Sure, the working with your significant other has been beat to death.... what about working with your father?

There's a posibility that I could work along side my father, in engineering, at a large scale corporation... this plant is abt 300 people. I wouldnt work for him, but those that I would work for all work with him on projects quite a bit.

I'm not sure how I would feel about this. Thoughts, comments, others have this experience?

5/2/2011 12:16:17 PM

How well do you get along with your old man?

5/2/2011 12:22:28 PM

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/nyregion/in-state-prison-father-and-son-make-good-cellmates.html?hp

5/2/2011 12:23:27 PM

^^This. Also, while it's good that you're not working directly for him, you and he are both still going to have to go out of your way to avoid accusations of favoritism. Automatically some people are going to think he pulled strings or called in favors to get you hired, so you'll need to make sure that it is clearly visible that you're getting things done on your own merit.

[Edited on May 2, 2011 at 12:25 PM. Reason : d]

5/2/2011 12:25:33 PM

I work for my mom at her travel agency. At first, I took the job to help my mom out of tough spot but that was 4 years ago and I'm still here. My mom is my boss. My brother also works here. My dad doesn't work here but drops by all the damn time so he might as well have a desk here. My mom is really good about being a boss here first and a mother second. We call her by her first name here at work but away from work, we call her Mom. I try not to take advantage of the fact that the owner of the company I work for is my mother. I'm not going to lie and say my brother and I don't get some special treatment sometimes.

If you can seperate home from work, I think working for family can be a good thing. Since working with my brother, we are closer than we have ever been.

5/2/2011 12:26:08 PM

Get along fine, I'm not gonna say i'm tight with my parents, though.

my biggest fear is a situation where I have to live in his shadow. Or where I do something that blows back on him.

As far as doing work together we'd be fine... we're both extremely logical and can communicate on the same wavelength, and work around the morons you end up with.

5/2/2011 12:31:20 PM

Quote :

" This. Also, while it's good that you're not working directly for him, you and he are both still going to have to go out of your way to avoid accusations of favoritism. Automatically some people are going to think he pulled strings or called in favors to get you hired, so you'll need to make sure that it is clearly visible that you're getting things done on your own merit."

This is also what I fear. I feel like even if i do a good job, its going to be a different standards I'm going to be held to.

This is basically an entry level position. This is all in the begining stages, and I may not make it last stage 1, but this is something I want to mull over through the process...

5/2/2011 12:35:01 PM

I started out working for my dad, but after ~4 years I decided it was time to go off on my own. I didn't work directly for him. I felt like I constantly had to work harder than others so coworkers wouldn't have a reason to think I was being favored.

While I enjoyed my time there, I'm much happier not working for my dad. He being the boss, I tended to learn or know more about the inner workings of the business than I cared to. Being blissfully ignorant at work is nice. This was also a smaller business. I would think working in a larger business setting would lessen all of that.

5/2/2011 12:43:06 PM

Sounds like your case is a little different. Working under your parent is bad news. You're introduced as their son/daughter and immediately the client connects that they don't want to talk to you about things.

Also, it makes family functions turn into business talk time. Where you associate work with one another and have no connection other than work.

5/2/2011 1:00:38 PM

I have worked with my stepfather, sister, and mother. Stepdad was fine because I didn't really see him that often. I worked in close proximity with my mother and sister (more so with my sis).

My mom was actually fine, but we also weren't in the same office. The only thing that got old was constantly talking about office politics, even outside of the office.


Working with my sister, however.........


Some days we would laugh and be loving sisters. The other days we wanted to rip each other's heads off

5/2/2011 1:05:18 PM

I worked under my dad for awhile. It was fine but my dad is really chill and the work I was doing a kindergartner could accomplish.

5/2/2011 1:25:16 PM

I've worked for my father for about 4 years. His office is down the hall from mine. It wasn't what i wanted at first but i've grown into the job and it's not so bad. We carpooled together for a couple years which was nice. But as has been said, we do a pretty good job at seperating the family relationship from the business one but sometimes he likes to carry over work talk while at home or fishing and stuff. He's always done that though, even before i came on board so it's nothing new. I've been yelled at a number of times, open door so everyone can hear but it's usually a legitimate error on my part that could cost us a lot of money if it wasn't found so I try not to take it personally.

One thing I don't like is that my industry trends a lot higher in age where most everyone i deal with is 40+ nowadays. So quite often people that know my father, even if it's my seal and signature on the bid/estimate, will call him with questions instead of me. And when I walk into construction meetings with longer hair, facial hair that isn't a neat mustache, and jeans they all look at me like i'm from space. That's more of a gripe with the construction industry than it is working for my father.


I don't know if i'll stay in this line of work forever, but for the next couple years it's doable.

