This is the story of ants, burnt noodles, and what happens when you hire a friend because you need someone fast and she is available. I was building everything from scratch and I made the classic mistake: I chose convenience over discernment.
She had worked for a well-known company. That felt like enough. It wasn't. Working for a big name doesn't mean the person is exceptional. The company is glamorous. The individual isn't always.
I've learned this more than once after collaborating with bigger names. I'll write about it separately. But yes, hiring her based on where she had worked was part of the mistake.
Her contract there hadn't been renewed. Her manager didn't like her, apparently. Her team on a new project had stopped giving her tasks, which she said was because they were too intense.
I noticed all of it. I chose to overlook it because I needed someone, and she was available, flexible and looking for work.
That was the mistake.
The ants
Her first task was to refine the logo. A few days, we agreed. Two weeks later, it was still going because she wanted it to be more sophisticated. The wireframe was supposed to be one page per day. Several days later, still one page.
Then came the messages.
"Sorry, I can't finish the homepage today. Ants were crawling all over my food. I had to clean the flat."
I genuinely asked if she was okay. A few days later:
"Sorry, I burnt my noodles and spent the whole afternoon scrubbing the pot."
I know she was a friend. But even so. Would you tell your boss you missed a deadline because your noodles burned?
I brought it up gently. She replied: "Don't worry, I am very professional at work. That was just an accident. I will finish soon."
Her tomorrow became an entire month of tomorrows. Every new task came with the same confident promise. It will only take one day. A few hours at most. By the end of this week. And then the week passed, and the next excuse arrived.
"Her tomorrow became an entire month of tomorrows."
What followed
Missed morning meetings with no notice. Consistently late to the ones she did attend. Once, during a live call while I was speaking, she started doing her makeup. Going out for lunch later and needed to get ready. She wasn't listening to a word I said.
She didn't hear the alarm. She slept too late. She forgot. There was just too much going on. And you had to manage her mood, too. Too grumpy because the call was too early. Can't finish today because she's not feeling it. All delivered with complete confidence, as if she were the one being inconvenienced. And I was still paying for all of it.
It felt exactly like a university group project. The person who shows up at the last minute, does the bare minimum, and somehow acts like they carried the whole thing. Except this was my business, not a project I could just pass and move on from.
Even when work arrived, details from meetings were missing every single time. "Oh, I forgot." "There's just too much going on." And honestly, even when everything was finally done, the result wasn't that great. She acted like she was doing me a favour by being there at all.
The cliffhanger
I knew I had to end it. But a major photoshoot was coming that I had already put real time and money into.
I told myself: just get through the shoot first.
That was a mistake, again.
I wish I'd done it sooner
Looking back, I feel stupid for letting it go on as long as it did. Everything else was actually fine. The product, the shipping, the website. She was my main headache. I was spending more energy managing her moods and chasing her tomorrows than I was spending on the brand. I became more and more stressed because of her, not because of the business itself.
And the most surprising thing? The moment it finally ended, I found people fast. Professional, polite, efficient, genuinely excited to work with us even when we were just starting. They were there all along. I just hadn't looked properly because I assumed it would be hard.
Don't hire a friend unless the boundary is completely clear from day one. When someone is cheeky, a friend takes cheekiness to a whole other level. The cushion you give them because of the relationship is exactly what they take advantage of.
And one more thing I changed: project rate only, not time-based. Tell me your rate and when you can finish. If you can't meet the deadline, say so before you agree. That one change saved a lot of future pain.
