From INDIVIDUAL Corporate Professional (Good)
To Office Couple
(Bad, If You Want Promotion / Pay Raise)

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

From Top Performing INDIVIDUAL Corporate Professional (Good)
To An Office Couple (Bad, If You Want A Promotion / Pay Raise)

Now, what about that “Brangelina”, “Power Couple” option? That sounds desirable, right? Wrong!

As I’ve hinted before, being the “king and queen” of the office, is not all it’s cracked up to be. Yeah, it may land you the dubious “starring” role on the company’s grapevine, but it will push you away from landing that promotion and pay raise you so want.

Why? Because, (and here is the main point) pay raises and promotions are based on your individual brand.

Why? Because, pay raises and promotions are given to individuals, not couples. Plain and simple.

Thus, even in this best-case scenario, with both of you bringing a positive branding to the joint one, and supposedly creating a doubly positive joint brand, it still ends up being the worst-case scenario to each of your individual aspirations.

When you two Schmoopie-s are no longer considered individual professionals, but a romantic couple, the damage you suffer is double:
a. You have both moved from being regarded as individuals, to being regarded as a couple, BUT, as we’ve seen before, pay raises and promotions are not given to couples, only to individuals. So, not good.

b. You have both moved from being regarded as professionals. to being regarded as romantic partners, which is a counterproductive and a digression from the focus you are supposed to have at work, and for which, pay raises and promotions are given. So, once again, you both lose, and that’s a negative double whammy for your chances.

There are two issues here: Personal and professional.

Now, this is not a Dear Abby kinda Deck, so I’m not going to go into this, or any, personal aspect of your relationship, here. However, I will address it in the next, and second to last, installment of this Sex and the Workplace Deck – so be sure to it check out here and I’ll put the link in the description as well.

So that was the personal issue. Now to the professional issue which is the second inconvenience truth bomb I promised you in the beginning this video, and that is, (as this entire video shows): A “Brangelina” joint brand, overrides your individual one.

Thus, your chances of getting that promotion and pay raise, are, once again, severely compromised. Why? Well, this fusion of both of your “brands” into one, together with the dilution and the blurring of both of your individual brands in the process, make it very hard for either of you to differentiate yourself, and distinguish yourself from one another (you and your Schmoopie).

And that’s on top of the regular burden of differentiation, that any candidate needs to achieve, from any other eligible co-worker in the team – so you now have a double burden laid on you…

The result is that it is also hard for your boss to notice, and acknowledge, and appreciate your singular, unique, individual contribution, to the point of erasing it altogether.

Furthermore, when you get to a “Brangelina” status (or, at least, a poor man’s version of it), human nature kicks in: Our brains tend to perceive things, to make sense of things, through converging them into patterns.

This fact is represented in the well-known idiom: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Now, apply that to you and your Schmoopie.

The practical meaning is that, a “Brangelina” is subconsciously perceived (because of its sheer power) as being bigger then the two coworkers it consists of. Ergo, you guys must be “smaller”, so that if you were to break the couple up, you would not be left with two very powerful employees, but with two meh employees.

This is the subconscious perception of everybody around you at work, including your boss, regardless of whether it is true or not.

Obviously this is a huge blow to either of your aspirations, because your boss will be the one making the call regarding your promotion and pay raise, and what boss will give either to a meh employee? (Let alone two meh employees…)

But wait! It gets even worse! (If you can believe it)

If you were previously (prior to your office romance) considered eligible, or potentially eligible, or on the track to being eligible, for a promotion and pay raise, then such a result to your “Brangelina” status is even more devastating. Because now, it seems like you’ve regressed in your eligibility. It is somehow dimmer, or as we’ve said before: It is diluted and blurred, in comparison to what it was before your office romance. So, once again, not good for your chances.

Think of it as a workplace “reasonable doubt” akin to the legal one we see on all those TV dramas: It’s not that your boss has to think you’re ineligible, to rule you out of that promotion and pay raise. He only needs to be uncertain about whether you are eligible!

This will serve as a “reasonable doubt” regarding what it is, exactly, you specifically bring to the table.

And since your brand is now dimmed, diluted, blurred – that would be enough. That would be the “reasonable doubt” against you. Sad, but true.

Now, to be fair, is it possible that your heightened profile, due to your “Brangelina” status, will make you more eligible, just because you’re more visible to your boss? Yeah, it’s possible. Everything is possible in life, and in the workplace. But it’s not very probable, for all the reasons I’ve laid before you, all along this Deck.

And even if it were possible it would only include one of you, not both… you realize it, right?

But, hey, you want to take that chance? By all means, take it! As I always say, I ‘m just giving you the facts nobody else will, so that you can make an informed decision. The rest is on you. You do you.