Now I am going to talk about something that sucks.

When you hire a friend? Because she's talented? And she just happens to be your best friend, and not to mention the fact that she comes pretty damn cheap.

Then, it turns out, she's not really very good at ... well, let's just say work.

See, I hired her right out of college. She was in Chicago. We are, of course, here in New York City. We had started the company not long before, and we were still really working out of my house. She was to be a designer.

In the beginning, she ran backup for me. I was basically chief designer plus ceo plus salesperson plus office manager plus whatever else wasn't actual programming, mostly because I could do all those things, basically, and Boy couldn't. Very shortly after we hired her we also picked up a trainee DBA -- another friend of mine -- who has worked out beautifully.

She was happy to be working, happy to be making twice what her friends back home or from school were making. Happy to be doing something even close to what she wanted to do. Happy even to be learning in the pits, as I had done.

I must take partial responsibility for the whole thing. I did and have spoiled her. I was willing to give her a fancy title (creative director), partly because I thought we needed a CD and I was already the CEO, and partly because I happen to be the sort of person that doesn't give much of a shit about titles.

That was almost exactly two years ago.

Now. Now she has developed this whole sense of entitlement thing. That's bad enough on its own, although it wouldn't really bother me except for the rest. Because if she had actually, honestly, paid her dues, gone the extra mile, whathaveyou, she would be entitled. At least a helluva lot more than she is now.

Not that she hasn't worked, she has.

But none of us have ever felt like she's "part of the team". She's in the office so briefly each day. At this point, our production person, who's supposed to be under her, is asking *her* to do things. Which then ruffles her feathers. But if she had been around enough to begin with, he wouldn't have to. If she had been willing to pitch in when needed, he wouldn't have to.

It is true that she is smart and talented. It's also true that the design work that's come through over the past year or so has been far from exciting. Really very banal stuff.

It is also true that my frame of reference is myself, and that is probably not entirely fair. I am, for one thing, a bootstrapper, quite literally. I taught myself everything I know. I never got a design degree, or any degree, for that matter. And I do not consider myself a particularly talented designer. However, I worked, worked motherfucking HARD to get where I am. To have what I have, and I continue to work, usually just as hard. I, to this day, do HTML when necessary. Our website? I built it. She designed it, but I built it, including graphics production. And the last two I designed and built. Hardly a staff meeting goes by where I don't offer to someone to let me take a look at some code to help out.

What I mean by that is that just because I have a fancy title -- the fanciest, in fact -- doesn't mean that I can get away with whatever I want. Of course, it's my company, it means more to me. But still. The same was true when I was a Creative Director, an Art Director, and a plain old Designer, in reverse chronology. Granted, I didn't pace the room the way most people older than I have. I didn't really work my way up, exactly. I'm very young. I'm at an age where, twenty years ago (and probably male) I would have just been starting out.

But I like to flatter myself that I appreciate that. That I am willing to give credit where credit is due. That I do not take this privelege for granted, that I work myself to the bone when I have to for whatever means something to me.

And, oddly, I never expected to be that (this) way.

I was always that person that started a hundred things never to finish them. The person that couldn't "apply herself", "fulfill her potential". I was honestly afraid for years that I was chronically unable to follow through.

What this whole thing has taught me is that that is not true -- it's just that I need to be able to find meaning, a point, something that matters to me personally -- to be able to follow through, complete, make it happen.

But anyway, back to Z. It's a difficult situation for me all around.

First, selfishly, because I flat-out hate dealing with shit like this. I really, really don't like it. Mostly because it involves hurting someone, and that makes me feel bad. Of course, of course it's easy to say but she deserves it, everyone has had fifty talks with her already and it hasn't made any difference, but still.

Also because she moved here, really, to work for me, for us.

And because she is my friend.

Though I must be a little honest here. I mean, I care about her. But she's much younger than me, in ... in the ways that matter, anyway. I'm sure that sounds pompous. But it's true. She's been spoiled, really spoiled. Rich parents, trust funds, private schools. Not that she hasn't worked for her dime, she has. But still. There's a sense of entitlement there that is not conducive to exactly working hard.

And she'll never really know me. She never has. She's sweet in her way, sort of.

Talk about looking out for number one, though. Really. She is not the sort of person to go out of her way for -anyone-. I remember one time I was really sick or something like that and she offered to come by and make some soup or something for me and I recall being really, honestly surprised. Even though she lives about an 8-minute walk from me. She's that sort. The sort that expects to be given so much, and yet doesn't much give. When we were still working in the apartment sometimes she would pick me up a cup of coffee.

Maybe that's what it comes down to. She's really not very *considerate*. And that's kind of a big deal to me. Lord knows, I've been WAY past inconsiderate and into downright asshole many times. But I take the right to chalk a lot of that up to adolescence, since that was really when it all happened.

Z. doesn't seem to have any real conception of what the people around her are thinking, feeling. Which at this point is actually worse for her than the others. They have learned to deal with it, while it's making me try to figure out how to let her down easy.

It's tough. We have a project, a production/design (mostly the former) project. And talking to the others in the company it becomes more than clear that everyone (including me) prefers it in the hands of the Lowly Production Person than her, mostly because we can count on him to do what it takes to complete the project. Almost no deisgn talent, but he gives a shit.

Ugh. Sorry to bitch about work so much here. It's just what's on my mind. I was her fucking maid of honor, for chrissakes. She's the friend that is in my life today, in any major way, that I have known the longest.

THIS is the really, really not fun part of having a company. This just plain old sucks.

- onehanded