Business is business, personal is personal

I normally wouldn't like to rant about my discontentment or unhappiness in my blog - and neither do I like ranting it out to other people about it. But today, I feel the need and urge to rant it all out and be truthful about what I feel. A dear friend once told me, I bottled up too much - and I will or could never be that much of a happy person if I don't let my voice or discontentment heard. So, I will in this blog - try to be more honest about what I feel.

I could never understand the exact meaning of "Business is business, Personal is Personal" until I was in the situation myself. When a business (regardless of a process or sale) involves some terms of endearment (i.e. family or a fraction of someone that is related to you in someways) - things do tend to turn out a bit more ugly than it would be with a normal paying customer ( no strings attached).

I do have my point on saying so, and here's my :-

When it comes to "family-customers", they do have their expectation - but their expectations differs slightly from those of a normal paying, unrelated customers. I do my best to meet all my customer's expectations, demands and requests. And end of the day, when I deliver what they asked for and paid for, my customers are happy paying customer. When it comes to "family-customers", there are certain soft issues (besides billing for it, of course) involved. They tend to be more demanding, outrageous and they simply love to say "we are family" - and yet, expect to get away with it, by paying less or in some cases, they do expect it to be FOC.

And when you show a slight dissatisfaction towards this "family-oriented" business deal, you are done for life. You will be put on the accused stand and be judged like a criminal. I'm not one who likes to tell people of what I truly feel - but my experience in life has taught me, when you are put on the accused stand by another "family-customer", you are as good as guilty without a trial, especially of course, when the defendant is adamant about saying the worse of you - and the jury are the other "family members". To make the defendant(i.e. "family-customer) feel good and right about him/herself (even if they are obviously in the wrong to begin with), the latter will bring the case to other "family-members", who will eventually take stand with them to judge you. My point is if I were to brought to a court room to be judged- I want my side of story to be heard as well. But in my experience, my explanation or my side of story is not required. I'm guilty as charged and a sinner, indefinitely.

Why can't family-oriented business deals take place like any other non-family related business deals? I can understand when my customers have their demands - after all, they don't know me. They are paying customer, and they have the rights to be demanding - after all they are full paying customer! On the other hand, "family-customers" will have more outlandish demand(because you are family) and yet, they do not expect to pay in full and promptly like a normal paying customer. The irony is, they expect me (as a business provider) to be 100% professional and committed to the deal when doing the business because (remember, we are family and I have to give my very best to the deal) and when it comes to their role as a customer, they do not need to act like a normal customer - because we are family, and family get perks and benefits! What about their expectations on me in the very beginning? What about my business expectations?

I take my stand very strongly from over a year ago that business is business, and personal is personal. I am certainly not the type of person that can mix business with pleasure(aka personal). I may have in return gain myself quite a reputation in taking my standing (nothing positive, mind you) and family-members can't see me as a family-member anymore. My status in within a family has changed - because I need to stand by my company policies and I am definitely NOT running a charity organisation or a playground whereby my business is something for family members to take advantage of and/or to while away their time.