To think this isn’t nepotism?

[Abergatwenty]

I work for the IT department of a solicitors firm in a large town. We are currently switching from one IT system to another - this means that we’re having to manually transfer a lot of data from the old system to the new.

To help us do this, we have eight 18-21 year olds (including my daughter) working for us for 2 weeks to do the transferring. They are all the children of various people who work for the firm - I just sent out an email asking if anyone had any uni student children home for the holidays who wanted a bit of summer work. We’re paying them minimum wage.

This afternoon in town I bumped into the mother of a girl who my daughter was at school with. She asked what my daughter was up to and I told her she was working at the solicitors with me for a couple of weeks. This mother got very angry about this and thought it wasn’t outrageous that we hadn’t “properly advertised” the jobs so that anyone could apply and had just asked our own kids.

AIBU? The work is time consuming but completely unskilled - we didn’t need to waste time shifting through CVs and A level results to find the most academic people. The only quality required is that we can trust them - we all trust our kids, and we don’t have time to conduct interviews.

Plus, given the number of applications that would come flooding in for anything that even resembles ‘legal work experience’, assessing each applicant and selecting 8 people would have probably taken longer than the actual data transfer job!

And it’s not like the work is going to lead to full time positions - it’s just a 2 weeks, unskilled, minimum wage summer job.

Inheritance tax is just one way to stop wealth passing between generations. I was taking more about the principle than the mechanism.

What you are advocating BumpityBump is state control over private companies. If I closed my company because of state interference over my right to employ who I wish to employ and the right to pass my business on to my children, why on earth would other private companies not feel the same ?

People who run their own businesses do it BECAUSE they want a degree of autonomy over their business decisions. They accept that the success and failure of their business stops with them. Their decision not to employ the best people for the job over family- may indeed have a detrimental affect on that business. Surely that is their right ? If they ask the state for nothing then the pluses and minuses are all theirs to win or lose.

When it comes to public sector/charitable /shareholder owned business then the 'person/people' paying the salaries are the state or multiple shareholders. In which case the recruitment must meet the paymasters criteria. In the case of the civil service/nhs/public bodies there must be a set criteria as the tax payer is the boss.
For PLCs it is the shareholders. If an AGM of shareholders decides they want the less qualified 'celebrity ' in a particular position, then that must always be their right in a mixed economy.

To interfere with private business recruitment practices to the degree you are advocating is state control. Otherwise known as Communism. Which is all fine and Dandy in principle and theory but sadly unworkable in practice due to people being individuals with natural aspirations to do well for their families.
One of the most nepotistic societies in the world was the Soviet Union where there were daily examples of some being more equal than others .. and those 'some' have flourished into the corrupt oligarchs of today.

There are some great examples of family owned business in this country, thriving for hundreds of years. People trust them. People use my business because they trust us. Have been around for 30 yrs, our family all work there. We have a good reputation. In know way do I feel 'immoral' . If you want to set up a company to employ your family you can. No one is stopping you but it's so much easier to moan about 'loss of opportunity ' than get off your arses and start your own business from nothing. Just like I did and create your own 'opportunity ' rather than being jealous of others.

Living up to your name fontof? The suggestion Bumpity made in no way approaches communism. Getting rid of all nepotism seems somewhat impractical to me, but it’s not even close to communism.

As others have said yes it's nepotism but it's fairly reasonable reasoned response to the situation at hand.
My son sometimes comes and helps me measure up when I'm surveying a building and gets paid an hours wage - yes I could advertise, interview and pay an assistant but there's no way on earth I would as it's ad hoc work for the odd hour, I'd just struggle on without and swear a lot.

@fontofnoknowledge
Firstly can we please avoid the old "you're just disagreeing with me because you're jealous" argument. It's a cliché and one that is designed to shut down discussion and prevent challenge.

Secondly suggesting that there should be some kind of regulation to prevent or limit nepotism creeping into recruitment processes is not akin to advocating that Britain should become a communist state. All businesses are already subject to a degree of state intervention when they recruit people as everyone has to comply with anti discrimination legislation etc. Do you think these laws have no place in a LTD too as it is a business owner's right to employ who they want or are you just anti state intervention regarding this particular issue?

Thirdly of course anyone could theoretically set up a business with the aim of employing all their friends and family, however you are being disingenuous to suggest that this is a mechanism through which we can even out the playing field so easily. Everyone knows that things such as having easy access to capital and a network of relevant contacts could make a massive difference to a business becoming successful or indeed surviving at all. We also all know the kinds of people that are most likely to have these resources on tap and it's the same kind of person that would normally benefit from nepotism in all other organisations too i.e. the already privelged.

Fundamentally you can't get around the fact that nepotism is ultimately unfair and the more it goes on the less fair our society becomes. You and the OP are adding to this problem in a small or more sizeable way by partaking in this practice.

Bumpity. The original point is that this WAS about simple jealousy. There was no problem raised with the nepotism as long as the woman’s daughter was included in it!

I think it’s a slightly moot point anyway, I get that you feel strongly about it but let’s be honest, it’s not going to change in circumstances like this so you can continue to rail against the unfairness of it and insist your DC and family/friends miss out on opportunities because of your principles and that’s fine and totally up to you.

I however won’t be joining you in that and will continue to ensure I give my DC every possible opportunity I can which will include sorting work experience through my company, my DH or friends/family and helping them to find employment whether that be through word of mouth or other means.

It’s life and life isn’t always fair but that doesn’t stop you making the most of it.

Yes I agree that the system will never change as it isn't in the interests of anyone that has power or influence to bring about such a change. I accept this to a certain extent but I don't accept as readily people trying to argue that nepotism is anything other than intrinsically unfair and that there absolutely no need to even consider trying to look at ways we can mitigate against its effects.

What you choose to do is absolutely your perogative as long as it is within current laws and regulations but don't be offended when people call nepotism out for what it is and get annoyed about how it is increasing inequality.

Nope not offended in the least, I couldn’t care less in fact . There are many more unfair things in the world than this to get excited about.

I believe that you make your own luck in this world and, before you rehash the old wealth and privilege issue, there are many many examples of people who have succeeded who come from poor or difficult backgrounds and the reasons are simply down to sheer hard work, tenancity and seizing every opportunity they can and on the flip side there are as many examples of people from what you refer to as privileged backgrounds who make an absolute hash of their lives. So I’m afraid your arguments that wealth etc equals success doesn’t really wash with me.

And believe me, I speak from experience as I came from a background where we had very little money and educated at the local (fairly shitty) comp. My situation now, and that of our DC, couldn’t be any further from that picture and that was down to bloody hard work so forgive me if I won’t be taking up the notion of not allowing our DC to inherit the fruits of that hard work.

There has been some (non regulatory) change, eg the media are reporting unpaid internships and some organisations changing their practice.

I once put up a friend for 8 weeks while she was doing an unpaid journalism internship at the BBC - doubt those opportunities will be unpaid now.