“I started my professional life in business. After my studies, I was hired at a company where I basically did a lot of PowerPoint presentations. I wanted action on the ground.
I come from a community that invests a lot in commerce. It is often a family story, of several generations working together. A friend of my father told us about the project of opening a Store located near a historical monument, in a tourist area. My father has known this man for over forty years. He was his first partner when he arrived in France at the age of 20. His family asked me to be a store manager. I said yes, I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity. To form the team, the family choice fell on my brother-in-law and my sister joined the project.
For a year, in 2014, we worked hard. We start from an empty space. We were open seven days a week, working days from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., with our heads on the handlebars. The business took off, but it was not sustainable in the long term. After a year, I became pregnant. My husband and I moved out of Marseille and I reorganized myself: I only went there two or three days a week. The rest of the time I worked remotely. My sister and brother-in-law continued to go there every day. I was still the manager and didn’t realize that this situation created an imbalance and certainly tension for them.
“The kingdom of rumors and gossip”
For me, in the professional world, when there is a problem, you talk about it with your boss, you discuss it with your colleagues and you solve it. That’s how I was trained, that’s the corporate culture I come from. But there we worked as a family. Suffice to say it has nothing to do with it. We don’t talk to each other. It is the kingdom of rumors and gossip. Added to this are old grudges between families that have been going on for fifty years. Anyway, with my sister and my brother-in-law I see that the atmosphere is tense, but we don’t talk about it. It occurs to me that the other family is wondering what I do while teleworking.
I have my baby. The pace is not easy. It bothers me a little that I can’t be with him part of the week. For months, even years, the climate deteriorates. The files are poorly managed because we do not communicate. A case with a lawyer goes to court; We have conflicts with suppliers. The exchanges with my sister are cold, even hostile. Looking back, I see my mistakes: I expected others to operate like me, to share my vision for the company, without even telling them. I probably haven’t taken my place as a leader enough. I was always looking for consensus. With an average colleague, being frank is not complicated, because it is only a professional matter. With your family it is less easy, because you imagine that you could hurt your loved ones.
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