Help! My Co-Worker is a Communist!

Back in the 50s, admitting you were a communist at work would be enough to land you in jail, so you’d keep your mouth shut.  But nowadays, people will divulge any and all details about themselves to colleagues.  The question is, what do you do when a close co-worker expresses attitudes or beliefs that are in sharp contrast to your own?

A Jewish friend e-mailed me about this issue last week.  She and a group of her colleagues were eating lunch at a table in the cafeteria, and her cubicle mate started going off about the Israeli offensive in Gaza and how despicable it was.  He’s Palestinian, but I guess they’d never had the occasion to discuss the conflict before.  My friend’s a staunch supporter of Israel, and she didn’t know what to do.  Suddenly she felt offended by this guy she’d always liked and resented that he’d brought his unwelcome political stance into their comfortable little world. 

She asked for my advice, and I sympathetically said that it sounded like a difficult situation, which it is.  If you’re in a similar one, I recommend that you try to let your co-worker’s different ideology go unless it affects your daily working life.  Not everyone can always share your point of view, so instead of fixating on the negative information you’ve just uncovered, focus on the positive aspects of the person and what you like and respect about him.  Also, remember that working at an office with someone is not the same as becoming his best friend.  If you keep things casual and don’t expect more, the two of you shouldn’t need to butt heads. 

Comments

[Dan Erwin]

As a consultant, inevitably I have to work with some people with whom I have no common interests. And there are a few of them, initially, that have some habits that I find frustrating. My livelihood as a consultant depends to a great degree upon my ability to work well with a diverse stable of humans. Long ago, in another vocation--that of a church minister--I had similar issues to face.

I learned to take it as an act of sheer intelligence to be able to work with anyone who needs my services and wants to hire me. In effect, I can say to myself, "Erwin, this is going to be a tough guy to work with--but you're smart enough to succeed in the relationship." The fact of the matter is that inevitably, even though a client might have seemed frustrating at first, I get to the place where there is an awful lot about that person that I like.

There are always incompatibilities between people--even in marriage--and though those incompatibilites rarely change, we can normally work through them when we focus on the task.

This is a long way of saying, Alexandra, that I believe you've got your finger on exactly the right issues.

[Jeremy Hatfield]

Always a tough situation to handle. My office just recently had a lot of politically charged conversations from the recent election. A few months back we offered some tips to negate office politic speak....
http://www.employmentmetrix.com/blog/2008/06/better-think-tw.html

Thanks again Alexandra!

[Alexandra Levit]

@Dan - you used to be a church minister, really? I'd like to hear that career change story sometime.

@Jeremy - thanks for the link, those are great tips!