5 ms·
> It isn't easy. People interact on social media and at work and so if you're angrily criticizing the plight of the Palestinians on social media, your pro-Israe
by cletus 5y ago
> It isn't easy. People interact on social media and at work and so if you're angrily criticizing the plight of the Palestinians on social media, your pro-Israel co-worker may bring that conflict into work with them.
There are many dimensions to this:
1. Is Alice speaking for the company or can be construed as speaking for the company? Like does her Twitter profile say "VP of X at Y" and is a verified profile? Like I know there are certain topics that have been in the news about my employer that I simply won't comment on because I never want to be quoted in the press as "Employee of X said ...". That's just common sense. And you can also be (rightly) terminated if your actions or statements reflect badly on the company or the company otherwise has to spend time dealing with;
2. Assuming the first person isn't speaking for the company and the second person is simply aware of their social media presence, it gets a lot trickier. I can sit here and say "just do your job" but would I be saying that if I were African-American and my coworker was spouting some White supremacist crap on Twitter? Probably not. There are degrees too. Reposting links on your personal Twitter in your free time is one thing. Putting up a Confederate flag in your cubicle is something else;
3. You should generally be comfortable with what your employer does. So let's say you're deeply evangelical and completely anti-abortion. Should you work for Planned Parenthood? Probably not. I mean if you can and want to, that's fine. But there are limits on what an employer should be expected to do to accommodate your views.
> ... and yet their company saw the "disruption" as a bigger threat than the loss of talent.
Obviously specifics matter here but let me express some generalities.
If you express views where your coworkers don't want to work with you because of those views then yeah you've created a problem. Even for an engineer the technical side isn't everything. You will still need to work with people. Supporting homophobic policies when you have a gay worker means you've brought something into work that has disrupted that work (as an example).
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]