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by amsheehan 3115 days ago
What I would take away from that notion is that large is relative. A large portion of the country still has fewer people than New York City.

I am of course, not trying to start a flame war either, but my take on it is that those sorts of issues would be inappropriate to bring up at work or in a job interview in the first place, regardless of your position.

Based on your description, I believe I probably espouse the opposite position on those issues, and even though I work at a large tech company in NYC I still don't bring them up at work.

That said, I can totally see where you're coming from. I have a friend who ended up being a pretty staunch Donald Trump supporter, and I watched as a lot of colleagues ostracized him (even though he never really brought it up at work).

It takes hard work to see past issues that divide us. In the case of my friend, I always just try to focus on our shared interests. It's what has kept us friends.

In closing...there are of course different degrees of ideas that people will tolerate, and it may just be that large cities have spoken, and they don't want intolerant people in their ranks.

shrugs, walks away

2 comments

That's a great point and worth clarifying. I agree that neither side is super appropriate to bring up at work. I'm referring more so to circumstances like your friend who is a Trump supporter.

It also gets murkier nowadays because companies are expected to take stances on social issues, and with certain ones are criticized when they don't.

Companies have always been expected to take stances on social issues. Within living memory, companies in many parts of the country were required by law to segregate their customers by race. In other parts of the country, many companies were expected to do this as well, although it wasn't a legal requirement. Similar things were true for companies' treatment of same-sex couples, unmarried heterosexual couples, single women, and non-Christians.

The main difference I see is that the expected stances are more liberal than they used to be, and the penalties for failing to conform tend to be much less severe.

If they don't want intolerant people in their ranks though, then what would that make them?