Two Bosses: Mom & Dad

Each of my parents had a completely different approach to running a business

That’s me when I was in the fifth grade. I got to draw the winning ticket in a door-prize giveaway at my mom’s store. (She’s standing behind me.)

As a kid, working at the family business has a lot of benefits. Mainly, you can’t get fired when you screw up. To complicate matters, my parents each owned a hardware store, so I had to morph myself in the employee each of them wanted me to be.

My mom’s store served homeowners and hobbyists, and the pace was much slower than that at my dad’s store, which served farmers and light industry. At mom’s place, customers were greeted with “Can I help you?” and led to the merchandise. At dad’s store, most customers already knew what they needed, so my job was to help them find it and ring up the sale.

I made plenty of mistakes at both stores. But, hey, I was just a kid. When I wrote about my parents’ stores in the Wall Street Journal, I heard from plenty of other folks who grew up working for their parents. Are you one of them? I’d like to hear about your experience, especially the lessons learned.