Mon frère m’a licencié dès mon premier jour, mais je possédais 72 % de l’entreprise familiale…

I saved the spreadsheet I was working on and gave him my full attention. About Ryan came to see me yesterday. He’s struggling, Olivia. Really struggling. I leaned back in my chair. Struggling how? Financially, emotionally? He’s behind on his rent, his car payment. He had to move out of his apartment and back in with your mother and me. This wasn’t surprising news, but it also wasn’t my problem.

Dad, Ryan’s financial difficulties are the result of years of poor decisions. One month of earning an appropriate salary didn’t create this situation, but it’s making it worse. Dad insisted. He can’t afford his lifestyle on what you’re paying him. Then he needs to change his lifestyle, I replied. Most people figure out how to live within their means.

Dad was quiet for a moment, studying me like he was trying to solve a puzzle. When did you become so hard? The question stung more than I expected. I’m not hard, Dad. I’m consistent. Ryan has never faced real consequences for his choices because someone always bailed him out. You, mom, creditors who knew the family would eventually pay his debts. That ends now.

He’s your brother and he tried to fire me at his first board meeting. Being related to someone doesn’t excuse professional incompetence. Dad shifted uncomfortably. Look, I know Ryan made a mistake. Dad, it wasn’t a mistake. Mistakes are accidental. Ryan deliberately announced his intention to fire people he deemed unworthy. The only mistake was assuming he had the authority to do it.

What do you want me to say, Olivia? That I was wrong to give him the director position. I’d been waiting 3 weeks for someone in my family to acknowledge this basic reality. Were you wrong? Another long pause. Maybe. But that doesn’t mean the punishment has to be permanent. It’s not punishment. It’s employment. Ryan has a job that matches his qualifications.

If he wants a better job, he can earn it through performance. Dad pulled out his phone and showed me a text message. Look at this. The message was from Ryan. Timestamped at 2 in the morning. Dad, I can’t do this anymore. I’m failing at everything and I don’t know how to fix it. Maybe Olivia’s right about me.

Despite everything, reading that message made my chest tighten. Ryan was genuinely struggling, not just financially, but emotionally. For the first time in his life, he was confronting the gap between his self-image and his actual capabilities. This breaks my heart, Dad continued.

He’s always been confident, maybe too confident, but now he’s questioning everything about himself. Maybe that’s not a bad thing, I said quietly. Confidence without confidence is just delusion. If Ryan’s finally questioning whether he’s as great as he thought he was, that might be the beginning of actual growth, or it might break him completely. I stood up and walked to the window overlooking the parking lot.

Below, I could see Ryan’s Honda Civic parked next to Jennifer’s SUV. Six months ago, he’d been driving a leased BMW and complaining that it wasn’t impressive enough. Dad, do you remember when Ryan was 16 and wrecked mom’s car? Of course, he was speeding in the rain and you bought him a new car the next week because you felt bad that he was upset about the accident. Dad was quiet.

Do you remember when he failed calculus senior year and you hired three different tutors instead of making him repeat the class? The tutors helped him graduate on time. They helped him avoid consequences, I corrected. And every time you rescued him from failure, you taught him that his choices don’t really matter because someone else will always fix the damage. I turned back to face him.

Ryan isn’t struggling because I’m being mean to him. He’s struggling because he’s finally experiencing what most people call normal adult responsibility. Dad stood up slowly. So, you’re not going to help him? I am helping him. I’m giving him the opportunity to develop actual skills instead of relying on family connections.

If he succeeds in sales, proves he can handle responsibility, then we’ll talk about advancement. But the days of automatic promotion based on last name are over. As dad reached the door, he paused. Your grandfather would be proud of your business sense. I just hope he’d approve of how you’re treating family.

After he left, I sat alone in my office thinking about Grandpa Henry and the lessons he’d tried to teach both Ryan and me. He’d shown Ryan the fun parts of business, the client dinners, the handshake deals, the excitement of closing contracts, but he’d shown me the foundation work, the analysis, the planning, the careful decision-making that made everything else possible.

Maybe grandpa had known all along which one of us would actually be capable of running the company. Maybe those stock certificates weren’t a consolation prize, but a test, waiting to see what I’d do with real responsibility. My phone buzzed with a text from Ryan. Can we talk? I stared at the message for a long moment before typing back. Office hours are 9 to5. Schedule an appointment with my assistant.

Some conversations are worth having, but they need to happen on professional terms, not family guilt trips. Ryan’s appointment was scheduled for Thursday at 3 p.m. He arrived 15 minutes early, which was possibly the most professional thing he’d done since starting his new position.

My assistant, Carol, announced him with the same formality she used for any other employee request. He walked into my office looking like he’d lost weight and sleep in equal measure. Gone was the cocky swagger I’d grown accustomed to over the years. This was a different Ryan, one I wasn’t sure I recognized. “Thank you for seeing me,” he said, sitting down without being invited. “Old habits.

” “You have 15 minutes,” I replied, glancing at my calendar. “What did you want to discuss?” Ryan took a deep breath like he was preparing to jump off a cliff. I want to apologize. This was unexpected. In 30 years of being his sister, I could count Ryan’s genuine apologies on one hand with fingers left over.

For what specifically? I asked. For trying to fire you. For assuming I deserved a position I hadn’t earned. For? He paused, running his hands through his hair. For being the kind of person who thought announcing firings in my first meeting was good leadership. I set down my pen and really looked at him.

The Ryan I’d known my whole life was always performing, always trying to impress someone or charm his way out of consequences. This version seemed stripped of those defenses. “What brought this on?” I asked. “Failure,” he said simply. “Complete, undeniable failure at something I thought would be easy. Sales, everything. Sales, budgeting, basic adult responsibility.

Do you know I didn’t even know how to read a profit and loss statement until Jennifer explained it to me last week? I didn’t know that, but I wasn’t surprised. Ryan had coasted through business school without learning fundamental concepts, assuming someone else would handle the technical details while he provided vision and leadership. Jennifer’s been helping you.

She’s been incredibly patient, actually, more patient than I deserve. Ryan looked out the window toward the sales floor. She explained that good leaders learn their team’s job so they can support them effectively. I never did that. I just assumed being in charge meant telling people what to do. This was the most self-awareness I’d ever heard from my brother.