5 ms·
When was it ever okay to discuss politics at work?
by jswizzy 7y ago
When was it ever okay to discuss politics at work?
- Rebelgecko 7y agoMaybe it's a SV thing? I saw some of the documents from a recent lawsuit against Google and was pretty astounded by the sorts of things that people were willing to not only say but actually put into writing where anyone on their intranet could see (things along the lines of "I won't let anyone on my team if they have political belief X or voted for Y")
- saas_sam 7y agoIt's 100% a SV thing. It is assumed that everyone working for a SV company is on the left and hates anything on the right. Voice dissent at your own peril.
- kick 7y agoThat seems to make sense if you consider how political beliefs and preferred candidates correlate with given personality traits. Why is it stigmatized? https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/study-predicts-political-beliefs-with-83-percent-accuracy-17536124/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/study-predicts...
- elliekelly 7y agoGenerally diversity is better for a team because it brings in a variety of viewpoints. Someone with different political views might be able to offer some perspective that the rest of the group would have missed.
- kick 7y agoAt the same time, they likely won't mesh well with the team's culture.
- dijit 7y agoBut what does that mean really? That we can't talk politics over alcohol? I still don't see that being an issue unless you can't be civil about conflicting beliefs. If you can't be civil when confronted with conflicting beliefs then you have larger problems I think.
- AnimalMuppet 7y agoI'm with you, but I think you're expecting too much once you add alcohol to the mix.
- eldavido 7y agoDiversity is not an unquestioned good. It means more fights, less common ground, more misunderstanding. There are plenty of examples of relatively insular cultures (e.g. Sweden, Paypal) producing great stuff. I don't hate diversity, I just don't buy this unquestioned "diversity is good" idea. It has pros and cons.
- Kalium 7y agoThere's very much a social norm in some social circles found in Silicon Valley that total political agreement is expected. Opinions are voiced in the expectation of loud and vociferous agreement. Like any such environment where conformity is the norm, it works until someone fails to conform.
- tathougies 7y agoIt's not just an SV thing. Working in tech in Portland, it's also pretty much expected.
- pfranz 7y agoI do think it's more of a tech thing. I believe it stems from valuing "culture fit" more than other industries do. I appreciate the idea of culture fit, but feel uneasy about it because it's also discriminatory and leads to problems like this. I wonder if it's party because of the generalness and youngness of the industry. I imagine fields like oil rigging, therapy services for children, auto repair, or military service have more self-selecting cultures than building generic CRUD apps or web design for random clients.
- cassianoleal 7y agoIt may not be in the US (I couldn't tell) but in all other countries I've been it usually ranges from slightly awkward to perfectly acceptable or normal. It should be ok to discuss politics in any and every space as it affects every single aspects of everybody's lives. Considering most adults spend around half of their awake time at work it seems silly to avoid it there.
- archi42 7y agoWe actually do this quite often, and that's even though our field is not concerned with politics. But maybe that's a cultural thing? (Edit: Also, views at work vary. In US terms the spectrum is probably from Bernie-Sanders-left to pre-Trump-Reps-right.)
- jumbopapa 7y agoIt's only okay to discuss left-leaning policies at work. I'm libertarian leaning and keep my mouth shut because if I said how I felt about half of the things my co-workers discuss I would be ostracized.
- sokoloff 7y agoWhenever you have reasonable adults working together? I think I’ve, on appropriate occasion, discussed politics with friends and colleagues at every workplace I’ve ever been at. [Edit: some senior leadership] openly supports the DNC and has commented to that effect at town halls. To pretend that people are apolitical or to ban all political discussions because some people can’t seem to handle disagreements in a professional manner is one way to handle the problem, but perhaps not the first nor optimal solution to implement.
- malvosenior 7y agoWould you feel the same way if your current CEO openly supported the RNC?
- ashelmire 7y agoWouldn't you want to know if you were indirectly lining the RNC coffers?
- malvosenior 7y agoNo. The odds that I align politically with every person that will benefit financially from my work are zero, and I wouldn't want it any other way. I find mandatory political adherence much more threatening than any particular political party.
- mywittyname 7y agoI accept political disagreements with senior leadership as a fact of life. I've worked for many companies where this was the case; one where donations to the RNC was not-so-subtling encouraged; and another that suggested we donate to the company's PAC. Most of us can separate our politic beliefs from our work. Regardless of how we feel about certain laws and regulations, we have to work within the limitations they impose.
- sokoloff 7y agoCertainly. What they believe and support as a private person is interesting and maybe a topic for conversation, but not determinant of whether I want to work for them. I’m openly Libertarian; I have people on my team who are openly pro-Trump. Being in MA and in tech, there are obviously many pro-left employees. If you can only work for and with people with whom you agree politically, you might have (or be) a problem. “Not talking politics at work” is a bandaid over this problem, at best.
- JohnFen 7y agoNearly every place I've worked at (in the US) over the last 20 years has had an explicit prohibition against discussing politics or religion in the workplace. I'm not saying if it's OK or not as a philosophical matter, but it does help make the workplace more pleasant.
- lordCarbonFiber 7y agoWhich is great, right up until you work with people that aren't straight cis white men. Nonaction is and always will be political; it's just the politics of upholding the status quo. When a regular political talking point is whether it's ok to fire you for existing the hypocrisy of the "don't put politics in my <x>" becomes painful (and certainly less than pleasant). Companies should be free to declare they support the status quo, but they should never get a free pass as if that's some sort of neutral, objective opinion. They've chosen to make a stance and should be appraised as such.
