When 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.

Maybe 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")

Whenever 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.

It 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.

In 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.

Nearly 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.

I 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.

Depending 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.

If 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?

Back 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.

We 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.)

This 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.

It's astounding that people do! We talk about work at work.

Depends 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.

It'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.