5/2/2011 1:32:26 PM

i've worked off and on for my dad since i was 14. i started working for him fulltime when i graduated in 2005, went to work at a lab at a job in my major for 3 months, lab closed down, i came back & don't plan on leaving (especially in this economy). my brother also recently started working here. it's an architectural firm of 13 people, including me. my mom's first cousin works here too. i've known several of these people since i was a little kid so they're kinda like family to some degree.

generally, i have no problem working for my father. i handle all of the marketing & some minor IT type things. he's away at meetings a lot so it's not like i have to deal with him on a daily basis. we have another architect/part owner here so she's kinda like my boss too. i was VERY worried at first that everybody would just think i was here bc i'm family, even though i was taking over the marketing position that was open (lady quit to do more PR type stuff instead).

he can get pissy sometimes & doesn't listen. i thought for a LONG time that this was just me bc he's used to tuning me out or something, and feels that since i'm blood then he can fuss at me more & get away with it or whatever. no, turns out he's that way with everybody. when he's especially bitchy i can go talk to the other architect & commiserate.

my brother is getting along fine here too. he took the assistant CA job just kind of as a place filler til he finds something at a construction firm, but plans to come back here in several years to start up a construction side of the company too. who knows.

i could not work for/with my mom. definitely not.

Quote :

"Sounds like your case is a little different. Working under your parent is bad news. You're introduced as their son/daughter and immediately the client connects that they don't want to talk to you about things. Also, it makes family functions turn into business talk time. Where you associate work with one another and have no connection other than work."

since i've been in this business for so long, and we're in a small city, everybody knows i'm his daughter anyway (or son, in my brother's case). that's not really an issue. i do kinda not want to spend as much time with my parents bc i feel like i see dad enough, but if i go to their house i just go help mom with the garden or something. if he brings up work crap, i tell him i don't feel like talking about work & leave the room. i don't want to talk about that on time off, thanks.

[Edited on May 2, 2011 at 1:43 PM. Reason : ]

5/2/2011 1:40:09 PM

Isn't working with your family a fairly common occurrence in some smaller family businesses like restaurants, dry cleaning or contracting? I think as long as you separate them both it will be fine.

5/2/2011 1:44:39 PM

one of my issues is dealing with petulant assholes. i feel like this may be compounded by some asswipe getting all catty and shit.

I've make my own reputation everywhere i go, i'm highly competent and all that... but it's inevitable that someone will have an issue with it... Even in my last position, i developed a good rapport with the plant manager, and all these other people always saw him as being up on this pedestal... because of this working relationship, he gave me little side projects and things like that, because he knew i'd get the job done. some people had a problem with that.

5/2/2011 1:58:32 PM

fuck 'em

5/2/2011 2:49:59 PM

i would love to work w/ my dad. too bad his work is boring.

5/2/2011 3:10:47 PM

But yeah...there's a good chance that I could work with my mom in a hospital at some point in the near future, especially as my parents are considering moving to NC again and settling in the Triangle area. My mom is a competent nurse, so why wouldn't I want to work with and learn from her?

I have no problems with pulling strings at a job for family- my sister helped me get my very first job as a cashier, and I helped my little brother get a job at a restaurant by having worked there in the past. Especially in today's economy, you need to take advantage of every opportunity.

5/2/2011 4:52:51 PM

I couldn't work with/for/along side/under my dad at all.

Growing up, my dad always had my brothers and I doing things or helping him with stuff. The problem is that he always wanted it done his way. It wasn't until we were mostly through college where he would just tell us what needed to be done and let us figure out how to do it. He was a micro-manager of us. Some of it was understandable and I realize that now, but the majority of it was unneeded. However, it taught us to be independent thinkers and good problem solvers because while we were doing a task his way, we would think of better/faster ways to get it done so we could do something else. In addition to micromanaging, my dad always like to have someone just around him when he's doing stuff. He calls needing one of us around "moral support". We called it, "sending two (or three) people to do a one-man job."

It's surprising though because whenever we would go to his work(veterinarian's office), he would be 100% different with his employees. Talking with them, they love working for him and the business he runs.

I think he was highly critical of us because he always wanted us to do our best, never half-ass something, and always have high-caliber workmanship. I can't figure out if that comes from him being critical or micromanaging or what, and if I should act like that around my kids so that they want to have the same high quality in their work as I do.

5/2/2011 5:08:24 PM

Wouldn't.

Mom is in a different field and takes everything personal.

Dad does not respect my professional knowledge. I have to debate him on the simplest shit (in items relevant to both my old and new profession... scratch that, everything), in which he has no real expertise. You would think when I've saved him thousands and been proven right, time and time again...

