It's hard when family members ask you to do work for them and you don't have time, they still offer to pay you. They expect that you'll somehow find the time because there's now a financial incentive at play. My mom is starting a company and she really needs updates to a crappy website. "This only takes you a couple of evenings" she'll say. I'm inclined to do it for free but that means we wait for me to have time off. All of a sudden my holiday breaks and evenings are website jobs while I'd rather be chilling out with my family.
Anyone share the same experience?
Really enjoyed the wisdom in this article btw. Thanks!
I've helped out my mother in her business for years, on evenings and weekends. Overall, I haven't found it a good experience, mainly because of two issues.
Firstly, I really don't have the time to put her affairs in order (and keep them that way), only enough to put out fires. I do get paid, but it's really not a matter about money. As you say, it then begins to pollute the relationship with that person, since you can no longer spend time with them normally.
Secondly, it's quite painful to see bad decisions being made against your advice when it's someone you know and care about. It also makes the motivation to put out fires much lower, since you know there'll always be more on the way...
Having chatted to friends, I understand that the situation becomes much easier where both parties have some kind of help they can trade with each other, instead of most of the help going one way.
Who wiped your butt when you crapped your pants? Who taught you to ride a bike and held you when you skinned your knees? Who bought you your first computer and fed you and drove you to school and held you when you were scared and comforted you when you were sad and cheered for you when you won?
Help your mom out with her website.
It's the least you could do.
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(Sorry. First time posting - my wife is 9 months pregnant and this got me fired up...)
Mixing family and business is never a good thing to do. I love all those memories and I want that to be the time we spend together not that ____ is wrong with your website/business because you may start out with a website but it never seems to end with just that.
A mother and her child have a completely different relationship than two grown adults. Assuming that we should break our backs for our parents because of the natural order of life seems silly to me.
For me, family is easy. It is our custom to charge each other full rates, period. Saves a lot of bad feelings.
For friends, I usually request some kind of equivalent work for trade, or full rates. For example, I'll clean up your viruses if you'll mow my lawn (or paint a room, give the gf a manicure, whatever). I suspect it would work for family, too, if I needed it to.
I can totally relate. I spend way too much time helping my Mom which aggravates the hell out of me because she has been using a PC since Win 3.1 and she still can't remember the easiest of tasks. Thankfully she has friends to help her with her financial reporting (she is treasurer for 2 non-profits) and her desktop publishing, but no matter how many times I tell her to stop installing free cursors and such it seems I need to clean her system out regularly. She is like the lady who calls tech support only to discover that her PC isn't even turned on lol But I could never charge her. She is my Mom. Now my sister on the other hand pays too many consultants too much but only wants free advice from me which I give casually. The few times she has asked me to do serious work she has balked even when I low balled her on the price. So she continues to spend too much for too little because she won't hire her little brother.
Friends ask for help all the time and I just dispense advice. I am not creating anything for free unless I have an emotional investment in the project and honestly I have always been uncomfortable charging friends. The friendship is what matters and a formal biz relationship can really stress it out at times. If I were you I would make it a policy to not work for family and friends and then make exceptions on a case by case basis if you feel inclined.
Anyone share the same experience?
Really enjoyed the wisdom in this article btw. Thanks!