Run far, far away and don't ever accept the job. Nothing good ever comes out of that. Or any form of nepotism. Major morale killer.
It's human nature to want to protect your own family. Especially if the spouse works in an influential position in the company. Employee will always be "wrong".
But sometimes it's a family business - I see no problem with that.
shareIt's a "dog eat dog" world. You gotta look out for yourself.
shareAgreed...as long as the couple wasn't saying 'I love you schmoopie...No, I love you MORE schmoopie!' all damn day🙄
shareWhat's a "schmoopie"?
share"Seinfeld" reference.
shareHere ya go: https://youtu.be/S4LCiqyxDlo
shareThanks. I've only seen a few Seinfeld episodes. That type of behavior in the workplace would be sickening.
shareIt's a Seinfeld reference
Jerry is in love and he and his girlfriend call each other 'schmoopie' constantly in 'cutie pie' voices and it drives George and Elaine crazy
Thanks. I haven't watched a lot of Seinfeld, so I've never heard that term.
That type of behavior in public is revolting. It would be even worse in the workplace.
Yes, save that lovey-dovey stuff for the bedroom...nobody wants to see that🤢
share[deleted]
There used to be a local free newspaper that would cover events pertaining to entertainment, theatre, restaurants and the like. One year for Valentine's Day they had a special deal where you could run a two-line message for a reduced price.
They ended up filling the back page with these messages. Seeing in print the "affectionate" names some of these people called each other was enough to make you vomit. I don't know why anyone would want to make this stuff public. I guess they have no shame or self-respect.
Some couples just seem to thrive on attention
My favorite female cousin and her husband would get into completely ridiculous public arguments at nearly every party (really horrible words were exchanged!) and then 10 minutes later they'd be slobbering all over each other on a lawn chair which was really gross...people are strange man
What if the boss' wife is the HR? Would you accept working as an employee in that type of environment???
shareI'm a very good employee and I don't do stupid things at work
I doubt they'd wish to terminate me and they'd have an impossible time trying to prove cause
I'd consider that an blatant conflict of interest. I might work there, but only because I've never availed myself of HR services for a workplace problem. I always figured they're getting their marching orders from the bosses and are acting in their interests, and that anything I said would get back to them anyway. Whenever I've had some sort of problem at work I've done one of three things: talk it over directly with the person, get another job, or hire a lawyer.
shareIndeed. It never bodes well for the employee. Plus, if spouse works in an influential position, they will for sure pass on the big production cases to their husband/wife rather than to the employee.
shareA family business isn't exactly appealing to me. No real HR department, can't ever complain about the boss if they do something wrong, etc.
share> Would you ever accept a job where boss' wife or husband works in the same office?
Well, if the boss's spouse is working there, then they're co-bosses, no matter what their titles say.
It depends on the situation. I worked once in a place with two married employees (neither was the boss). I'm sure they had their frictions and quarrels, like any married couple, but we never knew about it at work. We never could even guess. When they arrived in the morning, they left their personal lives in the parking lot.
On a funny side note, part of my unofficial job description was to sometimes be a babysitter for their four year old daughter. I didn't mind that, she was a cool and funny kid. My job was to assist customers who came in and needed technical assistance of a certain sort, and there weren't that many of those, so I had free time on my hands.
I once had a Line Manager and his wife was the team’s admin-liaison-pastoral worker. It was a small, very close team.
shareI don't think I could do it. The politics/nepotism would be an issue.
shareLet’s just say it was....interesting at times!
There was a lot of weird bitchiness and cliques in that place anyway. I stayed out of all that mess.
That, to me, is far worse than working with a married couple. I've always kept office gossips and other like types at a distance, and stayed out of cliques.
shareI've been in a similar environment. However, if you "stay out of it" and don't talk during lunch when they get together during their gossip sessions they start to think that you're "better than them" or that you're "aloof and uptight". They see YOU as the problem.
Can't win either way it seems.
Yeah, but some people's opinions matter and some don't. I had exactly that situation, at the first place I worked after I finished my education. There was a clique of gossips there, young adults who socially acted like high school students. People like that can drag down morale. I was polite to them but kept my distance, and they thought I was aloof and made their opinions known. But my boss respected me for it, and so did his boss. Also, I was simply getting more work done than those in the clique were. The board decreed that expenses would be cut back by laying off unnecessary employees. My boss's boss, the head of that office, drew up the list. About half of the clique were laid off while I stayed.
share...
shareGood workers are good workers. Bad ones are bad. It is easy to blame nepotism for it when they coincide but that is bias confirmation. Plenty of family businesses have excellent work practices. I have seen very bad workers keep their jobs. Sometimes it is a family member or friend but sometimes it is neither. It is more irritating when the boss's wife is in charge of payroll and checks are late than if it is someone else. It makes you think that you are suffering from nepotism ... and sometimes that is the case. But I don't think it is common enough to avoid a job that hires family.
If "being watched" is the issue for you then there is a different set of problems at hand.
I guess it depends on what type of business and what type of position the spouse is in. If it's a small company that is family-owned, and both owners are spouses, it may not be such an issue.
However, if one of the employees is the owner's spouse then that is a blatant conflict of interest especially if spouse works in an influential position. For example, if the spouse works HR. It's human nature to want to favour your own family. Employees will always be "wrong ".
Or if you work in a position that is production-based, and spouse works in an influential position, any high production cases will always be shuttled off to the spouse and the employee gets stuck with the "breadcrumbs".
What you describe are bad behavior issues that can exist outside of nepotism. They are not necessarily endemic. You assume that these practices are automatically how spouse-hires perform.
shareI can only go by what I've experienced in having worked for two companies that were family owned.
The first was early in my working life. I was 20-something, working for an independent music distributor. The boss and his wife both worked there, along with a sister-in-law. The boss was a snob and liked to flaunt his wealth with his plush office and DeLorean car. Never mind that the DeLorean was in the shop half the time. All his calls had to be announced, whereas everyone else's could simply be transferred to their extensions.
His wife, who was one of the buyers for the company, was an absolute witch with a capital B. She smoked like a chimney and was rude and abusive to just about everyone (except her husband and the sister-in-law). I was happy to move on from this nightmare company.
The second and much more recent experience was working for a family-owned craft business. Lots of family members worked there. Although some of the family got away with some minor things, the owners were very nice to their employees and treated them well. It was a great place to work.
You can't always know until you either start working for them, or talk to people who have or are working there.