5/2/2011 5:15:32 PM

Quote :

"Especially in today's economy, you need to take advantage of every opportunity."

agreed. dad gave me a better run down for the phoner i have tomorrow. 'company values', some of their standard questions, things like that... all common sense stuff, but helpful, still.

5/2/2011 9:23:58 PM

I think your situation is quite different from the norm.

As for me... I started at my dad's company when I was 14 and hated every minute of it. I worked there off and on until I was 18 and left for college. Once in college, I would help out at his office in Raleigh. We had pretty much no relationship growing up and I couldn't stand to be around him until I got married and then he chilled. He wanted me to come back and work for him and take over the company. I didn't want anything to do with it and I didn't want to be that close to him. I ended up getting a divorce several years ago and it blew my world apart and made me re-examine everything. I didn't like my job so I quit and floated for a year or so until getting a crap job with no responsibility or worries. After a couple of years I decided that it was time to figure something out so I started going back to school. During this time I realized that my dad was getting older and I needed to forgive and forget and at least get to know my father before it was too late. After a year of school, he asked me to try working with him again and after thinking about it for a few weeks, I accepted.

That was August of 2007. Now he's one of my best friends and I'm grateful that I took the chance to come back. Working with him can be infuriating because we're both extremely stubborn and he wants things a specific way to some extent but it's also very rewarding. My sister & brother-in-law have been here for about 15 years so it's the whole family but we all have our own area that we work in. Whereas I started out being the new guy who didn't get listened to and got triple-checked on everything, now I'm the go-to guy for several areas of projects and they're coming to me for advice (especially my father). He's always been a background guy so most of our older customers don't know him and new ones think that I'm the owner (even when he's on a job-site with me). Downside is that we bore my mother to tears when we go out because there's always SOME part of the job that comes up. Overall though, we're all good at separating work and home. At the office or in the field, he's John. After work, he's Dad and we're all pretty good at separating him into his 2 personas.

So that's my story. In your shoes, I'd look at the company and figure out whether you'd want to work there if it weren't for him. Personally, I've always had people jealous of my work and those that disliked me because I worked my ass off and got noticed for it. It's the same thing working with my dad just a different reason. They'll either figure out that the recognition is legitimate or they'll be gone due to their own incompetence shortly. Either way, it's not something that you should have to worry about for long as long as you're good at your job and work hard. I definitely wouldn't let them keep me from an opportunity that I wanted to take advantage of whether it was working at that company, working with your father, or the combination.




tl;dr: no relationship with dad, went to work for him, now he's best friend. Wouldn't trade the experience for anything. Take a chance and fuck what the haters/coworkers/etc. think


[Edited on May 2, 2011 at 9:45 PM. Reason : tl;dr]

5/2/2011 9:42:37 PM

How about working for your significant other's parents?

This might happen to me here soon.

5/2/2011 10:32:39 PM

Quote :

"Dad does not respect my professional knowledge"

fixed it for you, seriously though I don't know any dads that are willing to listen to a single word of what they're kid has to say.

5/3/2011 12:43:35 AM

I tell my dad to go screw off all the time now...so I have no problems working with him

5/3/2011 1:17:57 AM

I worked with my dad one summer before college. I actually enjoyed it and it brought us closer.

5/3/2011 1:20:54 AM

This would make me want to kill myself for many reasons. I can barely manage to spend more than an hour around my parents.

5/3/2011 4:41:10 AM

I worked for my dad the first few years out of college,

it eliminated the bullshit office politics, but he would also call evenings, weekends, anytime he needed something done

and I felt like I was being held to a higher standard of excellence than other employees

but all in all, taking advantage of his 30+ years of experience made me a better worker/salesman/etc than working for just anyone

5/3/2011 6:02:46 AM

thanks for all the replies, and a pm i got from another user. its been interesting hearing everyones experiences.

5/3/2011 1:30:09 PM

I worked for my dad one summer originally as an intern to organize all their plans and other dumb office stuff. I finished that the first couple weeks then created a Sharepoint server for the department to use for project tracking that I came up with myself. My degree is in Civil Eng so he knew it was way out of my expertise and was pretty impressed.

He never directly questioned my intelligence before then but ever since he's definitely been a lot more receptive to ideas across the board. I couldn't work for my mom, though even if she was in my field (transportation) instead of church family/childrens ministry as she is much more of a hands on manager.

While I would say that you can compare at home projects to possibly working with them, my dad actually was very micro-managing while we were kids working in the yard or something but definitely not that way in the workplace.

5/3/2011 5:09:10 PM

There's a big difference between working for and working w/ your parents. With shouldn't be so bad other than the random "that's your parent" joke.

5/3/2011 9:44:47 PM