Friends Don’t Let Friends Hire “Friends”
It occurred to me earlier this week that being an entrepreneur is, at times, probably the most lonely thing you can do professionally. When you’re just starting out, you often have little to no support and you’re completely on your own. If you “hit it big”, you don’t know whether people are interested in you for you OR your success/fame/money/influence or other selfish reasons. Either way, you’re on your own. I often feel like it’s just me against the world, and that’s a lonely place to be.
Time and time again I have looked to “friends” to help me on this journey. After all, friends are the people you know and trust… right? Often times they come to me, ambitiously volunteering their time and talents for the betterment of one of my various entrepreneurial endeavors. Every time I allowed this to happen I was pleasantly surprised by my friend’s initial interest and enthusiasm in joining my company. I felt good knowing that someone saw value in what I was doing so much so that they wanted to be involved. Sadly, every time I’ve allowed this to happen I am eventually let down: lied to or about, blackmailed, criticized, or worse.
Probably the worst mistake I have made (more than once) as an entrepreneur is assuming that friends of mine would double as good employees. It’s logical to think that a personal relationship can translate into a professional one as well. Based on my experiences, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Even if you are best of friends with someone chances are they’ll take a mile (or two) for every inch you give them as an employee. I suppose the best analogy I could is that hiring your friends is like having a friend as a roommate; both situations never seem to end well.
In hiring or working with friends, I am 1 for 4. That is, out of the 4 “friends” I have hired or worked with over time, all but 1 turned into a negative situation in which I was made to be “the bad guy” for one reason or another. Most recently I hired an individual I knew personally only to be extremely disappointed with his performance, or lack thereof. After several missed deadlines, multiple forgotten or ignored tasks, and two unhappy customers, I decided against furthering his employment just one month after he started. Of course, he now resents me and demands that I pay him for tasks he didn’t even complete. For a small business owner, throwing away money for nothing (which is what the company gets in return) isn’t a viable option. So, I either (a) pay him for nothing or (b) refuse to pay him the amount he demands and in turn have him attack my character to everyone we know, failing of course to tell the whole story. In the end, I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t. He’s “the victim” even though my company suffers.
Ultimately, the person at fault here is me. While he (and the others) may have made mistakes that led to their eventual termination, the only mistake that really matters is the fact I made the mistake of hiring a “friend” yet again. Regardless, it cannot be overlooked that of the people I work with, the ones that never seem to disappoint are the ones with which I didn’t have have a relationship to prior to working together. Take for example one of my partners, whom until working together we didn’t really know each other. When asked to do something, he gets it done. He works hard, meets deadlines, and generally exceeds expectations. Moreover, he gives a damn about what we’re trying to accomplish as a company and isn’t involved solely to make money.
Regardless, I always ask myself if I’m just too hard on the people I work with. While I am admittedly a perfectionist and very detail oriented, most entrepreneurs are. Is it too much to ask for accountability and timeliness from an employee? I assume not, but every time an employee is a “friend” it seems like you’re unable to ask anything of them and their role is not at all “value adding”. Instead, they ask for jobs solely for the purpose of being paid based on the assumption that because you’re their friend, poor performance or no performance at all is somehow acceptable.This include coming to work late, ignoring assigned tasks, or even mistreating customers. I guess anything is acceptable when “the boss” is your “friend”.
The moral of the story is not to “never hire friends”, but tread carefully. If you’re seriously considering offering employment to someone you know personally, always draft some sort of employment agreement and a carefully-worded job description. That way, if and when they fail to do something, you have objective reasons and proof of their errors. Also, always require some sort of a time sheet or report as to what was completed and when. If the friend-turned-employee fails to even complete a time sheet, that’s probably a sign that things won’t work out.
Truly, there’s few things worse than losing a friend, especially if you’re doomed to be the one at fault even if you just asked them to do the job they said they wanted.
