5 ms·

What you described is talking about personal interests and activities, and I agree that is the kind of stuff that is easy and fun to talk (and hear) about with

What you described is talking about personal interests and activities, and I agree that is the kind of stuff that is easy and fun to talk (and hear) about with others. I’m starting to think many people don’t have personal activities and interests and don’t know what to fill in small talk with other than what they saw on social media or the news.

bart_spoon 5y ago
Or rather, an increasingly large number of people's personal hobbies essentially consist of reading, tweeting, blogging, and talking about politics.
tshaddox 5y ago
What about people whose personal interests and activities directly involve politics? Like people interested in political analysis or reporting, or people interested in competitive policy debate, or even people who actively do advocacy work in their free time? Is small talk about the advocacy work you did over the weekend worse than my small talk about building drones over the weekend?
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  I don't try talk about my gym routine with coworkers who aren't interested in gym workouts. It's boring to them and the conversation goes nowhere. So you should not try to talk about politics with people who aren't interested in your politics.
- fancyfish 5y ago
  Yes, in fact those people who enjoy politics and advocacy outside of work should be actively discouraged from working in high performing organizations. I certainly filter them out during my interview process as they are more likely to be a liability than a great worker who gets the job done.
- NationalPark 5y ago
  I think he's saying that being interested in politics is inherently inferior to being interested in other things, and people who like to read about politics are fundamentally lesser than people who don't know much about politics (and therefore we shouldn't care if banning "politics" affects them).
- nemo44x 5y ago
  There’s a lot of things that aren’t political per-se you shouldn’t share with the broader group. For instance, maybe my family has a history of killing wild animals for food. I wouldn’t share our kill shots with my company the same way I would with friends that are interested in hunting. Because I know it’s something a good chunk of people don’t want to see and it’s unnecessary to share. Now imagine I had a few friends in the office who too supported this. And we went out of our way to not only share pictures of these killings (which are all legal) but started to intimidate people that didn’t like to see them. And then we go a step further and plan a trip to Africa to hunt lions - all legal and on the up and up. And we share these relentlessly. And we don’t stop there. We post Big-5 trophies and endless shots of venison being butchered. We also begin to loudly advocate NRA membership for colleagues and use company resources to recruit social events where we all go shooting together. We go further and decide we want THE COMPANY to support our gun rights. We walk out and protest our CEO who “doesn’t have the balls” to take a measly pheasant. Who wants this?
  - vzcx 5y ago
    Sounds great, to be honest.
  - detaro 5y ago
    > And we went out of our way to not only share pictures of these killings (which are all legal) but started to intimidate people that didn’t like to see them. And your managements only way of reacting to that is banning all potentially political talk? Really? My boss would go "go make a #hunting channel and keep it there". And I presume if I tried to get him into gun rights activism the response would be "no, stop pestering us about it", repeated more firmly and with consequences if I kept it up.
    - katbyte 5y ago
      as per this company there would be no hunting or gun channel in the work slack because "politics"
    - nemo44x 5y ago
      This entire article and thread and Twitter are people complaining that the boss just said “no stop pestering us about it”. You made my point?
- drusepth 5y ago
  >Is small talk about the advocacy work you did over the weekend worse than my small talk about building drones over the weekend? I think you're way more likely to find coworkers that get mad or upset over the advocacy work you did over the weekend than you are to find coworkers mad about you building a drone. One of these topics seems to have a much higher chance of negatively affecting either you or your coworker in the workplace. If you're enjoying some watercooler conversation with a coworker, would you prefer them chatting about the drone they built or the door-to-door-campaigning they did for <candidate you despise> 2024, or the protest they were at against <your preferred candidate>? Even if you're fine discussing advocacy work for a cause you disagree with (like any adult should be), there's also a chance you're going to alienate or upset your coworker by not agreeing or being on "their side". Talking about building drones doesn't have the high-stakes social stigmas that can have lasting, chilling effects in the workplace that a lot of tangentially-political topics do.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    > If you're enjoying some watercooler conversation with a coworker, would you prefer them chatting about the drone they built or the door-to-door-campaigning they did for <candidate you despise> 2024, or the protest they were at against <your preferred candidate>? Well, I’m the one who likes fiddling with drones in my free time, so I’d personally be more interested in that discussion! But that’s a different question than which of these conversations should be prohibited by the employer.
- mdoms 5y ago
  What do you mean "what about"? Isn't it obvious - you don't talk about these interests at work. What's unclear about that? Is there something in your employment contract guaranteeing you the right to talk to your coworkers about anything that interests you? How would you feel if I spoke to you at the watercooler about my hypothetical interests in the supremacy of the Arian race?
protomyth 5y ago
Sports once filled that roll. It was acceptable and with enough tribalism to make it interesting. Sadly, they are not a safe conversation anymore.

