Need advice for work today-HELP!! UPDATE

[Cindyluwho]

I have been up half the night trying to figure out what to do about this situation. My DH & I have recently opened a new business with 3 other partners. Things have been going along very smoothly, it helps that we've all worked together at another company for over 15 years. Well, yesterday morning in our weekly meeting it was brought up whether or not one of the partners had called Father so&so (I don't remember his name) to come and bless the business. WHAT!!?? The other three partners are all practicing Catholics, my husband is a "recovering Catholic" and I'm -well, I don't have a very positive view of organized religion. I tried to ignore the remark, finally couldn't stand it and said "should I call in a Shaman to bless the place too?". I said it with a sense of humor, they all laughed and agreed we could use any blessing we could get. So, I wake up at 4am thinking, are they gonna use the company's dollars to pay the priest to bless our business? I'm really upset by this. I have no problem with him coming, although I wish they'd at least had the courtesy to run it by us. But, I certainly do not want any part of my money supporting such a thing. If I say anything I'm afraid I'll sound offensive or hurt their feelings. On the other hand, no one thought of MY feelings before calling the priest. What do I do???

 

[Lisa F]

What kind of priest charges for their blessings?

 

[Cindyluwho]

Someone told me that you're supposed to give a "donation" to the church for their services? Is that not true? Maybe I'm frettin' over nothing.

 

[Keli]

It really depends on how big a deal you wish to make of this. I'm guessing the money isn't going to be a very large amount, if anything (I know many do this free of charge for their church members) and that this won't be the last time you don't agree with how a small amount of business money is spent. You start the way you intend to go: If you intend to let small amounts of money spent in ways you don't agree with to roll off your back then you let this go too. If you intend to put a stop to any spending that doesn't have your backing then you put up a fight and see if you can win. Sometimes it's worth the damage the fight costs (and there will be damages here) and sometimes it's not. It's just something you have to decide.

 

[Lisa F]

If the other three are practicing catholics than it sounds like it is their priest they want to come over. I know that for officiating a wedding, our rabbi had to actually counsel us before the wedding and work together with us on the ceremony and of course be there an hour before the wedding for rehearsal and officiate for a half hour service etc. This required a "donation." I guess I was picturing the priest that these guys already know making an informal visit to the new business venture of some of his "flock" and offering a quick blessing, which to me seems completely different the work involved in a wedding ceremony or funeral etc.

Regardless, you are probably not going to aggree 100% on every decision so now might be a good time to figure out what to do if part of your partnership disagrees with the other part. Does a 3/5 majority rule?

 

[barkley]

most services a priest provides (weddings, funerals, baptisms, blessings...) have the tradition/expectation of a monetary "gift" that is given directly to the priest. the only occasion i can recall (another recovering catholic here) that did'nt was first communion and that was because all the parents were expected to contribute to a group "gift" for the officiating priests.

i think there needs to be a sit down where it is decided how "non essential" bsns. expenses are handled (and i would not opt for a majority vote being the deciding factor for determining what is/is not essential-there needs to be something hammered out in advance-too easy for people to take sides and bully).

 

[allie&mattsmom]

The priest shouldn't charge for a blessing of any kind, but like someone else in another post said, usually people will put a little something in an envelope for him. Generally about $20 or so.

 

[Deb & Bill]

If the priest is a friend of one of the partners, he probably wouldn't even expect any payment. Officiating at a wedding, yes. Blessing an establishment, nah.

But he may want a discount.

 

[Pugdog007]

I think you're making a big deal out of nothing. Let them have their blessing and if you don't want to participate, don't. But if if it's their business too, they have every right to do it. If you make a big deal out of it to them, you may jeopardize the business relationship.

 

[Cindyluwho]

I think you're making a big deal out of nothing. Let them have their blessing and if you don't want to participate, don't. But if if it's their business too, they have every right to do it. If you make a big deal out of it to them, you may jeopardize the business relationship.

I certainly don't want to jeopardize the relationship, but it's not "nothing" to me. I think I'd feel differently if they'd run it past us before going ahead with this but to just have it come up like that at the meeting upset me. And yes, they have every right to do it, I just don't want any part of the money to come from me. I certainly wouldn't ask them to give money for something they don't beleive in or are offended by.

 

[Bob NC]

The other three partners are all practicing Catholics.......... What do I do???

The majority of the business owners are practicing Catholics. This is probably a "big thing" to them. This will not be a big expense, if it is any expense at all.

Since you asked.....I think that if this little thing is going to make you lose sleep, and jepoardize your relationship with your business partners, perhaps you shouldn't be involved in this partnership. Sounds like if you want to be in business for yourself, maybe you should truly be in business BY yourself. If this is keeping you up at night, just imagine what is going to happen when there are BIG decisions that everyone but you agrees with.

