How my experience with a family run business compares to the Trump campaign.

[underpants]

My former job was with a family run charity. The Trump camping seems eerily similar.

The business started off small with great intentions. Slowly the family was brought in and the inner sanctum became a weird walled off castle of paranoia and flippant decisions.

Richly funded by a major industry the founder started bringing in her daughters who had no experience in business let alone that industry. One was a medical tech who walked into the role of VP. She was being groomed to take over someday. The second came in as part of a wave of employees poached from another local business. It simply was impossible to imagine someone is the family taking orders from mere hirees. She was made a Director overseeing the two front desk people and the two office handymen. Her insight was crucial in the executive meetings.

Since we provided a service nationwide it was announced one day that we would switch from 8-5 to 9-6 or 10-8 Eastern. The office would also be open on Saturdays. "It'll be great! You'll get a week day off to run errands and whatever you normally do on the weekend". The inner sanctum had decided. They'd let us know who was going to work what. I remember seeing jaws drop at the staff meeting - um, we have dinner with families and soccer practices and weekend trips and so forth. Luckily my boss got my department out of the switch because she had a family and we didn't directly communicate with patients as much as the customer service people did.

Ideas and recommendations from the rank and file were immediately dismissed "Oh we've already thought of that". Firings became so commonplace that we had to regularly check the phone system to see who was no longer there. The workforce was in two buildings and suddenly one day there was to be no going into the other building unless you got prior approval from Directors (part of the inner sanctum). The message was clear - the family/inner sanctum was all knowing and all powerful. Any questions about decisions or offering your point of view were seen as a public lack of reverence and several people were fired for just that.

I've talked to several people in the accounting and tech industries who work with such family run businesses who've told me that my experience is not at all unique.

This appears to be what is going on with the Trumps. All reports indicate that the kids fired Corey Lewandowski. Professionals who have been brought in are quitting in short order. Word is apparently getting around in the political operative world and they are having a hard time recruiting people who actually know what they are doing. The inner sanctum of the family is so used to not possibly being wrong that they can't consider that they might be. The old man is what everything feeds off (literally). Norms, convention, understanding, outside voices are by their nature insufficient because it didn't come from the inner sanctum.

My former job was nicknamed "the cult" by my friends and even some fellow employees. The Trump campaign appears to be much the same. They will follow without question no matter where the leader and those allowed into the inner sanctum take them.

[Wellstone ruled]

1. The Culture will soon

cause the Inner Circle to collapse under the sheer weight of indecision. Dealt with wonderful non-profits and occasional did run across a family run one that eat itself up from the inside out. Usually it dies under a financial issue caused by one or more family members.

[underpants]

2. Yeah that place's days are numbered

Tha industry (being purposely vague) is under heavy investigation by the Feds for fraud. The family had convinced themselves that what they are doing is so righteous that they ignore what it is that they are actually doing, their role.

[Wellstone ruled]

3. Hate to hear that.

The clue to the end is,when the Vendor Checks bounce,or when Dunn and Brad Street lists them as a 120 day slow pay. And the phone calls just keep on a coming. People are a whole lot smarter than their superiors. Have always said,if you want to really know what is going on inside a company,ask the janitorial staff or the persons in the mail room.

[underpants]

6. Smoking area

I've found all kinds of stuff in the smoking area. I always befriend the cleaning crew.

[Wellstone ruled]

10. Yes,and the Left handed ones.

[NBachers]

4. What a nucking fightmare.

[underpants]

8. I could write a book

But I won't because they would surely sue me. They had a 7 page employment contract that stated that I would pay their legal fees regardless of the verdict. I got them to change that before I signed. I finally found another good job about 6 weeks later.

Getting out of there without them finding out was like an act of espionage - changing into a suit in a parking lot to go to an interview and then changing back to return to work, disguising the fact that I was clearly in interview mode, etc.

[pansypoo53219]

5. pray the kids are sabotaging daddy.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

7. Thank you, my dear underpants...

(Typing your username always makes me smile!)

There is a very strong lesson here. If we somehow allow Trump to assume the office of the Presidency, our country would be headed over a cliff of such huge proportions that we could not fathom it.

He must be stopped.

[Skittles]

9. underpants goes way back

yes INDEED