bart_spoon 5y ago

Or rather, an increasingly large number of people's personal hobbies essentially consist of reading, tweeting, blogging, and talking about politics.

tshaddox 5y ago

What about people whose personal interests and activities directly involve politics? Like people interested in political analysis or reporting, or people interested in competitive policy debate, or even people who actively do advocacy work in their free time? Is small talk about the advocacy work you did over the weekend worse than my small talk about building drones over the weekend?

throwawayboise 5y ago
I don't try talk about my gym routine with coworkers who aren't interested in gym workouts. It's boring to them and the conversation goes nowhere. So you should not try to talk about politics with people who aren't interested in your politics.
fancyfish 5y ago
Yes, in fact those people who enjoy politics and advocacy outside of work should be actively discouraged from working in high performing organizations. I certainly filter them out during my interview process as they are more likely to be a liability than a great worker who gets the job done.
NationalPark 5y ago
I think he's saying that being interested in politics is inherently inferior to being interested in other things, and people who like to read about politics are fundamentally lesser than people who don't know much about politics (and therefore we shouldn't care if banning "politics" affects them).
nemo44x 5y ago
There’s a lot of things that aren’t political per-se you shouldn’t share with the broader group. For instance, maybe my family has a history of killing wild animals for food. I wouldn’t share our kill shots with my company the same way I would with friends that are interested in hunting. Because I know it’s something a good chunk of people don’t want to see and it’s unnecessary to share. Now imagine I had a few friends in the office who too supported this. And we went out of our way to not only share pictures of these killings (which are all legal) but started to intimidate people that didn’t like to see them. And then we go a step further and plan a trip to Africa to hunt lions - all legal and on the up and up. And we share these relentlessly. And we don’t stop there. We post Big-5 trophies and endless shots of venison being butchered. We also begin to loudly advocate NRA membership for colleagues and use company resources to recruit social events where we all go shooting together. We go further and decide we want THE COMPANY to support our gun rights. We walk out and protest our CEO who “doesn’t have the balls” to take a measly pheasant. Who wants this?
- vzcx 5y ago
  Sounds great, to be honest.
- detaro 5y ago
  > And we went out of our way to not only share pictures of these killings (which are all legal) but started to intimidate people that didn’t like to see them. And your managements only way of reacting to that is banning all potentially political talk? Really? My boss would go "go make a #hunting channel and keep it there". And I presume if I tried to get him into gun rights activism the response would be "no, stop pestering us about it", repeated more firmly and with consequences if I kept it up.
  - katbyte 5y ago
    as per this company there would be no hunting or gun channel in the work slack because "politics"
  - nemo44x 5y ago
    This entire article and thread and Twitter are people complaining that the boss just said “no stop pestering us about it”. You made my point?
drusepth 5y ago
>Is small talk about the advocacy work you did over the weekend worse than my small talk about building drones over the weekend? I think you're way more likely to find coworkers that get mad or upset over the advocacy work you did over the weekend than you are to find coworkers mad about you building a drone. One of these topics seems to have a much higher chance of negatively affecting either you or your coworker in the workplace. If you're enjoying some watercooler conversation with a coworker, would you prefer them chatting about the drone they built or the door-to-door-campaigning they did for <candidate you despise> 2024, or the protest they were at against <your preferred candidate>? Even if you're fine discussing advocacy work for a cause you disagree with (like any adult should be), there's also a chance you're going to alienate or upset your coworker by not agreeing or being on "their side". Talking about building drones doesn't have the high-stakes social stigmas that can have lasting, chilling effects in the workplace that a lot of tangentially-political topics do.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  > If you're enjoying some watercooler conversation with a coworker, would you prefer them chatting about the drone they built or the door-to-door-campaigning they did for <candidate you despise> 2024, or the protest they were at against <your preferred candidate>? Well, I’m the one who likes fiddling with drones in my free time, so I’d personally be more interested in that discussion! But that’s a different question than which of these conversations should be prohibited by the employer.
mdoms 5y ago
What do you mean "what about"? Isn't it obvious - you don't talk about these interests at work. What's unclear about that? Is there something in your employment contract guaranteeing you the right to talk to your coworkers about anything that interests you? How would you feel if I spoke to you at the watercooler about my hypothetical interests in the supremacy of the Arian race?

protomyth 5y ago

Sports once filled that roll. It was acceptable and with enough tribalism to make it interesting. Sadly, they are not a safe conversation anymore.