The 3 Justified Reasons Your Boss Is Pissed with You & Schmoopie Doing Your Thing

Office Romance Problems Effects & Etiquette (DOs & DON’Ts)

You & Schmoopie Doing Your Own Thing
Is Like Using Slang Instead of The Official Language!

So what is this danger? Well, what started as an occasional gesture, will gradually progress to a shortcut of convenience, and will end up as a permanent informal workflow.

The longer you are together as a couple, and on the same teams respectively, the more this informal workflow will become anchored, to the point of becoming a non-official, non-formal procedure, that, unintentionally, replaces the formal one.

I’ve seen it happen time and time again, and not necessarily with lovers, but with two employees (one on either team) who are just good friends. Or not even that, but just have an amicable relationship with one another “across the aisle” whereas the rest of their teammates, less so.

Because why bother with the hassle of formal workflows and procedures such as scheduling a meeting? Which, of course, has to fit everybody’s schedules, which is really hard to do. And why bother with waiting the entire week (for example) for that scheduled meeting, when we can just ask one Schmoopie to talk to the other Schmoopie and resolved it on the spot?

So it’s very easy to understand how this happens. Still, in the long run, it does constitute the bypassing of formal workflows and procedures, through your office romance, which this BossProblem no.5 (this post) is all about!

Thus, in the long run, it will compromise both your teams’ effectiveness and efficiency, which will piss your boss off, which will make you further un-promotable, and un-pay-raise-able, because your office romance is the epicenter of the whole thing!

Now, two important notes:

1. Don’t throw the baby with the bathwater!
Again: You should absolutely help your teammates out, whenever you can! I’m just showing you how, too much of a good thing, can become a bad thing, (in the long-run) which is true everywhere else in life too.

2. Have nuance!
I’m not saying never take on any extracurricular responsibility. That would be stupid. Sometimes doing exactly that, is the best thing you can do for yourself (speaking from an office politics prospective).

How so? Well, You make everybody dependent on you, which raises your value, which will contribute to your chances for a promotion and a pay raise.

Other times, though, it might hinder your chances, at least for a promotion that would transfer you outside of your boss’ team or department. Because what boss would like to give up on such a “tent pole” employee? (But you may still get a pay raise that is independent of a such a promotion, so not all is lost.)

Thus, it can roll both ways, and you should consider the yes/no danger, on a case-by-case basis.

Anyway, this is not the focus of this video. Just wanted to point it out for you.

OK… Let’s put it all together, so that we have the full picture (4 points).

1. We’ve seen how your office romance, unintentionally causes the bypassing of formal workflows and procedures, especially in the long run.
2. And we’ve said, that this bypass, compromises the effectiveness and efficiency of your team.
3. And through a domino effect, also your boss’ effectiveness and efficiency, his boss’ effectiveness and efficiency, and so on.
4. Which would naturally piss your boss off, with you, and would indeed make you un-promotable, and un-pay-raise-able.

So now, the final piece of the puzzle, we have to put in place, to get the full picture, is:
Why exactly does the effectiveness and efficiency of your team, get compromised, when your office romance inadvertently allows for the bypassing of formal workflows and procedures? What’s the big deal?

Yeah, we’ve said, those formal workflows and procedures, are the infrastructure of effectiveness and efficiency, so obviously if you compromise one, you compromise the other. But why?

This is not an academic issue. It is a very practical and pragmatic one. If you know why, you, then, can have a clear road-map, on which to base your reverse engineering of the fix. Which is the end goal of what we’re doing here.

So here is the “why” from your boss’ point of view – three issues:

1. Using slang instead of the official language
Formal workflows and procedures are the equivalent of a common language, shared within, and between, teams, at a company.

Bypassing them, through the use informal workflows and procedures, is the equivalent of slang, or urban idioms i.e. the diametrically opposite of a common language, shared and understood by all.

This gives way to miscommunications and misunderstandings, which result in increasing frictions and tensions, which result in compromised effectiveness and efficiency.

2. Only Schmoopie instead of just anyone
Formal workflows and procedures are impersonal by design – that’s their whole point! They are not designated, or dependent on, this specific employee or that specific employee. Rather, they apply to all, and need to be adhered by all.

But the situation your office romance creates, (as we’ve seen in the example earlier) is the epitome of personal: Only you two Schmoopie-s can perform this informal go-between position, you inadvertently took upon yourself. I.e. the diametrically opposite of impersonal, as it should be.

This gives way to a counterproductive dependency on you two love birds, personally. And this, once again, results in a compromised effectiveness and efficiency.

How? Simple: you may not be available anymore. In which case, the informal workflows and procedures will be broken. And it would take time and effort, on your boss’ part, to reconstruct the whole thing, meaning to enforce the original formal workflows and procedures, you helped bypass.

Why may you not be available anymore? (One of you, or both) Well, you may very well grow sick of this extracurricular activity. After all: the longer you do it, the more of a hassle it becomes also, it’s not like you’re being paid for it and this would be amplified since it may conflict with your own real work and responsibilities. Or, one of you may leave, or be fired. Then what?

The 3nd reason, and last, why bypassing of formal workflows and procedures, compromises effectiveness and efficiency, which, then, pisses your boss off, making you, yet again, un-promotable, and un-pay-raise-able and that is:

3. Masking the formal with the informal
Effectiveness and efficiency necessitate all formal workflows and procedures, be known to everybody involved established followed and monitored, in order to update them, as needed.

However, your office romance, made all of the above impossible! When everybody goes by the informal, then nobody is using the formal, which makes it completely masked over.

Thus, not known to everybody involved – because it was never used therefore it was never established therefore it was never followed therefore it cannot be monitored – there’s nothing there!

No wonder your boss is pissed off with you! I’m surprised you still have a job…

So, how do you climb out of this hole you dug for yourself, and make yourself eligible again, for that promotion and/or pay raise you so want?

The answer is twofold:
First you need to be fully versed in all the office romance BossProblems you are inadvertently causing, and understand how they are making your boss see you in a, more and more, unfavorable manner, which, all put together, severely hinders your chances.

How do you do that? By carefully and diligently studying this entire Sex and the Workplace Deck.

Then, and only then, once you have the full picture of that hole you’re in, we will dig your way out of it, together!

I’ll be seeing you next time, then.