New Job, New Challenges

Now that I have accepted a job working for my brother and sister-in-law, I face all new challenges. For one thing, my husband is really uncomfortable with my decision to work for family. He feels that my brother only offered me the job out of pity. While that didn’t seem consistent with my brother’s personality, I considered that husband might be right. But after hearing the job description, I was certain that I could earn the position and please my new employers. Basically, they acquired equipment to run a sign shop, but have little time to devote to growing a second business. They want someone to help them with their online marketing, production, customer service, and graphic design. They need a self-motivated person because they cannot spend mass amounts of time supervising and directing. So, I have take initiative without stepping on toes. I also have to familiarize myself with a lot of software for graphic design. There is all this complicated machinery that I have to learn how to operate and maintain. My brother is an excellent trainer and my sister-in-law has a handle on the book-keeping and general business operations.

I basically have two bosses who are vastly different in temperament and expectations. My brother is easily impressed. My sister-in-law has higher expectations, but is not unreasonable. She is often frustrated with results that fall short of her ideal, but she is to blame for not being available to direct projects hands-on. She has clearly defined ideas, and my brother works in a more general direction and is therefore more flexible.

Then there is the problem of logistics and lack of proper tools inherent with a new business. We have no land phone, and I was given a used cell phone. The fully charged battery goes dead after one phone call and the zero button doesn’t work. We rectified that problem by trading phones. Now that we’ve added my phone to the service, we are going over our contracted minutes. We’re working from our own laptops, which we take to our prospective homes. So, it seems that whenever you need a particular customer file, it went home with someone else on their thumb-drive or their computer.