The Lady Guide to Modern Manners: 8 February
Dear Thomas,
Is it wise to mix business with pleasure? My husband wants a friend of his to put up some shelves for us. His main reason is to save money, as far as I can see. I worry it will spoil the relationship if he does a bad job. What do you think?
Marion Peeling, Liskeard
Dear Marion,
Never mix business with pleasure, is one of those fearsome iron rules by which some people live. With good reason. Once money enters in, everything changes. The freedom and gaiety of friendly intercourse is lost. What if those shelves collapse and kill you or at least induce a period of unconsciousness?
You don’t have to be in a client/provider relationship. You could be colleagues, collaborating, for instance, in writing an opera, one doing the words, the other the music. It all goes beautifully until the opening night, when the beastly critics criticise the music but love the words. The words person waltzes off and does the next opera with some more elevated and adored music person. Frightful nospeaks for at least three years.
People with shared interests might launch on joint business ventures. Perhaps they open a knitting shop or become online suppliers of riding habits. Doing business with a friend might be more pleasurable than with an enemy or stranger. And indeed more lucrative. The founders of Innocent, purveyors of smoothies (my mother said, ‘More of a pudding than a drink’) were three friends from university. They mixed business with pleasure.
For many years I’ve been doing the same: my great friend, the outstanding Ian Hay, is also my architect (I speak grandly).
Who knows? Could it just be that people with a similar outlook, shared values, who have known and trusted each other for years, are ideal to work together or even for each other?
A few notes of caution: don’t give jobs to your friends to help them out or because you want to hang out with them as if you were at school, or to save money. You must be confi dent of their abilities. At the same time, there should be room in your relationship for criticism and recognition of weakness on both sides. Harbouring resentment is fatal. If you think the person will be awfully touchy and diffi cult if the shelves turn out just a little skew, then don’t do it. Don’t mix business with pleasure.
A good approach, if you do decide to risk it, is to simply tell yourself that you’re not going to fall out. All being well, the other person will pick up on your excellent behaviour and respond in kind. Really, friendships should be strong enough to survive wonky shelves and even erratic accounts, which is why I find the rigid dictum ‘never mix business with pleasure’ somewhat cynical and depressing.
Please send your questions to Thomas.blaikie@lady.co.uk or write to him at The Lady, 39-40 Bedford Street, London WC2E 9ER
You’ve no idea of the struggle if you’ve never attempted it yourself. The labour of the peel and the pips, the sieving and chopping, the mountainous quantities to be heaved and stirred, the entire kitchen coated in syrup. Finally – it won’t set. You boil on and on, you poke test samples in the freezer compartment, leave for a few minutes, then push with your finger – but no wrinkling; no hint of setting.
So do have sympathy for the marmalade-maker. What’s more, it can’t wait. The Seville oranges are about the only commodity left that really are seasonal. Leave it beyond the middle of February and you’re finished. No more Seville oranges. A whole year to get through without marmalade. Unthinkable.
Is it wise to mix business with pleasure? My husband wants a friend of his to put up some shelves for us. His main reason is to save money, as far as I can see. I worry it will spoil the relationship if he does a bad job. What do you think?
Marion Peeling, Liskeard
Dear Marion,
Never mix business with pleasure, is one of those fearsome iron rules by which some people live. With good reason. Once money enters in, everything changes. The freedom and gaiety of friendly intercourse is lost. What if those shelves collapse and kill you or at least induce a period of unconsciousness?
You don’t have to be in a client/provider relationship. You could be colleagues, collaborating, for instance, in writing an opera, one doing the words, the other the music. It all goes beautifully until the opening night, when the beastly critics criticise the music but love the words. The words person waltzes off and does the next opera with some more elevated and adored music person. Frightful nospeaks for at least three years.
People with shared interests might launch on joint business ventures. Perhaps they open a knitting shop or become online suppliers of riding habits. Doing business with a friend might be more pleasurable than with an enemy or stranger. And indeed more lucrative. The founders of Innocent, purveyors of smoothies (my mother said, ‘More of a pudding than a drink’) were three friends from university. They mixed business with pleasure.
For many years I’ve been doing the same: my great friend, the outstanding Ian Hay, is also my architect (I speak grandly).
Who knows? Could it just be that people with a similar outlook, shared values, who have known and trusted each other for years, are ideal to work together or even for each other?
A few notes of caution: don’t give jobs to your friends to help them out or because you want to hang out with them as if you were at school, or to save money. You must be confi dent of their abilities. At the same time, there should be room in your relationship for criticism and recognition of weakness on both sides. Harbouring resentment is fatal. If you think the person will be awfully touchy and diffi cult if the shelves turn out just a little skew, then don’t do it. Don’t mix business with pleasure.
A good approach, if you do decide to risk it, is to simply tell yourself that you’re not going to fall out. All being well, the other person will pick up on your excellent behaviour and respond in kind. Really, friendships should be strong enough to survive wonky shelves and even erratic accounts, which is why I find the rigid dictum ‘never mix business with pleasure’ somewhat cynical and depressing.
Please send your questions to Thomas.blaikie@lady.co.uk or write to him at The Lady, 39-40 Bedford Street, London WC2E 9ER
WHAT TO DO… A pithy problem with marmalade
Mrs Connie Yates writes from Oxfordshire in some distress. Andy Murray’s grandmother distracted herself with marmalade manufacture during one of her grandson’s nerve wracking appearances at the Australian Open some years ago (he was in Australia; she was in Scotland, you understand). But on the whole the marmeladier is in torment from their marmalade rather than the Australian Open.You’ve no idea of the struggle if you’ve never attempted it yourself. The labour of the peel and the pips, the sieving and chopping, the mountainous quantities to be heaved and stirred, the entire kitchen coated in syrup. Finally – it won’t set. You boil on and on, you poke test samples in the freezer compartment, leave for a few minutes, then push with your finger – but no wrinkling; no hint of setting.
So do have sympathy for the marmalade-maker. What’s more, it can’t wait. The Seville oranges are about the only commodity left that really are seasonal. Leave it beyond the middle of February and you’re finished. No more Seville oranges. A whole year to get through without marmalade. Unthinkable.