There’s plenty of reasons not to mix business and family.

Like, for instance, what if your family has no idea how business works?

And what if they’d like you to give them money anyway?

In today’s story, one person considered hiring a cousin, but when the aunt got rude and pushy, the cousin’s chances of getting hired got bleaker and bleaker.

Who really messed up here? Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for not hiring my cousin at my startup?

I have a tech startup and one of my aunts reached out because her son is looking for a job and has asked me to hire him.

We are not close at all but since they are still family, I responded and asked her to have him message me directly so we can have a chat and have him scheduled for an interview.

I did not say this exactly, though, and just responded with ‘Please have him message me the soonest.’

A week has passed and he has not reached out.

Instead, they expected to skip the line.

My aunt messages me again and says I should ping her son and tell him I am offering him a job.

This is where I got a bit peeved because

1. They are asking me for a favour, why should I be the one to reach out

And 2. I never said I am offering him a job.

And now it’s a whole thing.

I said I am not offering him a job, but an interview, and she completely lost it.

She said her son has been jobless for a year and in this economy, I should help them out. ‘That is what family is for!’, she says.

She also then called me names and told me I am ‘such a bull’s ****’ because I promised her a job for her son and he has stopped applying since then.

Lashing out is clearly not going to help.

She’s been flooding me with horrible messages since and at this point I have no plans on giving my cousin a chance at all.

AITA? Was my response really easy to misunderstand?

He never said he would give him a job. She read into the message what she wanted to hear.

Here’s what the comments on Reddit made of this:

How hard was he looking, really?

There’s certain quality controls that have to be in place in order for a startup to start.

You can’t even be bothered to reach out?

You’re gonna do much better if you show some initiative.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.