Is the money more important than a relationship?

Do you know how money can bring serious problems? It can even divide a family and cause so much dissension. And if they consider money more important than your relationship, it can cause heartache. To illustrate my point, allow me to tell you a true story.

There was a lady with a factory. She employed many workers and of course, since some of her relatives need work and were unable to find such work at other places, she usually employ such relatives too. After all, charity begins at home. Of course, this is no charity as the relatives had to work to get their pay. However, like charity, generosity ought to begin at home too, just as every good trait should. Well, she employed them for she did need a great number of workers in her factory and they did do the same amount of work as the others.

However, as the years crept by, the workers grew older. According to the factory, the retirement age was fifty-five. So, as each worker reached that age, they automatically expect themselves to be retired and live on their employees' provident fund as well as their savings besides any amount of money their children might bestow upon them.

That is the case for all the workers except a few relatives. There was in particular one such relative in her factory. This relative had worked in her factory for a good number of years. Upon the age of fifty, he used his relationship with her to request for an extension of service. Then, ten years late, at the age of sixty-five, he still wanted to continue although he was old and frail. She advised him to stop as his children were already working and on their own. He refused with complains lodge against her, insisting that he was still able and ought not to be denied his pay. In fact, at that stage, he was being paid a full-time worker's salary although he was given only a few hours work on only three days a week. Yet, he did not seem to be satisfied. He would complain that she was stingy with her money and wanting to deprive him of a salary when he was still capable of doing his work.

This went on and she relented to his pleas and demands each year until he has finally reached the age of seventy-five years this year. In fact he was already too weak to do his work satisfactorily and even the lady's supervisor could no longer stand his behaviour and so complained about his slipshod work despite knowing that the guy was his boss' relative. In fact she was happy that the supervisor knew that the guy could not perform well any longer and even asked the supervisor to stop him from working at the factory. Again, there another round of complaints about her to all the relatives he still had contact with.

Imagine being condemned and made to appear bad to other relatives. That was what she got for helping this relative. She was really frustrated but was unable to do anything about it as he was a close relative, not just anybody she could simply kicked or ordered out of her factory.

From this story, perhaps we ought not to mix business with relatives but then someone out there could be doing something great with hie or her relatives. So there can be no fixed rules about such matters. What do you think?