The first thing you need to understand about office romance, from a promotion and pay raise perspective, is that it is insidious in the way it cripples your career: You will not even see it coming, let alone understand how, or why.

The sooner you realize it, and the more serious and urgent consideration you give it, the sooner you will be able to counter it, with a fix.

Therefore, the more driven you are, the more attention you need to pay, to this entire Sex and the Workplace Deck, because it is the only resource online that takes you by the hand, and shows you all the  BossProblems that your office romance creates, from your boss’ perspective, and then, shows you how to fix them.

This is especially true, if you see yourself as eligible for a promotion and a pay raise, based on your pre office-romance credentials. You may have, indeed, been eligible back then, but since you became involved with your schmoopie coworker, things have changed dramatically, as this whole Deck proves. Everybody knows it, but you, which proves the point.

And this is true all the more so, if you have already been passed over for a promotion and a pay raise, and you want it to never happen again, or if you are seeking them for the first time, and want to make sure your office romance doesn’t screw-up your chances.

In both cases, you desperately need to watch this video! Read this post!

Let’s go on with the mapping of the BossProblems that your office romance creates, from your boss’ perspective, so you can reverse engineer the fix!

The no. 5 office romance BossProblem, that makes you un-promotable, and un-pay-raise-able, is:

5. Bypassing formal workflows and procedures
   Or, in other words: Pissing your boss off, even further

Why “even further”?

Because of all the previous office romance BossProblems you have already cause, that’s why! You have not exactly ingratiated yourself on your boss, to put it mildly.
[If you haven’t watched the previous instalments of this Deck – they’re an eye opener that can save your career, if I may say so myself ,so you really should! Watch them here, and I’ll  put a link in the description as well]

Anyway, now, you are pissing your boss off even further, by messing with something even more critical, than all the previous office romance BossProblems we’ve covered before: The bypassing of formal workflows and procedures.

Why is it so critical?  

It is critical because formal workflows and procedures are the fundamentals of your team’s performance. And through a domino effect, also your boss’ performance, his boss’ performance, and so on.

In other words, formal workflows and procedures are the infrastructure for the effectiveness and efficiency, of your team or department, and the company as a whole. Therefore when you bypass them, you compromise that effectiveness and efficiency (Which pisses your boss off, with you).

So it is easy to see how this would, indeed, further escalate your already problematic (not to say negative) standing with your boss.

Now, you’re probably wondering, or maybe even getting angry with me, thinking: “What does my office romance have to do with formal workflows and procedures? These are two completely different things!”

Well, they are completely different but, they are also interdependent in ways most employees, don’t realize.

Let me give you an example that will make this crystal clear, so that you can reverse-engineer the fix, from it.

First, we need to setup the backdrop of the example.

– Suppose you and your schmoopie are working in adjacent teams, or departments, that are ‘internal customers’ of one another.

[By the way, this scenario is consistent with the premise that, you love birds are coworkers: There are many organizational situations, in which you structurally belong to different teams, but in practice, work closely together, on a daily basis].

So, on with the setup:

– As ‘internal customers’ of one another, your two teams have daily communications to exchanges information and agree on solutions for problems.

– To support this, there’s an infrastructure in place, of two kinds:
a physical infrastructure, in the form of computers and landlines and so forth, and an operational and administrative infrastructure, in the form of formal workflows and procedures: Who does what, when, where, and why.

– Maybe there even is formal coordinator, whose job it is, to coordinate and oversee the communications between the two teams, to make sure they are executed, according to those formal workflows and procedures.

So far so good. That’s a normal organizational reality, that we are all familiar with.

But here is where the plot thickens, insidiously, against you. Which brings us, to the example itself.

When these ‘internal customers’ teams have two schmoopie-s, such as yourselves, one on each team, both teams grow accustomed to relaying issues, and solving frictions, through your romantic relationship, instead of through the formal workflows and procedures.

How so? Here’s how:

Say Jim, on the one team, and Bob, on the other, have some professional friction. The formal workflows and procedures would direct, bringing it up and discussing it, in the next mutual meeting, or through the designated coordinator, if one exists. Pretty straightforward. But, that’s not what happens, in practice.

In practice, Jim, who’s on your team, comes by your cubicle one day, and says: “Hey… listen… I have this situation with Bob… could you talk to your schmoopie on the other team, and help me smooth it out? It’s really screwing up my project, and I know they are friends, so…could you?”

Now, you being a good, helpful, teammate, you are, say “sure!”, and then you broker the situation, through your schmoopie, and succeed.

So, great, right? Well… yes and no: Great in the short run. Problematic in the long run.

In the short run, of course that’s the right thing to do. Why wouldn’t you two help your teammates? You would be assholes not to try! Of course you should!

Plus it will be a ‘positive’ in your boss’s mind, in regards to your interpersonal abilities, and communication skills. Thus, promoting your chances for a promotion and a pay raise.

The problem lies, in the long run, when this can totally flip over, and hinder your chances.

This video/post is about making you aware of exactly this danger, in terms of how your boss sees you in this context, so that you can mitigate it, to prevent such hindrance to your chances of getting that promotion and/or pay raise, you want. Plus, when you understand it, you can reverse engineer a fix, which we will do together, on the last installment of this Deck.

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, or non-formal procedure, that, unintentionally, replaces the formal one.

And if someone on either team doesn’t like the formally designated coordinator, if one exists, then all the more so – who needs them when they can just come to you schmoopie-s, instead.

Moreover, when a new teammate comes onboard, they will be sure, this informal workflow is the formal workflow, or that you are the designated coordinator, because they will have never seen anything else. Thus, the more time passes, the more entrenched this counterproductive process, is.

I’ve seen it happen time and time again, and not necessary 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 is 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 video/post) is all about!

Thus, in the long run, it will compromise the team’s 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 it all!

Now, two important notes:

1. Don’t throw the baby with the bathwater!
   Again: You should absolutely help your teammates, 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 crucial employee? (But you may still get a pay raise, independent of a such a promotion, so not all is lost.)

Thus, it can roll both ways, and you should judge things, on a case-by-case basis.

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

OK… Let’s put it all together, so that we have the full picture:

– We’ve seen how your office romance, unintentionally causes the bypassing of formal workflows and procedures, especially in the long run.

– And we’ve said, that this bypass, compromises the effectiveness and efficiency of your team.

– And, through a domino effect, also your boss’ effectiveness and efficiency, his boss’ effectiveness and efficiency, and so on

– 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, 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, 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, and which we will do together, on the last installment of this Deck, as I promised before.

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

The 1^st reason why the bypassing of formal workflows and procedures, compromises effectiveness and efficiency, is:

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.

The 2^nd reason why the bypassing of formal workflows and procedures, compromises effectiveness and efficiency, is:

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 results in the said compromising of 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)

– You may very well grow sick of this extracurricular activity.
After all:
a. the longer you do it, the more of a hassle it becomes
b. it’s not like you’re being paid for it
and this would be amplified since
c. it may conflict with your own work and responsibilities.

– Or, one of you may leave, or be fired. Then what?

The 3^nd, and last, reason 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 is:

3. Masking the formal with the informal

Effectiveness and efficiency necessitate all formal workflows and procedures, be:
a. known to everybody involved
b. established
c. followed
and
d. 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:

a. Not known to everybody involved – because it was never used
therefore
b. it was never established
therefore
c. it was never followed
therefore
d. 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 need to be fully versed all the office romance BossProblems you are inadvertently causing, and understand how they are causing your boss to 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’ll dig your way out of it, together!

I’ll be seeing you next time, then.

Until then, get back to work! You know I can’t help you get that promotion and pay raise, if you don’t actually do the job!