The Family Business

I don't know if any of you have ever worked with your family or not, but if you have, did it go anything like this?

Fifteen years ago, i owned my own business as a construction contractor. My parents owned a larger company in the same industry. My company contracted it's own work, and sub-contracted work from my parents company. The majority of the work coming from the later of the two. my company handeled the bulk of the custom and difficult/out of the ordinairy work that my parents company sold. The type of work being performed is something that i have done my entire life. I started as an employee of my fathers company when i was still in Junior High School. Before that i was more of a slave doing goffer work for him with little or no pay. Obviously my dad is "Old School".

There came a time when we agreed it would be in the best interest of both of us for me to become a salaried employee of his company. In the begining, things were not to bad. I headed up an expansion of the company that fabricated custom products for retail sale and field installation. As this new venture grew, i found myself working longer and longer days. Eventually, there came a point where i could no longer handle the work load. At this time i hired my wife to reduce the work load on myself, and used the additional free time to advance the growth of this new division and to aid in the management of the rest of the company. The growth of the company was rapid, and again we were out growing our britches. Now the work load had become over bearing again. This time i hired my wife's brother to handle the sales for the installation of our products. Very loyal and professional, it was quite the easy fix for the problem at hand.

The part of the company that i had started had now become the second largest portion of income for the company, and had the smallest amount of man power per dollar of sales. It was very efficient, and was consuming less of my time as a result. Wanting add to the progression of growth, i started another division in the company. The type of product and service we would be offering was a niche in our industry, with vertually no competition to speak of. So many long nights educating myself to get our foot in the door early in this markit paid off well. Within a few years, it had move into the number three money maker for the compay. It was also very efficient in it's processes, making it the highest ROI the company had ever seen.

Once this division had been established, i saw no other opporunities for expansion of the company. This led me to the idea that it was time to revamp other portions of the company to make them more efficient, bringing them up to par with what i had already done. It didn't take long for it to become apparent that my input on the operations was seen as a threat by my parents. My intent was to improve the production of the company as a whole. Though they deny it, i'm rather certain they took it as me trying to take over what they were doing.

The ideas i had for what was going on the part of the company that they were operating were not radical, out of the ordinary, or overbearing. Simple improvement such as time management and tracking, employee work scheduling, job descriptions; a human resources department with tools such as an interview process, termination standards, defined chain of command, and a code of conduct; an installation schedule available for installation crews and our customers; a policy and procedures manual for day to day activities and a guidlines for special circumstances that should arise. I'm sure most of you have heard of many of these ideas before. I was also in search of a business plan being laid out for one, five, and ten year time periods.

I was railroaded away from my objective at every turn. This also spread to interference in what i had already done in other departments. The tension built rapidly, and eventually lead to the firing of my wife, the beating down of my brother-in-law's esteem, dispair of many key employees not in the family, and my own personal depression.

At this time my wife now works for our largest competitor, they are actively recruiting me, my brother-in-law, and one of our other key employees. Today i found out from the receptionist that my father has been talking about selling the company, and has not so much as hinted at this to me. It's been over a year since i asked for a business plan and have yet to recieve even an agenda for the upcoming season.

I'm at a loss as to what to do. I have invested so much of my life into this, with the understanding that this was something we were doing as a family, and indeed would one day be mine. Now i feel as if i have been played by my own parents and will be left out in the cold after 15 years of dedication. I can't even talk to my parents anymore and this holiday season is a nightmare because of it. I've done way more than my fair share of stupidity over the years, but htis is the first thing i've ever done that i truly regret having done.

I'm not sure exactly what i'm getting out of writing this, but here it is. Sorry about the wall of text. I guess tomorrow is a new day...