My resume is largely a product of nepotism. At least when it comes to legitimate wage paying jobs, rather than a slew of unpaid internships that while I maybe learned something, certainly didn’t help my bank account. I had my first job when I was thirteen at an Irish pub my aunt and uncle owned. Everyone was nearly a decade older than me and I was terrified to even make conversation. But it was a job nonetheless and when my high school class went to Europe the following year, I had enough saved from those days of not making eye contact and stressing about bartenders yelling at me, to take my first overseas adventure.
Eventually, the restaurant closed. I was left as a fifteen, nearly sixteen-year-old without a summer job, which in the beach town community where I grew up was not a good thing. But never fear, the same aunt, my minimum wage guardian angel, had an almost-in-law who owned an ice cream stand that also sold smoothies and fried dough. I should work there, she told me. And so I did, for another two and a half summers until I finally rose to big leagues of New Hampshire summer jobs. It was one of the beachside, tourist trap, largely fried seafood-based restaurants that dot the coastline. Currently, it is my fifth summer at the Hampton Beach institution, and my boss? You guessed it, my aunt.
At my very first job all those years ago, I was terrified of everything not just because I was practically a child, but because I did not want to be accused of nepotism. I vowed then and there, at thirteen years old, to never let anyone accuse me of getting ahead, getting a raise or getting anything simply because a member of my family was the boss.
Of course, it is not always that easy. The truth about nepotism is that no matter how good at your job you are, or how much of a team player you are, as soon as everyone knows just who your aunt is you will be accused of the almighty angry shadow that is nepotism.
What I have learned, being the product of nepotism that I am, besides not giving your coworkers a reason to criticize you, is that nepotism isn’t all its cracked up to be. My aunt expects me to come in early and stay late. She knows when I'm in town and when I am actually sick, so I can never play hooky. I can never complain or do my job poorly because not only will I be fired, but I will have to hear about it for the rest of my life at every family dinner and gathering. My aunt did in fact fire another cousin, much to his shock and dismay.
This is not to say that nepotism in the work place is always this way. I also know people who skate by, barely doing any work because they know their parents would never take a job away. But for every one of those people, there is one of me, washing the floors and windows they neglected before the boss notices.
I used to hate being the product of nepotism but then I realized, just because my aunt got me a job, does not mean I did not earn it.
