tolerate laziness and lack of getting chores done and there are consequences for such. In other families that laziness is just tolerated. If a company wants to "be family" they better make sure everyone has a clear understanding of what that means or dig into the familial history and experience of all hires (I wouldn't recommend this). The better analogy for a company is "we're a team". People typically have a better understanding of how teams work.

karimmaassen 5y ago

I remember (can't find it anymore) a company whose CEO specifically hired people for life, considering them to be part of the family and as you wouldn't fire your sibling or child, they would not fire someone if they were to have prolonged issues. Rather, they'd try and help them for as long as it takes. It created a completely different dynamic in the company where no one feared for their jobs if they had issues.