Boyfriend to Boss
As I've posted a million times before, my guy and I work together, that's how we know each other. We work for a smallish, global company (Less than 150 employees), in a niche market. We are on the internal IT team, there are four of us - two in the US, two in Helsinki. I've been there the longest, six years, and he's about five months behind me. From the start, our team has had ineffective, crappy, constantly changing management. In my six years, I've reported to at least seven people, so it's been less than a stable environment for us. For almost two years we had a manager located in our London office, but he just quit, and once again, our little IT team is up in the air 
Our CTO just approached Raine and told him he's considering him for the position, and asked him if he's interested, if the company decides to go in that direction (another attempt at a dedicated IT manager).
OK, that's the boring background out of the way. So, if this comes about, and Raine decides to take on the responsibility, my boyfriend just became my boss
I'm worried about this for two different reasons - The first is worrying about him taking an unstable position in a volatile economy, in a company that views their IT people as little more than toilet scrubbers. I could go into details, but it's business talk and boring as hell, so I'll spare you. I'll just say that he has a high probability of failure in this position, due strictly to our corporate culture; anyone would. The second is of course more personal - How the hell do we keep our business and civil lives separated?
Some of you reading this, who haven't been in the corporate world yet might think this is an advantage - it's not. We're worried about it. We have kept our relationship secret from the company, people suspect, but we neither confirm nor deny. We've intended to keep it this way indefinitely. I don't want to stand in the way of his career, ever! If he can pull this off, it would be an excellent opportunity for his future, opening many doors in a country that isn't exactly throwing jobs at people. It's tough times at the moment.
If he takes this, I have to be OK with some "tough love". He will have to call me out when necessary, deal fairly during yearly review times, bonuses and raises, delegate work to me, manage my work when needed (that would be very rare though), not instantly take my side during team issues, etc. If he takes this, I have to separate Boyfriend Raine from Boss Raine. I can't expect him to be my confidant regarding work stuff anymore, I'll need to be more guarded in my words, in order to protect both of us. I have to get used to knowing that he'll have to keep secrets, and stopping him when he starts telling me things he shouldn't, for his own good. He'll hate not being able to be 100% open with me. When he delegates work to me, or we have one-on-ones, I HAVE to treat him as my superior and keep my place as subordinate, I can't speak to him as casually as I would.
Then, on bad days, I can't be still mad at him when I get home. Ugh.
We're pretty good at keeping work at work, but on rare occasions, our disagreements have bled through to our home life. Because he knows me so well, he also knows all my (professional) weaknesses. That worries me. I'm a good, hard working employee, so it's not like I really have much to worry about in that regard, but I don't want to ever put him in such a position, which puts loads of pressure on me to be perfect all of the time! I'm already stretched so thin, thanks to my worthless co-worker, that getting everything done is damn hard already. It'll be his job to get even more out of me, and I desperately don't want to put him in a bad spot.
Sorry this is a book, I never, ever ask for advice, but I'm feeling nervous about this one. I want so badly for him to do well, and will help in every way possible, but not at the expense of our relationship. I've already told him that if he takes this, and it ends up putting our relationship in jeopardy, I'll try to transfer to another department, if anyone will take me and I'll be useful there, or switch jobs completely. He's worried, but doesn't want to talk about it much til he figures out what he's doing, although he had a bit of a nightmare about it already
Anybody been in this spot before, or got any useful advice? I'd appreciate your thoughts on this.
Our CTO just approached Raine and told him he's considering him for the position, and asked him if he's interested, if the company decides to go in that direction (another attempt at a dedicated IT manager).
OK, that's the boring background out of the way. So, if this comes about, and Raine decides to take on the responsibility, my boyfriend just became my boss
I'm worried about this for two different reasons - The first is worrying about him taking an unstable position in a volatile economy, in a company that views their IT people as little more than toilet scrubbers. I could go into details, but it's business talk and boring as hell, so I'll spare you. I'll just say that he has a high probability of failure in this position, due strictly to our corporate culture; anyone would. The second is of course more personal - How the hell do we keep our business and civil lives separated? Some of you reading this, who haven't been in the corporate world yet might think this is an advantage - it's not. We're worried about it. We have kept our relationship secret from the company, people suspect, but we neither confirm nor deny. We've intended to keep it this way indefinitely. I don't want to stand in the way of his career, ever! If he can pull this off, it would be an excellent opportunity for his future, opening many doors in a country that isn't exactly throwing jobs at people. It's tough times at the moment.
If he takes this, I have to be OK with some "tough love". He will have to call me out when necessary, deal fairly during yearly review times, bonuses and raises, delegate work to me, manage my work when needed (that would be very rare though), not instantly take my side during team issues, etc. If he takes this, I have to separate Boyfriend Raine from Boss Raine. I can't expect him to be my confidant regarding work stuff anymore, I'll need to be more guarded in my words, in order to protect both of us. I have to get used to knowing that he'll have to keep secrets, and stopping him when he starts telling me things he shouldn't, for his own good. He'll hate not being able to be 100% open with me. When he delegates work to me, or we have one-on-ones, I HAVE to treat him as my superior and keep my place as subordinate, I can't speak to him as casually as I would.
Then, on bad days, I can't be still mad at him when I get home. Ugh.
We're pretty good at keeping work at work, but on rare occasions, our disagreements have bled through to our home life. Because he knows me so well, he also knows all my (professional) weaknesses. That worries me. I'm a good, hard working employee, so it's not like I really have much to worry about in that regard, but I don't want to ever put him in such a position, which puts loads of pressure on me to be perfect all of the time! I'm already stretched so thin, thanks to my worthless co-worker, that getting everything done is damn hard already. It'll be his job to get even more out of me, and I desperately don't want to put him in a bad spot.
Sorry this is a book, I never, ever ask for advice, but I'm feeling nervous about this one. I want so badly for him to do well, and will help in every way possible, but not at the expense of our relationship. I've already told him that if he takes this, and it ends up putting our relationship in jeopardy, I'll try to transfer to another department, if anyone will take me and I'll be useful there, or switch jobs completely. He's worried, but doesn't want to talk about it much til he figures out what he's doing, although he had a bit of a nightmare about it already
Anybody been in this spot before, or got any useful advice? I'd appreciate your thoughts on this.
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