I joined my family business, and it went like…

Can you change the tyres of a car that is running at 80 miles per hour? No, but you must try

Photo by Maksym Kaharlytskyi on Unsplash

This is my first ever story and I write it against the backdrop of a global pandemic that doesn’t seem to end and a decision that was quite the hairpin turn of my twenty-something life — the decision to move to Chandigarh, my small and wonderful city and to join the family business nine months ago.

Those of you who know me, know that I have pretended all my life that this is what I personally want, what I was born for, and what I have been preparing for my whole life. But those of you who really know me know that I lie to myself a lot and believe my lies if I tell them hard enough. I am not quite sure if this was one of them.

So I made this leap into something I always wanted to do — I joined the family business.

I knew it could be a lot of things — difficult, unprofessional (compared to my previous pseudo consulting job), emotionally laborious and unaccepting. It was all of those things and more. And obviously, the pandemic wasn’t helping me ease into it.

It was a reality check, a glaring indication that I know nothing, have no skills — emotional or professional, and that my education has done a horrible job at preparing me for the real world, especially a family business.

So two months in I am here and I am upset at the contradictory nature of this situation I’ve put myself in. The situation looked like this:

1. I am the boss’s child so I am important but not quite because I know much lesser than everyone in the organization
2. I joined because my dad was excited to have me in but that excitement ran out and I needed to be assigned a job. Now this job couldn’t be too unimportant because positioning is everything but it couldn’t be too important because what if I screw up.
3. My father is too busy to teach me and everyone else is too scared to teach me.
4. Comments like “Yes, this is a nice gig till you get married.” A detailed piece on this later. This caused my subconscious to think all wrong things and I hate everyone who has said this to me. Obviously, people will say what they do but people, please stop.

Now, this doesn’t sound as bad as it felt when I was in this confusing limbo. You probably think this is some privileged and asinine girl with an idiotic word sketch on how her very comfortable life sucks and how she wants to do so much but can’t because she screams at the slightest inconvenience and you’re probably thinking “sis, you can do anything if you put your mind to it.”

If you’re in a similar situation, please text me let’s validate our feelings but if you’re someone who is asking their child, niece, nephew, cousin to join the family business, please know that your support will mean the world to them and providing it will make their journey that much easier.

Going back to my asinine word sketch, I did take that you-can-do-anything advice and I put myself in a slightly more uncomfortable situation — I suggested I start something on my own that spins off from our existing pharmaceutical set-up because I wanted to be here but I had to create my own opportunity.

So I made a list of things I could do and may enjoy doing. I read extensively on new trends and after four months of feeling why did I do this to myself — I found my light. The light was that I want to do something smaller, more personal to begin with and ever since that is in the works, I feel much better about waking up. I feel like I have a purpose and that I don’t have to feel inadequate every time I walk into this space where everyone knows more than I do. More on the small thing I started later if it matters?

If you’re reading this and thinking about if you should join your family business, I think you can save a few weeks or maybe even months if you answer the following questions (if I had I would have saved a lot of misery):

1. Do you like the industry?
   Do you personally believe that great things could happen in your industry? Apparel, shoes, tech, software, food, and in my case, healthcare — If yes, you’re halfway there. It’s very difficult to like something that you are not interested in. If you like your industry you will automatically be drawn to the niche that serves you and makes you happy. If my family business was to produce leather goods I would hate it simply because it’s against my values. It would make me unhappy and I would never be able to give it my best. Obviously, there’s more to just conflicting values, it’s about whether sparks fly when you think about what you make. Say, if we made water tanks (not saying those aren’t important and deeply exciting to some people), I would feel stupid my whole life doing work I don’t enjoy.
   Now obviously, some people want to be in the business of making money — if you’re those people, you don’t need to answer this.
2. Do you have some ideas about what you would like to change or introduce in your business?
   I didn’t and that’s why I wasn’t happy. If I had a cloudy plan, I would have a direction. I went with a limp thought of we’ll see what happens. I saw what happened and I don’t want to see it again EVER — bad plan. Don’t do that. Now that I have plans, no matter how rough and likely to fail they are, I am content. If I succeed, yay! If I fail, I learn. Is there a purpose? YES.
3. Are you thinking of this as a long-term career plan?
   Join your family business only if you think this is where you want to be for good. The exit-entry can be corrosive to your credibility — and that’s going to matter. If you’re here till your ‘real thing’ takes off, don’t do it. It’s not fair to either side. If you treat it as the thing you do before you really know what you want, the business will treat you like that.
4. Do you like your parents?
   Or whoever (uncle, aunt) is in charge at the time. This is very important. Would you get along with your parents if they weren’t your parents? If not, you’re going to hate this. I mean obviously, parents are great. They do so much for us but if you are fundamentally different, they will give you grief and vice versa.

Fortunately, I have found something that I can put my name on and say “Here, I made this.” and I am confident that you will too.

Thinking is easy. Starting is hard. Consistency is harder. Evolving is the hardest.

Really confused about how to end this but yes, please be a generous critic. I had so much fun writing this. I am thinking I’ll post every Monday.

Love,
Sun