I’ve heard of a family business before and thought that the whole idea would probably end up being pretty infuriating – have you seen ‘Succession’? – but I think the idea of following everyone in your family to work at the same institution is probably even worse.
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However, this viewpoint isn’t shared by single mother Christine Campbell from Merseyside though, who is absolutely ecstatic that her five children have all followed her into working at Wetherspoons. Three of them still live with her at the family house and she says that work is a regular topic around the dinner table because of this. Sounds enthralling.
Campbell herself started off pulling pints at The Master Mariner, in New Brighton, Merseyside back in 2013 before moving onto The Square Bottle in Chester, Cheshire in October 2021 and then becoming a manager at The Prense Well, in Heswall on Merseyside again last June. 21 year old team leader Molly and 28 year old part time bar associate Aimee also work at that pub with her, whilst George is now a shift manager at another establishment called The Brass Balance.
Harvey rounds off the family as a shift manager at The Square Bottle, whilst Charlie has just left the same role at The Clairville. Christine reckons that it won’t be long until he’s back though, saying the following:
I joined the full-time staff once all of the kids had left school.
It is going very well.
I have a really great team of more than 70 staff, who are young and vibrant and work well.
The whole family is involved except for Charlie who’s just left.
He wanted to do something different and has embarked on an accountancy apprenticeship, after almost eight years with Wetherspoons.
Maybe he’ll be back with the company, in the future, in another role?
The grass isn’t always greener. I’ve seen many employees leave us and come back.
Apart from Aimee, they all joined as teenagers to earn some pocket money and stayed.
They have seen for themselves how good the company is for progression.
And, with George, Molly and Harvey all still living at home, we talk about work all the time.
It’s a common topic of conversation around the dinner table.
Again, I suppose that’s kind of cute but it also sounds like it would be kind of annoying having to be around your family all the time at work. It’s just a whole different dynamic than working with people you don’t actually know isn’t it? Imagine it’s kinda weird for the rest of the staff too.
As well as this, despite Christine singing the praises of Wetherspoons, I would also think that as a parent she might want her kids to have a bit more ambition than to just work in the same pub chain as her for the rest of their lives. Especially as she mentions that most of them started working there for some extra money during their university studies so clearly wanted to do something else with their lives unless they were getting degrees in pub management. Surely there’s gotta be more out there for them than their local Wetherspoons alongside the family that they’ve spent their whole lives with? Just an idea.
For more of the same, check out this 83 year old Wetherspoons fan who has visited 900 of the pubs in the last 11 years. Gotta have something to do when you get that old I guess.