 

[jipsy]

ISo, I wake up at 4am thinking, are they gonna use the company's dollars to pay the priest to bless our business? I'm really upset by this. I have no problem with him coming, although I wish they'd at least had the courtesy to run it by us. But, I certainly do not want any part of my money supporting such a thing. If I say anything I'm afraid I'll sound offensive or hurt their feelings. On the other hand, no one thought of MY feelings before calling the priest. What do I do???

You are making this personal and it is not a personal decision, it is a business decision. You need to learn to separate your personal feelings from business or you will surely not make it as a business partner.

If it really bothers you, then you better learn to speak up now and say so, on a business relationship ground. If you can't speak up to your partners about something as small as a priest coming to bless a business, what will you do down the road when a major decision needs to be made that you don't agree with? What type of agreement have you all made as far as making business decisions? Unanimous or majority rules?

Sit them down and say "This is not personal this is business. I am not a practicing Catholic and I do not want to pay a priest to bless our business. If you guys want to have a priest in to do that, I have no problem with it; but please make sure any donations given to the priest come out of your pockets and not out of our business monies."

If you can't say something along those lines now, you might as well dissolve your business partnership because I can guarantee you that larger decisions than this will have disagreements and you need to be able to discuss them in a business-like manner.

 

[Duchie]

Are you sure the donation (if one will even be involved) is coming out of the business expenses and not out of the personal wallets of the other partners?

 

[Traveliz]

I have been up half the night trying to figure out what to do about this situation. My DH & I have recently opened a new business with 3 other partners. Things have been going along very smoothly, it helps that we've all worked together at another company for over 15 years. Well, yesterday morning in our weekly meeting it was brought up whether or not one of the partners had called Father so&so (I don't remember his name) to come and bless the business. WHAT!!?? The other three partners are all practicing Catholics, my husband is a "recovering Catholic" and I'm -well, I don't have a very positive view of organized religion. I tried to ignore the remark, finally couldn't stand it and said "should I call in a Shaman to bless the place too?". I said it with a sense of humor, they all laughed and agreed we could use any blessing we could get. So, I wake up at 4am thinking, are they gonna use the company's dollars to pay the priest to bless our business? I'm really upset by this. I have no problem with him coming, although I wish they'd at least had the courtesy to run it by us. But, I certainly do not want any part of my money supporting such a thing. If I say anything I'm afraid I'll sound offensive or hurt their feelings. On the other hand, no one thought of MY feelings before calling the priest. What do I do???

I think they did run it by you at the weekly meeting - it was mentioned anyway and right at that moment you had an odd feeling apparently - you should have spoken up then and said something to the effect of not feeling comfortable with it, or feeling comfortable with it for their sake but what are the costs involved etc. Its not too late though - I would mention it asap that you were thinking about it and wondered...whatever you wonder.

Liz

 

[Cindyluwho]

Let me say that as a business/partnership we've made some extremely major decisions already. Of course we don't always agree, but we always talk it out and have a very healthy business relationship. I'm sure part of the reason is that we've worked together for so many years at our other company and have learned how to work with each other and work through disagreements. Before we even formed our partnership we had several meetings on how to best make our company work and how to avoid the pitfalls that we'd seen our former employer go through. Religion has only come up once before at a meeting when one of the partners (actually a husband of one of the partners) ranted about our former employer, calling him a "godless heathen" because he's a Scientologist. I made it clear that even though I know nothing about Scientology, I was offended at the use of the term "godless heathen" and would appreciate him not using the term anymore. At that time it was agreed that religious discussions would not come up at our meetings. The odd thing is we can and do talk about everything openly, heck we've known each other for decades, but the blessing by the priest thing really got to me.

 

[Cindyluwho]

Things are going much better today! Yesterday afternoon one of the other partners came to me to apologize for throwing out the topic at the meeting. She was very sweet about it and said she had fretted about calling me over the weekend and talking about it. It is NOT being paid for by the company, come to find out and the others were very open to having someone else, from a different spirituality, bless the business as well. For those of you who posted, thinking it was such a small thing to fret about, compared to other business decisions that will come up - For me, this is the biggest thing that has come up. We've gone through purchasing the franchise, building out the space from ground zero, ordering furniture, figuring out commissions, etc. You name it, we've done it. And all the while we've been able to iron out any differences that arose. The difference is, this was a personal issue and I don't believe it had any business being a part of this. If it's that important to the others then they could take care of it quietly by themselves. I personally find it offensive but respect their wishes as long as I don't have to be involved. I guess I just have some pretty strong feelings about this...