Separating Business and Friendship

Life Matters!

When you are dealing with work, in either the public or private sector, people that you know have a way of asking favours from you no matter what your position. This is one of the many facets of being Abesha that really gets on my nerves.

It is as though you have attained that particular post in life to cater to their needs or to help them with whatever order of business it is they bring to you. This is a habit that has not only been formed but perpetuated by most people that I know and in most businesses as well.

Often it is friends and family members that take the occasion to make the requests to people, and many, for fear of not disappointing the people in their lifes, go out of their way to do all or part of what those people ask, regardless of whether their positions permit it or not.

In the jobs that I have held, I have had requests from friends and family members to do this or that for them. It is not often that I cater to these requests, and often I say that when the demand is put forth. If my position and time allows me to complete a certain task, I will undertake it only if it does not affect my work. It is my work that I put first, and of course I try not to do anything that would put that in jeopardy.

Friendships are daunting and sensitive exercises that require a widespread approach to cater to the whims and personalities of the people that you have these relationships with. Your money on the other hand, which translates into work, vocation, skill or whatever other ends help you to earn your daily bread, requires you to be ruthless and determined in what you do. These are two extreme opposites.  

When you mix one of these two extremes with the other, it often automatically means that either money or your friends will take offence. I do not know about you, but neither one of those things is something that I would want to be affected negatively by my actions.

Although it is my own experience that I am speaking about, this reality holds true for many platonic relationships that have decided to spread their tentacles into business endeavours together. Of course, at first everything ends up being fine and things work out the way that they are supposed to given that the people are so keen on undertaking some sort of feat with the confidence of their friends by their sides.

But then the realities of business start rearing their ugly heads, and then all of a sudden, you face yourself not only having to deal with the problems of your money but the fact that that very money will also be affecting the relationship on which the business was founded in the first place. Such situations do not allow for people to focus their ruthless attentions purely on their money, and they also do not have the opportunity to be as cutthroat in their endeavours because at the end of the day, it boils down to the fact that your friend is involved in the very same things and your decision not only affects you and those that rely on you to be the bread winner, but the people that are relying on your friend to be that bread winner as well.  

When there are faces and familiarities with the people whose lives your decision and your business will affect, it does not come as easy to make those decisions, at least not for a person such as myself.

And what happens when you find yourself in a position such as this one? More often than not, you either make the wrong business decision so as not to negatively affect a friendship, or you make a good business decision that inevitably does.

Either way, your money or your friendship will take offence, and let me tell you that is not the best place to be.