Working for family...

HI! I haven't made a thread here in a long time D:

Anyways... my cousin's having her super special sweet 16 party in a few weeks and they asked me if I'd design her birthday invitation. Being the amazing cousin that I am, I told her I'd do it - it would give me a good portfolio piece, so good stuff all around!

Only in the end, even though the invitation came out well and my cousin loved it, it ended up being a whole lot of stress. They made me start it in the middle of finals week when I had a portfolio showing and two tests, made me use my own printer and ink (at $18 a cartridge!) because they claimed that their printer was "broken" (which it has been for... 5 years?) and generally requested that I do things to the card that are omfg awful wut (and as a designer I could not allow). They didn't pay me, because they're family and my mom said I shouldn't make them pay. Which is generally true, I was happy to do it for free, but all of the materials that I had to use to do it really set us back a few bucks.

SO IN GENERAL, working for my family has turned out to be more stressful than working for strange clients - because they are close to me and took advantage of the fact that I couldn't say no "because I'm family."



Discuss awful happenings with working for family/people who are close to you? :(

Well you have a nice family :(

My cousins/aunt are just the types of people who can't do anything for themselves, and if they can get someone to do something for them for free then they will. I mean, it started out with just "Want to design the invites?" and ended up "So you're gonna design them and print them on your printer and cut them by hand and supply the envelopes and then put them in the envelopes, right?"

slgnslfkhnf.

Some of my family is like you describe, and the other part wants to pay me WELL for anything I do for them. And they wonder why I never come around, lol. I can understand free labor (to be nice since it's family), but parts/gas/etc. should be on them.

It's been quite some time since I've done any work for my family, but it's always been exactly as you described. Same goes for some of my neighbors. Whenever a computer needs fixing they give me a ring. Payment is seldom offered and I never feel right by asking. I've fixed problems caused by all kinds of carelessness: drink spills, drops, excessive load bearing (placing a box of books on a laptop, for example); trips on power cables, and fans immobilized by dust mixed with cigarette tar. All manner of stupid, disgusting, and time consuming jobs have come my way. More than a few times I've almost told people to take their computers to Geek Squad or someplace similar but I always cave and fix it for them at little or no cost.


King X2 - Keep that avatar!

My family always offer money to do things. The other one will always so no it's ok keep your money. Then after a little convincing they will take the money.

When I was about 15 my aunt regularly paid me to copy CDs for her. She supplied all the blank disks and still gave me money for my time. I loved it since I had no job.

Depends on who's asking me, really. If it's my grandmother, or one of my aunts that I like, then I'd do it without asking. If it's one of my cousins or one of my really bitchy aunts, payment or no deal.

I don't mind doing work for my family, as long as it's reasonable and on my terms. If it would cost me money to do them work and also stress me out, I'll simply tell them no. My family will always pay if you do something for them though.

Never work with/for family. Just leads to problems.