Also known as don't rock the boat. There are many ways to play the corporate game, if you're there just to pick up a paycheck, then you do you and all the more power to you. However, that doesn't mean it's the only way to play. There's a lot room to get to know both your team and yourself more if you try and learn more about one another. The key thing is to read the room because the other side might not be open to the same level of candidness as you are, or on the same topics. Your mileage may vary, but as usual, absolutes are rarely correct.
perrygeo · 2h ago
My rule for discussing ANYTHING at work: Does this move the current project forward? Are we painting bike sheds and shaving yaks and beating around the bush? Or are we here to get shit done? Everything else is a waste of time, politics included. If you want to be friends after work, we do that after work where I'm more than happy to discuss my thoughts on the current government.
joezydeco · 2h ago
Advanced topic: If a company is progressive in their HR policies and is very strict about discrimination and harassment, do you need BRGs?
fossislife · 2h ago
What is a BRG?
joezydeco · 2h ago
Business Resource Group. In-office clubs to support minority employees, LGBTQ+, women, etc etc etc.
He says you shouldn't engage in diversity hires, but he himself has been going around hiring ex-DOGE people to join Coinbase, an explicitly political move:
> In a May 13 X post, Armstrong said members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team, spearheaded by Elon Musk, though not set up as an actual department, would be welcome to implement cost-cutting changes at Coinbase after leaving the US government.
> Armstrong offered to set up an accelerated onboarding process with the exchange, responding to an interview in which at least one DOGE staffer felt ostracized from Harvard University, where he had been enrolled.
He is doing that to curry favor with the US and UK right. No doubt.
He is an explicitly political person who wants his employees to not be. This is just two separate systems of rules depending on whether he agrees with you or not.
Dilettante_ · 2h ago
This thread is an amazing example on why not to talk about politics.
No comments yet
poszlem · 3h ago
I’ve seen amazing teams, teams I was fortunate to be part of, thrive for years, only to be torn apart during the political ‘awakening’ of the 2020s.
The experience left me deeply cynical and firmly against bringing politics into the workplace.
It also made me view the ‘everything is political’ mantra with suspicion, because it reminds me of the saying: argue with a fool, and he’ll drag you down to his level and beat you with experience. People who see everything through a political lens want to make everything political, because that’s how they gain power.
andy99 · 2h ago
> People who see everything through a political lens want to make everything political, because that’s how they gain power.
Right- power over others seems to be the primary motivation for bringing up modern politics. I think it would probably be fine to have a classical political debate absent power dynamics at work - say discussing the relative merits of increased government spending vs tax reduction. But that's not the politics people mean now, it's all in-group signaling and getting people to submit.
AnimalMuppet · 2h ago
This.
The people who say "everything is political" always seems to mean "you have to agree with my politics, and you aren't allowed to ignore it". Such people can get lost; I'll ignore politics to the degree I choose, and I'll ignore you.
Now, they do have something of a point, namely that politics does affect (almost) everything. If you remain uninvolved in politics, politics will still be done to you. That is true. I'd be more inclined to listen to them on that point, though, if I didn't get this vibe that they were really saying "everything is political, so you must join the battle on my side of it."
frumplestlatz · 3h ago
Yes. I’ve maintained this as a personal policy for the last 25 years of my career.
I have zero regrets.
I have also seen how engaging in politics at work has (sometimes significantly) negatively impacted others over the same period of time — and how people have alienated themselves from professional contacts often without even realizing it.
There is no upside. Save your visible activism for outside of work.
unethical_ban · 3h ago
I agree with this despite having strong feelings politically. Particularly in a country like the US with an archaic and expensive healthcare system tied to employment, work should be as welcoming as possible. We're all one uninsured medical diagnosis away from ruin.
On the other hand, I can't believe the author thinks our political unrest has peaked in the 2010s. I wonder what country they live in; it can't be the US. Maybe they don't read the news. Someone at their workplace should inform them.
mr90210 · 3h ago
This post is very simplistic.
