My workplace is a wonderful bastion of big-P-Politics-free collaboration. It is an apolitical safe space. My colleagues and I absolutely do have political views, but there is just no reason whatsoever to share them at work.
“Bring your whole self to work” is a flawed goal unless you live to maximise shareholder returns.
Actually, it would be nice if you left politics out of HN, too. In theory you could talk about politics and policy in a way that's conducive to intellectual interest and curiosity, but I've literally never seen this happen here with any consistency.
The political threads are always littered with knee-jerk hot takes that just don't belong here from an intellectual POV. To be very clear about what I'm saying, this is not about ideology; I've seen this behavior come from all parts of the political spectrum, and I find it even more annoying when "my" preferred side is doing it.
Of course, I would love to know of a place that discusses things even more sensibly.
For example, one might say they don't talk about climate change/sexism/racism in the work place and therefore it is apolitical, but to another viewpoint not talking about these issues is political.
People were willing to live and let live when the psychos were confined to gender theory classes and unsuccessful bookshops but now that they are so prevalent and demanding that people indulge their delusions every waking second it seems people are starting to get sick of it.
Even if you don't rub it in my face, you're still sitting on an ass.
Having one doesn't make the work place a strip club, even if someone there likes to spend their off moments imagining how your concealed taint might look.
If this were about issues likee 'big vs. small government' then it wouldn't be a problem.
But it's about political issues like 'diversity in the workplace' and 'Corporate support for Social Justice' (such as BLM) - as the big Elephant in the Room subject.
So things like 'Thanksgiving is Covert White Supremacy' as part of your job training [1] and 'we must achieve certain diversity targets or we are racist'.
That kind of stuff.
There's a group (part of the 13%) that thinks unless you're on board all of that, you're a problem, basically it's a moral imperative and anything else is racism. There's other groups that believe in some of those things, but are open minded with respect to other's views. And of course a wide array of other opinions.
I really don't believe that most other political subjects are entirely so sensitive. 'Privatization of Amtrack' or whatever is simply not going to engender in/out groups.
Abortion, Gun Rights are probably trigger issues for some, but they are really easy to just avoid at the office.
[1] https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/only-white-people-can-b...
but the problem with this view is that we are implementing a policy in a political way. There are many ways to argue for diversity that are either purely economic or practical. The issue here isn't the policy, its who and how its sold/pushed through.
There are companies that are run by, or full of shouty political types. Part of the interview process is to sniff out that kind of company and avoid like the plague. The post you linked to is evidence of that.
The other thing to mention is that US based companies are far more willing to let their works talk politics in the open. In the UK you are rightly looked at as suspect if you speak out on politics or religion.
Seems like people are conflating politics with decency...
By reading the other threads about work-from-home, i realize that for a lot of people work is one of the few places where they can talk politics with a group of real people, which is the reason why it happens so often
Of course you can put a gloss on anything someone says but that doesn't mean it's necessarily a substantive contribution to the actual circumstances which apply for that time and place.
Personally I have worked in a small company where the owner wouldn't have hired a woman regardless of ability.