- benjohnson 7y ago>>Which is great, right up until you work with people that aren't straight cis white men. My company has a "no drama" policy. Our team could be a poster for diversity and inclusion from all across the spectrum and it works really really well. We all appreciate each other.
- lazyasciiart 7y agoAh, so anyone who doesn't agree with the existing norms in your office, like gay people being out at work and men and women working together, would just have to quietly live with it or leave. That sounds fine to me, because I think that's a good status quo. But twenty years ago I bet the status quo was different and a totally different set of people was being made uncomfortable and encouraged out.
- JohnFen 7y ago> Which is great, right up until you work with people that aren't straight cis white men. I find it interesting that you make such an assumption about the places that I've worked. Also, I should mention that I absolutely have had numerous political discussions with coworkers. They just don't usually happen in the workplace itself.
- kevingadd 7y agoDepending on your field, it can be unavoidable. Look at the stuff Facebook is having to deal with now, deciding whether to reject specific advertisements from US presidential candidates. It's impossible to tackle that without ending up just having regular old political discussions in the workplace, if only to figure out what actions to take. Thankfully most jobs won't touch this but if you're running internet services it'll probably come up.
- JoshTriplett 7y agoWhen things some people classify as "politics" directly affect work. When you're trying to get your company to make improvements to the state of the world. When you're talking about corporate culture, inclusion, and solving problems. When you're arranging for your company to make a donation, or sponsor an event, or advising against doing so due to potential ramifications. When you're making travel plans and need to know more about your destination. When you're discussing salary or investments or retirement or health or hobbies and the potential impact of future legislative or political changes on those. We're not just talking about the stereotype of people standing around a water cooler declaring affiliations and throwing political talking points past each other.
- mosselman 7y ago> We're not just talking about the stereotype people standing around a water cooler declaring affiliations and throwing political talking points past each other. Who said they aren't talking about just that? At one of my first jobs people got a bit upset in a discussion at some point about religion. My then boss said 'I have learned to never talk about politics and religion at work.'. He didn't forbid it, but the point is valid: why talk about things that gets people unreasonably fired up?
- lazyasciiart 7y agoLike text editors? or code formatting?
- mosselman 7y agoThat wouldn't be unreasonable ;)
- dijit 7y agoI say this as a very left-leaning person (by British standards at the very least), but in my company strong left leaning values are part of the culture and it's expected that you promote LGBTQ+ issues, promote Women in the workplace and promote immigration. It's not a bad thing in my mind, it's heavy handed at times, I can see how it would rub some traditionalists the wrong way in an extreme way. If you held some form of conservative view then you'd almost certainly be a pariah in our company/studio. But left-leaning politics is definitely promoted and discussed in the office.
- snovv_crash 7y agoWhat if you support these policies, but don't actively promote them because you're there to do work, not discuss politics? What if you have reservations about specific things that have been lumped in with "left" politics, which you believe are inherently not "left" and do not benefit humanity?
- dijit 7y agoThen don't talk about it; else be labelled something nasty and be effectively unpersoned. ( Not trying to reach for the 1984 language, but it's the most accurate terminology I can come up with.. :\ )
- golemiprague 7y agoMany things were ok to do at work not too long ago and are still ok in most work places around the world. That includes forming romantic relationships, talking about politics and all the other adult human interactions people do also outside work.
- traderjane 7y agoIf I talk about whether it's legal to fire people for being gay, is that bringing politics to work? How can I be focused on work if I keep hearing about gay people? Also, isn't it obvious that homosexuality is seen as a severe spiritual evil to a large (if not majority) segment of the population? What is the professional intuition on productivity when a large segment of the population considers homosexuality to be spiritually depraved?
- fortran77 7y agoIt's astounding that people do! We talk about work at work.
- rustyconover 7y agoIn my mind it has always been ok to talk about your politics as long as you're respectful and you respect the differences of people who disagree. To make it against whatever workplace "rules" there are seems overbearing and thought-controlling. Our personal beliefs and political experiences make up a lot of who we are, our individual perspective on the world and somewhat how we think. How can you hold your organization to socially responsible policies and actions if you can't discuss what should be socially acceptable? Political beliefs form the ideas of what is the scope of the organization's responsibility. In my recent experiences at a hedge fund and a very large investment bank, politics were discussed pretty openly in both environments (alas this was only in NYC). I found the discussions worthwhile and informative as it helped me understand my own beliefs more. It's unwise to hold beliefs that you never have to justify. You should put in the intellectual work so that you can articulate and argue your own politics it will make sure your beliefs are well founded.
- koolba 7y agoBack when it was possible to have a conservative viewpoint on social issues without being subject to public shaming by a disruptively loud minority. It wasn’t that long ago either. Most people spend more time at work than with their actual families. This leads to all kinds of conversations, in the office, in the break room, or at a bar. Not everything is appropriate for every setting but pretending differing opinions don’t exist is ludicrous.
- scarejunba 7y agoDepends on people, I suppose. I'm easily capable of disengaging and leaving people not upset so I have discussed politics (anarcho-capitalist views, full paternalism views, just-world views) safely and without rebuke everywhere I've worked.
- SkyPuncher 7y agoThis is what I'm baffled by in all of this discussion. Work is not a place for politics. Maybe some light-hearted stuff, like discussing a ribbon cutting or some generally agreeable policy change (like a change to paid parking). Even with very, very close co-founders, politics was an extremely rare discussion. When it did come up, it was generally in the context of how certain things affected the business. Even then, it was with a deep understanding that the other parties where smart, well-meaning individuals.