—-
You live in a country called Politistan, you own a tech startup in which 75% of engineers are foreigners on a PL-VISA. A new party comes into power, and draft a proposal do abolish said visa.
Do you expect your employees - that could be at risk of not being able to renew their visas - to not discuss politics at work?
—-
I know my example is flawed, I don’t have a good proposal either, but hard “Don’t, just don’t” isn’t enough for extreme cases.
commandlinefan · 55m ago
Well, in your completely hypothetical example, you _do_ expect the other 25% not to contribute to the discussion and certainly not ask why, exactly, so many are on PL-VISAs.
apwell23 · 3h ago
you can when interest rates are down and everyone is hiring like in 2022. you can even protest CEO in the office. just check interest rates and proceed accordingly.
frumplestlatz · 3h ago
The problem is, people remember.
commandlinefan · 3h ago
Even better, don't discuss them on the internet, either.
justinrubek · 3h ago
May as well skip out on them in person too. Let's just ignore all of our problems and put them under a blanket umbrella of "politics" and we can just exist as we are now, never improving.
vrnvu · 3h ago
Even better, don't discuss them, ever.
commiepatrol · 3h ago
But how do you prove to people on the internet that they're wrong?
He says you shouldn't engage in diversity hires, but he himself has been going around hiring ex-DOGE people to join Coinbase, an explicitly political move:
> In a May 13 X post, Armstrong said members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team, spearheaded by Elon Musk, though not set up as an actual department, would be welcome to implement cost-cutting changes at Coinbase after leaving the US government.
> Armstrong offered to set up an accelerated onboarding process with the exchange, responding to an interview in which at least one DOGE staffer felt ostracized from Harvard University, where he had been enrolled.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/brian-armstrong-coinbase-poli...
This is Coinbase UK advertising and it is aligned with the UK right - saying the system is failing:
https://x.com/coinbase/status/1950843893240496564
He is doing that to curry favor with the US and UK right. No doubt.
He is an explicitly political person who wants his employees to not be. This is just two separate systems of rules depending on whether he agrees with you or not.
No comments yet
The experience left me deeply cynical and firmly against bringing politics into the workplace.
It also made me view the ‘everything is political’ mantra with suspicion, because it reminds me of the saying: argue with a fool, and he’ll drag you down to his level and beat you with experience. People who see everything through a political lens want to make everything political, because that’s how they gain power.
Right- power over others seems to be the primary motivation for bringing up modern politics. I think it would probably be fine to have a classical political debate absent power dynamics at work - say discussing the relative merits of increased government spending vs tax reduction. But that's not the politics people mean now, it's all in-group signaling and getting people to submit.
The people who say "everything is political" always seems to mean "you have to agree with my politics, and you aren't allowed to ignore it". Such people can get lost; I'll ignore politics to the degree I choose, and I'll ignore you.
Now, they do have something of a point, namely that politics does affect (almost) everything. If you remain uninvolved in politics, politics will still be done to you. That is true. I'd be more inclined to listen to them on that point, though, if I didn't get this vibe that they were really saying "everything is political, so you must join the battle on my side of it."
I have zero regrets.
I have also seen how engaging in politics at work has (sometimes significantly) negatively impacted others over the same period of time — and how people have alienated themselves from professional contacts often without even realizing it.
There is no upside. Save your visible activism for outside of work.
On the other hand, I can't believe the author thinks our political unrest has peaked in the 2010s. I wonder what country they live in; it can't be the US. Maybe they don't read the news. Someone at their workplace should inform them.
—-
You live in a country called Politistan, you own a tech startup in which 75% of engineers are foreigners on a PL-VISA. A new party comes into power, and draft a proposal do abolish said visa.
Do you expect your employees - that could be at risk of not being able to renew their visas - to not discuss politics at work?
—-
I know my example is flawed, I don’t have a good proposal either, but hard “Don’t, just don’t” isn’t enough for extreme cases.