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Comment by mise_en_place | Hacker News Reader

My old manager put it best: No politics and religion in the workplace.

Seriously, it's as simple as that. We are here to work, not philosophize about politics and current events.

> My old manager put it best: No politics and religion in the workplace.

No politics for you. The corporate strategy, governance, hiring, dealmaking, etc... will all be politically informed. All your work will contribute to the political beliefs of leadership. It's such a strange abstraction to believe that you're somehow separate from that.

When I have my client's money rattling around in my bank account, I find other avenues to express my annoyance with them. Mainly complaining to my wife :) If the annoyance becomes unbearable, I quietly find some new position to work at.

It's ingratitude at some level. If workers should not be grateful to their employers for their jobs, that's a different conversation, but yeah, sabotaging an external PR event -- what employer is going to giggle, clap, and congratulate this person's "bravery" ?? termination had to be expected here.

Amusingly, the employee now gets 6+ months of unemployment benefits to contemplate the means of their activism.

Google dug itself into a hole where they hired a bunch of DEI folks when it was trendy, but now that that turned out to be just another psuedo-religion, they are trapped in a religious mire.

It's like hiring a bunch of Christians because the "Jesus loves you" PR angle was hot at the time, and now almost a decade later your company struggles to acknowledge the existence of gay people. Don't hire ideologues, especially en masse.

The faster google can get these people out the door, the better. Focus on the tech, not social issues.

A lot of work can be inherently political. If your company pivots into mass surveillance is it unreasonable to speak up if it's against your ethics framework?

That's the beauty of the free market, you have the freedom of choice. You can vote with your wallet or your feet. You can leave if your personal ethics and morality no longer align with the organization you're working for. A business doesn't owe you a paycheck simply because you think you're on the moral high ground.

I'm not saying you're entitled to a paycheck - a company has the right to fire you for your differences in politics. But if you frame it as a relationship, communication can help both sides as long as it's done with some mutual understanding. There are times companies listen to their employees and change their stance. And if they don't then you still have the ability to leave. That said it also matters how differences in views are expressed, I doubt there are many cases where yelling is effective..

It’s perhaps a cultural difference. I grew up in an era (90s, 00s) where people who were overly political were mocked and ridiculed. Certainly you’d never run into it in the workplace. That’s not to say you should never voice your political beliefs, but there is a time and a place for it.

Google is already a mass surveillance company...

The moral and ethical thing to do would be to not work for that company.

This doesn't exactly work when companies themselves make political stances. When companies grow larger than nationstates they are inherently political.

Hosting an event with Israel is politics.

Israel is not a person. And this wasn't even a member of the government IIUC.

"No politics" mostly means only politics that suit those in power. E.g fundraisers for Ukraine is, but not fundraisers for Gaza. Company-sponsored LGBTQ events, but none about collective bargaining rights.

At best he is simply wrong, everything is political, at worse he means only your politics. Picture it like this: Surely the owner of the company may be almost as political as they want? Your obedient acceptance would then be a political choice.

Its just a job they lost, its not like they are 5 years old, watched their parents slowly bleed out after bombardments while starving to death - mkay?

Its arguably a good way to get fired. Even said they want no part in it.

What that means is "only status quo opinion and politics". It's implicit support of the mainstream ethos of corporate America, one which has well established it values profits over people.

Management works to serve those corporate interests, so it is in their interest to convey the message that the appropriate thing to do is be silent and comply.

the default is very political.

> "No politics and religion in the workplace"

Supporting a state, that is actively committing a genocide, with cloud services is a political choice.

There's politics and then there's writing code that some Israeli fascist might directly plug into a system that will decide which apartment complex to bomb next.

No religion is a good idea, but no politics is impossible unless you don't understand the definition of politics.

Especially given the importance of politics to corporations - they are allowed to politic, but employees aren't?

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