re: Thoughts on nepotism? Is it all bad?

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Nepotism can simultaneously be utterly justifiable on a personal level and yet staggeringly detrimental to everyone and everything adjacent to it. The disconnect is when those engaging in nepotism believe themselves to be above reproach on the subject.

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Bogalusa paper mill is a perfect example of this. The same handful of families have worked there for the last 50 years. It’s no wonder the rest of the community is poor as hell and everyone else left.

Here's an example of nepotism gone bad:

Friend's construction supply company (probably 60-70 employees) hired the wife of a big customer. Bad idea.

She's a huge Cowboys fan. When they won against Pittsburgh last year and her hopes were still high, she was giving everyone (including vendors, clients) shite about it (lots of Steeler fans around here). So when they got smoked by Detriot the next week, everyone in the office took turns giving it back to her. My friend changed her screen saver to the Lions, she went ballistic, forced the boss to bring in his lawyer and demanded repercussions to the whole staff. She actually ended up with a promotion.

Another one: my buddy has a leadership position since joining and has never punched a clock. She raised so much hell with the boss that now, 15 years in, he has to punch in / out.

But they can't do anything about it. My buddy says everyone walks on eggshells around her. So dumb.

As long as someone treats the customer right, doesn't overcharge, does their job with professional conduct, and is genuinely qualified to do it it's not something I stew and complain about.

Plenty small businesses hire their own family in.

It can have zero impact if the person is competent. For example, promoting your son in your family business is a good move if he's worked for your business since he was legally allowed to work and knows everything about its operations. If he's a spoiled prick who is addicted to cocaine, then it will probably be bad for the company.

It can destroy companies, organizations, and areas if they aren't competent.

A prime example is Louisiana. There's a lot more nepotism here than other places and it shows. Barely any Fortune 500 companies, parish/city governments can barely fill a pothole because government is top heavy with administrators and committee members that are family friends of the mayor/parish president/governor.

I don’t have a problem with it as long as the son is not arrogant and acknowledges that he had help and didn’t build it on his own.

I don't think it's a bad thing, but I can understand why people on the outside looking in would be justifiably upset. If I can put my kids on to ensure they are straight and don't have to live a life of struggle. You are damn right I will do just that.

Jerry Jones has all of his children working in some executive function for the Cowboys. Is that nepostism? Yes. Does it suck if you're a qualified person in the org, but you will never get certain roles because your last name isn't Jones? Yes. Would I do the exact same thing for my family if I was in Jerry's position? Absolutely.

It looks like the results are demonstrating the qualifications of the executives in charge.

In a family business? Hell no.


Anything else? frick yes.

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parents shouldn’t be ashamed for wanting to help their kids out. If a guy works his arse off to build a company, and would like to groom his son or sons to take over one day, and pass on his wealth to his kids.

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Nothing wring with this at all in a family business that your family built. I have seen in many times with my banking customers and my own son in law is being groomed to take over the company that his grandpaw built, because his dad wants to retire one day. The family finances bear all the risk of giving that job to the son.

It can be a problem with big corporate jobs or public sector. When you give a kid a gravy job, others pay if he is a dud.

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Nepotism is probably the biggest destroyer of businesses outside of government.

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Family>Business