Jeff Lewis Fires Sister In Law Sarah Berkman On Flipping Out

Hiring the right people is essential to a business, especially to a smaller company, where there are fewer people who can cover up a mistake and pick up the slack of a less-qualified employee.

OCD perfectionist Jeff Lewis, of Bravo's Flipping Out, knew this when he hired sister-in-law Sarah Berkman two years ago—against his better judgment—to be an assistant in his fledgling design firm. Like many entrepreneurs, Lewis had to adjust his business model from flipping houses (hence the show title) to remodeling other people’s homes, and he needed staffers with good organization skills to help him achieve his mission.

Enter bubbly, jobless Berkman, who’s anything but the organizational guru Lewis needs. However, she’s family, and in need of a job. The typically business-minded Lewis caves and hires her against his better judgment. That was his first mistake. From the beginning there was friction, and early on, Lewis struggled with whether to let her go. She spilled coffee in his immaculate Mercedes. She forgot samples. She couldn’t stand up to contractors. “If you’re looking to win a popularity contest, you’re in the wrong f—ing business,” Lewis ranted at her last week.

And yet despite all of her errors, and the growing list of infractions that Lewis kept in her personal file (did we mention he’s got obsessive-compulsive disorder?), they keep working together as Lewis agonizes over the problem that many of those working with family deal with:

• What are the implications of firing this person?
• Will the family shun me for letting her go?
• What will family dynamics be like when we all get together?
• How will she survive in today's job market?

What finally starts shifting the balance is the entry of two new employees—one, another boundary-breaker, is Lewis’ boyfriend and business affairs manager Gage Edward, while the other is a new intern who in just a few days shows she’s way more capable than Berkman.

After yet another Berkman mistake, Edward says plainly that he doesn’t know how much longer Jeff Lewis Design can afford to pay for her costly errors. And after checking in with Berkman’s sister Carrie—the woman married to Lewis’ brother Todd, and the woman who just so happens to be Lewis’ realtor (yeah, it’s complicated)—he’s convinced that it’s time to let Berkman go.

Carrie’s words of wisdom? In the end, the family is going not going to be upset that Lewis fired Berkman, as long as he treats her with respect. What will make it ugly is a temper tantrum gone too far or something said that can’t be taken back.

Often the most difficult thing in dealing with family staffers is a delineation of responsibilities, experts say. If that’s not spelled out first, prepare for a great deal of troubles, squabbles, and resentment that follows you home. As much as you can set professional—and not emotional—boundaries at the office, and treat each other like employees rather than relatives, the better and healthier it is for both sides.

And that’s what Lewis ultimately learns. Both he and Berkman handle the separation with professionalism; perhaps the only real professional encounter they’ve had. And it’s the way they’ve ended their working relationship that will allow their personal relationship to go forward—after she lands another job.

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Romy Ribitzky is an associate editor at Portfolio.com.