Do you mean "internal political" as "Oh man Jimmy is in charge of gmail now!" (just a made up example of internal politics there) or "Can you belive what the POTUS did!?!?!"?
If the latter, I'm a bit surprised ... I can't imagine having that kind of conversation at work. That is absolutely a NO GO zone for me at work.
And this was common workplace discussion!? This seems like a disaster waiting to happen. I don’t know why you’d want to introduce the divisiveness of politics to your workplace.
It must be US culture there: everywhere I've worked (in France) arguing about politics was always ok. Even fun when you get people of differing views who can explain how they came to those so you can debate. Things must be boring when you have to limit yourself to safe subjects.
That's only a US thing. In the rest of the world (well, I can only speak for a few european countries) discussing politics is normal office chat. Why wouldn't you want to discuss current and thought-provoking issues with your peers?
I get the feeling people are much closer politically in other countries than they are here, which makes the debate a bit more polite. Remember, to half the US population if you voted for Trump you’re a Nazi. Not a lot of room for people to debate you in a serious manner or even think of you as a human being when those are the stakes involved.
Generally not out in the open, but on internal groups (message boards) or email chains. Keep in mind the vast majority of people working at Google don't care - the people looking to engage politically are a minority group and found each other on the intranet.
Many moons ago I worked for a company that did some outsource work for another company who asked for responses to an anonymous survey.
So I responded.
1. I shouldn't have gotten the survey as I didn't work for the company who sent it, but nobody at either company was very smart or careful because it went to everyone.
2. I misread the email and didn't notice it wasn't my company asking for responses it was the company we did outsource work for.
I made some pretty tepid constructive criticism. So did a couple other people.
The next day we were in a conference room with people we never met before angry that we responded to the survey. They hadn't realized we were actually sent the email just like everyone at the company (like I said these were not smart people) ...
It also raised the question about how anonymous this survey was. Of course it wasn't, you could see in the URL when responding your name, email address, etc ;)
I try to keep the latter out of work-related mail, slack, etc, but I've had plenty of political discussions over coffee and lunch, and nobody ever seemed any the worse off for it.
I suspect an important factor is that these happen in smaller groups that know each other better, beyond individual views.
I was appalled that one of my foreign born, non-Christian, non-Caucasian co-workers voted for Bush 43 and listened to Rush Limbaugh, but having known him for years, I did not reduce him to that single aspect of his life.
Your observation that small groups that are already friends having differing points of view does not make them "the other" in your mind, may well be the opposite of (Political) Twitter, which may well be why that ends up being such a dumpster fire.
Q: You mention that you were 'appalled'. Did either of you take the time to explore your presumptions behind your reasons for coming to differing conclusions (while realizing the humans are 'rationalizing creatures', not 'rational creatures')?
Good question. We discussed this a bit, and my impression was that he (a) had somewhat negative opinions of muslims in general (although he got along fine with muslim co-workers — again, the phenomenon of knowing somebody protecting against "othering" them) (b) did not hold his political views very strongly, but partially saw politics as entertainment (he also listened to Michael Savage) (c) somewhat felt that when Limbaugh and Savage trashed foreigners, they could not possibly mean him.
I apologize upfront for not knowing who Mike Savage is, but it is my understanding that Limbaugh (who I don't listen to, so I could be wrong) is a guy that rudely declares that we should enforce border policies as written into regulations written by Congress?
That may not be true, but if it is, is that wrong-headed?
Edit: I have many loving/giving Muslim friends, and without their help I would not be alive today, but I am somewhat afraid of their "extremists" when I travel to Pakistan, or Qatar. I don't think I'm a hater, but maybe I am?
> it is my understanding that Limbaugh is a guy that rudely declares that we should enforce border policies as written into regulations written by Congress?
I'm somewhat conflicted in my thinking on border enforcement, and I do think it should, in general, exist, but that's far from the core and the tone of his argument, I think. He also declares that Mexicans in general are lazy (regardless of the legality of their status): https://www.huffpost.com/entry/rush-limbaugh-attacks-mexican...
> I am somewhat afraid of [Muslim] "extremists" when I travel to Pakistan, or Qatar.
My colleague did in fact come from a country where Muslim extremism was a thing. For your travels, I would certainly share your concern in Pakistan, but I don't really think there is an objective basis for it in the case of Qatar:
Anyone that thinks Mexicans are lazy have never worked beside them.
But, one size does not fit all. My anecdotes to that effect are surely not data.
But my friends of Mexican descent (Americans) don't like uncontrolled migration because of the (perceived?) downward pressure on wages for unskilled labor.
EDIT: That last point was also anecdotal. My gut feel (intuition) is largely driven by my experience. I do not claim that this experience is global or globally correct.
It is the second kind, and in addition to the multitude of dedicated political discussion boards it is also very popular at the social forums like memegen and google plus. I was a bit shocked by this when I started but I got used to it, now I just filter it out.
I understand your perspective but I'm honestly very surprised given your example. I'm in Canada and the things Trump does and says are still present in conversations nearly every day.
>I'm in Canada and the things Trump does and says are still present in conversations nearly every day.
I'm not sure what you mean but generally in my life... I actually don't have a lot of "political" conversations every day. More often than not, none at all.
As in simply something like going to the dentist or getting a haircut, politics comes up because at least in my lifetime and most peoples there's never been a President (and certainly not Prime Minister in Canada) doing the things that Trump is doing. Peoples lives, families and affairs have been affected for many who travel to the United States as an example and the discussions of what he's saying and doing permeate work and non-work environments.
Do you mean "internal political" as "Oh man Jimmy is in charge of gmail now!" (just a made up example of internal politics there) or "Can you belive what the POTUS did!?!?!"?
If the latter, I'm a bit surprised ... I can't imagine having that kind of conversation at work. That is absolutely a NO GO zone for me at work.