Family Business

I wasn't even really sure about family businesses. How do you fire a family member? Hopefully not Godfather style, strangling them in a boat before dumping their body in the water. How do you take orders from a family member? And then the classic, "My entire family are toy makers, but I want to be a dentist!" or some variation of that theme and the resulting familial pressure and disownment and Isle of Misfit Toys with a clear lack of teeth.

Why, I asked, would you want to run the same Italian restaurant that your parents and grandparents ran?

And yet, when faced with a similar, but less tasty, situation, I willingly ran into the arms of family related employment.

Dad has always had his hobbies, which tend to be an awful lot like a business. Back in the day, it was the stock market. These days, it's real estate. He is a landlord. And like any business, life is easier when you can just get your kids/spouse to do things. Don't have a delivery guy? Get your teenage son to drop whatever off. The store is a wreck? Pay your gaggle of girls in ice cream and pocket change to spend a Saturday cleaning it. I'm not saying that we're all being ripped off, just that we tend to be a low risk help. We don't work out, they didn't have to go through the hiring process and offer full-time or part-time hours and so on to get us. We do work out, hey, I could use some extra cash.

In the case of the landlord business, several of us could have potentially gotten involved. Dad's mentioned things like this before, where each of us contributes something to hold the monopoly on some commodity in Ames. Before we had a Craig's List, I think he might have been musing over a website of similar properties. With the housing, he hires Mom to clean the houses in between clients and my youngest brother Jacob to mow the lawns. If Nathan were around, Dad would set him to fixing things, hopefully without having to replace it, which Nathan's common sense and innate understand of things would come in handy. And right now, he's hiring me as a leasing agent. I get paid commission, and only commission, but as I don't have a real job, any extra cash would be helpful and I certainly have the time to do it.

And so, The Family is in business.

Now, Dad seems to have had a lot of luck in leasing in the past. He said he averages about fifteen people interested and about five showings before he finds a leaser. I'm using the same advertisements as him, the same strategy (show it a few days after the ad is posted), and I have averaged four contacts, three headaches, and a scam. I haven't even made it to a showing date and already I'm despairing of finding normal people out there that just want to lease. Is it because I'm trying for an August lease in May? Dad said he wanted it done by the end of the month. I was hoping to post the ad, take down information, schedule the showing, show it, and then go over a long list of potential consumers to pick the best one with Dad. At this rate, I'll be lucky if I don't have to call the renters and be like, "I said I needed three to six, and I know it's only three-fifteen... but nobody else is coming. You can have your house back."

What magic does he possess? Should I go home and rub his head? Steal is owl marble? Sit RIGHT next to him when he's working on his laptop in the back yard? Change my last name back to Lubinus? Collect pennies?

I need to learn how to channel this "family business." Or make 'em an offer they can't refuse.