This trope is a romantic comedy staple. Sometimes the guy is conniving the innocent daughter. Other times the daughter has plans for the future that she ‘forgot’ to consult fiance’ about. It’s usually clear that the promotion is a ‘welcome to the family’ gift from dad. Just wondering if anyone has seen this in real life.
Yes. More than once. It doesn’t mean the guy is unqualified for the job though. Nepotism is common in the business world.
If you ever look at the old Warner Brother tv program from the 1950s and early 1960s, at the end of many of them you’ll see a credit “Executive Producer Wm. T. Orr,” who’s (step-)father-in-law was Jack Warner. But in the case of Orr, he did deliver the goods, and was behind many successful programs. So, while having that inner connection was a bonus, he did have an eye for talent.
I worked for a family-run business back in the 90s; the owner had four daughters, and each of their husbands had a VP Title (and salary) at the company. One of the sons-in-law was a top-notch businessman, went to B School, and actually worked hard to help run the company. Two of the sons-in-law were solid and dependable, but lacked the business acumen to really do anything serious. One of them was (I think) the VP of Sales for their motor division (they owned a number of car dealerships, in addition to insurance, banking, and auto auction concenrs). The last son-in-law, Bobby, was a disaster. He had barely graduated from High School, and drove a milk delivery route before hitting the matrimonial jackpot and becoming VP of Operations for the company. We all called him Captain Chaos. Two quick stories…
One day, I was the only IT guy in the office (this was my rookie IT job, so I was very green), and at lunch time Captain Chaos decided to move an entire department (Collections) from the scond floor down to some new space on the first floor. Unplanned, unannounced and unsupported. He strolled into their space a 11:55, told them to pack up and move their shit and just pick a desk when they got down there. The cubes didn’t all have elecricity, phone jacks or Ethernet. Some lacked all three of these things. I was in my car in the parking lot reading a book and having lunch when I got the panicked phone call to come and sort it all out. Good times.
The other really funny thing he did during my time there was to have the parking lot re-lined. At the last minute (literally, he showed up there on Saturday morning) he told the line guys that there weren’t enough parking spaces and insisted they make more, so they painted the lines 6.5 feet apart instead of 8. Monday morning was absolute chaos out there.
NETA: I always thought it was pretty noble of the owner of that company to do that for his daughters.
Yes, happens every single day somewhere. Seen it myself.
One of the interns at my old consulting firm got the job through his girlfriend who also interned at the company and whose dad was a managing director. But he was also at Cornell and otherwise qualified for the job.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing. I mean I assume the CEO of a company wouldn’t let just any idiot marry his daughter.
Maybe not any idiot, but some selected ones apparently. I think it’s more likely when your daughter marries an idiot, it would be the best way to provide for the daughter and keep an eye on the fool she married.
David Petraeus - while a West Point cadet, started dating & married the 4 star General Superintendent’s daughter.
Chris Snee.
I kid, I kid.
Yep, used to work for a rather large family business…at the executive level everyone was family or in laws.