She Refused to Recommend Her Brother for a Job: Did She Do the Right Thing?

Sometimes life hands you a situation where there is no clean answer, only a choice you have to live with. That is the space Na Me F—Up? explores: real Nigerians describing decisions they have made, while readers decide whether they messed up or not. This is Mary’s* story. At 28, she refused to recommend her older brother for jobs, and he accused her of wanting him to fail. Her reason was simple: a previous bad experience had left her apologising to a client on his behalf, and she was not willing to risk her professional reputation again. This is Mary’s dilemma, as told to Betty.

Growing up, Mary always felt she had to work twice as hard as her older brother. She describes him as talented and creative, but never particularly ambitious. He takes life as it comes and can spend months talking about an idea without doing much to bring it to life. Somehow, no one ever seemed to mind.

Mary did not get that kind of patience. When she failed JSS2 and had to repeat classes, her parents treated her like she had committed a crime. They were disappointed, and they never let her forget it. After that, she felt she had something to prove. She became very conscious of her grades, her choices and how she presented herself. She wanted to be the child her parents could not find fault with.

That pressure followed her into adulthood. By the time she finished university and started working, she had become someone who takes responsibilities seriously. She plans ahead, meets deadlines and stays intentional about the opportunities she pursues. She does not claim to have everything figured out, but she has worked hard to build a PR career she is proud of.

Her brother, on the other hand, is still trying to find his footing. He is a designer with genuine talent, but Mary describes his work ethic as questionable. He can be disorganised, difficult to reach and unreliable with deadlines. He will agree to do a job, disappear for days and return with an excuse. Mary knows all of this because she has experienced it firsthand.

During her service year, Mary recommended him to a friend who needed someone to design and print packaging for her business. She thought it was a good way to support her blood. They agreed on the scope of the work and a deadline, so she expected things to go smoothly.

Instead, her friend struggled to get updates from him. He would take hours to reply to her messages or ignore them altogether. The deadline passed without delivery, and when he eventually delivered the work, it was late. Her friend was understandably upset, and Mary had to apologise to her personally.

Mary was frustrated, but she did not want one bad experience to become a bigger issue between her brother and her. She told him what needed to improve, he apologised, and she moved on. She did not, however, recommend him for other jobs, even though her work brings her in contact with some big names.

Recently, her brother told her he needed more clients. He wanted her to share his portfolio and recommend him whenever she came across suitable opportunities. Mary agreed, but she soon started wondering what would happen if she actually recommended him to someone.

These were not random people on the internet. They were people she knew, people she might have to work with again, and people whose opinions of her mattered professionally. If she recommended her brother and he delivered late or gave them a frustrating experience, it would not just be his reputation on the line. He was her brother, but she could not vouch for his reliability, so she kept the portfolio to herself. Whenever he asked if she had sent it to anyone, she told him no one had gotten back to her.

A few weeks later, he found out that Mary had been asking around for a graphic designer and asked her why she had not come to him. She tried to explain that he was the right fit for that particular job, but he was not having it. He asked whether she had even shared his portfolio with anyone. When she admitted that she had not, he got angry.

He claimed that she did not want him to succeed. He also said that she was comfortable watching him struggle while she enjoyed the benefits of having a good job. He reminded her that he is her older brother and that family was supposed to help each other.

That last part annoyed Mary because she has never refused to help him. She just does not think helping someone means blindly recommending them for work they cannot handle. She reminded him of what happened with her friend’s business. She explained that she needed to see some improvements in his work ethic before she could recommend him again. She just wanted him to take his work seriously.

He argued that she was judging him based on one bad experience and insisted he had improved since then. Maybe he has, but Mary has not seen enough evidence to make her comfortable staking her professional reputation on that claim.

What started as a disagreement between the two of them has become a family issue. Her parents think she should have been honest from the beginning instead of making excuses. They agree that she should not lie, but they also think she could have done more to help him. Her mum, in particular, feels that Mary is being too hard on him. She keeps reminding her how difficult it can be to establish oneself in a career.

Her friends see it differently. They think she did the right thing. If she had recommended him and he disappointed the client, nobody would care that he was her brother. They would only remember that she recommended him.

It has been several months, and her brother is still upset with her. Part of Mary wonders whether she is holding him to a higher standard because she has spent her whole life feeling like she had to work harder than he did. Maybe she is also being unfair because she does not want to feel responsible if he messes up. But another part of her thinks that if he wants people to take him seriously as a professional, he needs to give them a reason to trust him.

Now it is your turn to decide: did Mary mess up or not?

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