[notconservative]

That'd be fine with me if it was enforced equally. I haven't worked anywhere that attempted to do that, so not sure if it'd work or not. But, I'm skeptical.

I think what may happen is that it'd go underground. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. It may be a kind of secret reason to cause strife between employees.

It would have to be supported as a broader part of the company culture. No discussing things that aren't relevant to work. A "We're here to work and that's it." kind of policy.

[justin66]

It is very odd that you assumed I was talking about setting a company policy. When I wrote "What about not doing it at work," I was talking about a social and behavioral norm.

[notconservative]

I don't think it's that odd. This norm doesn't really exist currently. How do you think a company could encourage their employees to not talk politics at work?

[justin66]

This varies depending on the community you're a part of. I don't have any exposure to what Silicon Valley is currently like, so I can't speak to that. (other than to question how these people who are supposedly giving 110% have so much time to discuss politics...)

When I lived in Berkeley everyone felt very free to start a conversation about politics with any random person they happened to encounter. Nice people, but that can cause fatigue. My current Midwestern corporate work environment is basically the opposite of that: someone can talk about politics but if they're speaking in a group or to someone they're not very close to, they're going to get a funny look and they'll generally take the hint and drop it.

I don't know what our employee handbook says about all that but it's being handled at a different, social level. It's not perfect (my boss's boss occasionally makes bizarre political jokes which would cause a little trouble if they made people feel stepped on, instead of amused) but I suspect we should regard actual company policy as just a fallback for dealing with this sort of thing. Mostly, people just need to exercise some social discretion as part of the corporate culture.