On any given day at the Millwork Outlet in Maple Valley our customers can see three generations working side by side. More than just fathers and sons working along one another, the Millwork Outlet has fathers, sons, daughters, grandfathers, uncles, aunts, cousins and family friends all working together.  As a member of youngest generation at the Millwork Outlet I have literally grown up at the Millwork Outlet. My first job was sorting nuts and bolts at the age of five. I then moved up to answering the phones. In college I spent my summers picking up garbage and cleaning slimy, green vinyl windows. Almost every single person in my extended family has put in at least a day of work in at the Millwork Outlet. We joke that if you want to marry someone in our family, you must first put in your day of work as initiation. If you stop in at the Millwork Outlet in Maple Valley around 4:00PM you will probably find myself, my dad and my grandfather chatting about the current news or family drama. 

Operating a family business can be tough. There are no secrets. You can’t hide your past and everyone has advice on where your future should lead. Planning family trips, reunions and weddings can be tricky because it means the store has to shut down if everyone is going to try to make it. Telling your co-worker to shove it is even more difficult when it is a relative and you have to see him or her at the next family function. And forget about faking a sick day to go spend time at the beach, someone will definitely find out. At the same time, being a part of a family business is incredibly rewarding. How many people get to say that they get paid to spend time with their family? I am always the first to know what’s going on in the family; I get all the good family gossip first! When I need to leave early to attend a sister’s baby shower, they make sure I get the time off. The best part of working with family is the sense of accomplishment I get when the business succeeds. Working for my family, I know that my successes are shared by the entire family. When I help the business make money it doesn’t go into some obscure bank account and into the pockets of complete strangers, it instead goes into the bank accounts of my family. We then get to spend our money together when we get together for family dinners and vacations. 

I recently put together the video in our “About Us” section and in doing so went through numerous family photo albums looking for pictures of our family at the Millwork Outlet. Although we only had a few – who actually brings a camera to work to capture family moments anyways – I did find a few gems. I hope you will take a moment to view the video. It is important to us that everyone knows how important family is to the Millwork Outlet, both our family and those of our employees and customers.