Family in Management

by Roczanne
(Pinetop, AZ)

I've been working at a local Burger King for 7 months now. The general manager's wife is the assistant manager, and their son is a shift manager. Their son is not what you would call a good worker. He's lazy, complains constantly, skips work and is rude to the customers. And yet he gets away with it because "daddy" is the GM. My aunt also works with me, but neither of us have family in management, so we actually have to do our jobs. She was originally hired because one of the shift managers is leaving in a few months and she was supposed to replace him. Recently, the District Manager has been complaining about the labor being too high and cut everyone's hours, mine and my aunt's hours being hit the hardest although together we didn't even make one person's hours to begin with. Even with the labor being so high, the DM hired her niece to work here. Since she had been hired, I went 2 whole weeks without working so that her niece could get some hours in. This was never directly stated, but it's definitely what's going on. And remember that shift manager job promised to my aunt? Turns out it's going to the DM's niece now, without a single word to my aunt that her job had been taken. The favoritism in this place is ridiculous. The managers are placing way too much credit on their family for (in many others' opinions) mediocre job performance.

Response from Carl: Thanks for your submission Roczanne. More often than not when people email me regarding workplace favoritism, they mention the same sort of issues regarding the favoritism: it's favoritism involving family and friends.

The question for you I think is how important is this job to you? What are your other job prospects? How much time and effort do you want to put into a job like this that is causing this much grief?

Carl