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In your career, have you found a drama free workplace?

alternative post title: how can I grow a thicker skin, so I simply stop caring what my coworkers think or say?

I’m still looking for a drama free workplace and I don’t understand why people seem to enjoy creating chaos out of nowhere

Working in several industries, I’ve met:

  • white Christian nationalist: too many Arabs and Mexicans in our country, somebody should send them all back to where they belong, and I’m very Christian. This was 5 minutes after meeting me for the first time. Why even tell this to a coworker?
  • Married woman complaining to me about how her husband isn’t so affectionate nowadays: 2 minutes after meeting me for the first time. Who does that? Shouldn’t you tell this to somebody you trust, like a friend and not a stranger you met 2 minutes ago?
  • An anti vaxxer trying to convert me to his cause, or however you want to call it.
  • And just today: ‘it’s good that Trump was shot’ Why would a sane person blurt that out in the middle of our pause for everyone to hear you? Why do you need to antagonize your coworkers? This was a manager btw.

I have waaaaay more examples, but I’ll keep it simple.

I just want to work and go home. Completely drama free. I don’t want to care what coworkers think, but apparently I’m very thin skinned and I’m easy to be triggered. Each of the examples I wrote triggered me: I wanted to yell ‘fck off, you piece of sht, I don’t give a f*ck what you think, leave me alone’, or something like that. But I need the job.

My conundrum: If this happens at every workplace, wouldn’t it make more sense to stay with the devil you know?

Unless, of course, you’ve job hopped till you found a drama free workplace… please tell me how you did it.

I want to be the old guy who doesn’t give a f*ck about stuff like this, yet it still triggers me.

30p87 ,

As a student: No. lol

wuphysics87 ,

If “politics is what happens when 3 or more people must make a decision”, drama will always follow. While there are careers that have less drama, there is no such thing as one without it. My suggestion: find allies. Not in an oppositional way, but in a way that they support you and your work. Think if someone were to call you an asshole in front of everyone else, your ally would stand up and say “no they aren’t”. If you work at a place where there is no such person, it is apathetic at best, and toxic at worst.

StaySquared ,

Yes. This is going to get downvoted.

Women in the workplace, who have leadership roles are the problem. I turned down 2 jobs back to back when during the interview I had found out that I’d be reporting to a woman.

Not a fkin chance in hell am I dealing with that stress again. Now I’m in an org where my department is exclusively men and no women have any say on how to run our department. It’s glorious.

wuphysics87 ,

If all men are not the same, neither are all women

sylver_dragon ,

alternative post title: how can I grow a thicker skin, so I simply stop caring what my coworkers think or say?

This is really the secret. Many years ago, I learned a wonderful phrase:
Fuck you and the camel that came on you.

Once you learn to adopt that attitude, whatever some idiot says becomes far less important to your life. There will only ever be one person in this world whom you can really control, and that’s you. For everyone else, you can either try to convince them of stuff or accept that they aren’t worth the effort and move on. The latter option tends to get used a lot more.

If you can, just avoid the shitty coworkers. You won’t always be able to; so, when you have to deal with them, just keep the conversations short, professional, to the point, and then excuse yourself. A simple, “sorry, I really need to get back to work” often works wonders. Also, keep work and personal lives separate. Learn to leave work at work, and that includes the people (unless you find someone who is actually worth making a personal friend of). Once you get home, stop thinking about Mr. Shitty McShitface and go do something you enjoy. Work to live, don’t live to work.

I would also recommend taking a hard look in a mirror. Sure, you might actually be surrounded by assholes, at the same time if you feel like exploding at people for every idiotic thing which dribbles out of their mouth, then you’re probably an asshole too. Stop trying to “fix” or control everyone around you and just accept that you can’t. Life gets far easier when you realize that they aren’t your problem. If you’re doing things right, you should be job hopping every few years anyway. Your pay will stagnate and fall behind if you don’t. So, in a couple years, those idiots won’t even be around you anymore.

So, how do you “grow a thicker skin”? It’s tough and takes practice. But, just keep putting in the effort to not give a fuck . Eventually, it becomes a reflex and you’ll find yourself with No More Fucks to Give.

InAbsentia ,

Yes, I work as a contractor for a power company. I talk to my boss maybe once a month beyond the daily meetings when nothing is going on. I’m considered remote so there’s no office I have to go to, just jump in my truck and do my job, come home when I’m finished and get paid 8 hours. Each area has one worker so there’s no one to give you grief beyond the other departments which don’t do things right and create issues but that’s their problem, not mine. I fix what I can and move on.

I mostly drive around listening to music, talking to friends, and investigating issues. Most of my work is 30 minutes to an hour from one to the next.

There is the downside of the dangers that comes from it but honestly driving and dogs are more dangerous than the electricity if you just do your job correctly. I’d take every bad aspect of my job over sitting in a stuffy box full of bitter people who haven’t matured past grade school mindsets. Before this one, every job I had contained shitass lazy coworkers and piss poor management. At this job my work ethic gets recognized as there’s no one else to take credit for my work behind my back.

Kit ,

Don’t engage in social conversations at work, beyond brief small talk to be polite. Weather, sports, or traffic. Imagine that HR is listening in on every word you say. You can’t be roped into drama if you don’t give them an opening.

I’ve only once had a coworker who tried to cross that boundary, and I said very plainly “Let’s keep our conversations professional.” and she never caused problems again.

kat_angstrom ,

I’m in tech and have been lucky enough to work in a few departments with some laid back, chill people who don’t have egos and just want to do their work and go home.

A lunch a little while back featured 8 of us sitting around the table, and I realized that among us were two Muslims, a Hindu, two Protestants, a Catholic, and two Atheists; and we all got along famously, bonding over our mutual hatred and distrust of upper management.

I know that this isn’t a universal experience, but it’s nice to know that it’s possible. :)

BananaTrifleViolin ,

So is the issue your co workers or is really that it bothers you so much?

Maybe the real thing here is you need to learn how to let the crazy and annoying wash over you. Because at the moment you’re letting that leak into your personal time - you’re thinking about things that are annoying you when really, why should they?

They’re “winning” not because they annoyed you at work, but because you’re letting it bother you when you’re not at work.

There are skills in being able to ignore things that annoy you, or learning to let things go or even compartmentalising parts of your life.

AFKBRBChocolate ,

It’s the nature of people, but I think you’re going to find it in some jobs/industries more than others. I work for an aerospace company, and they regular tell people they shouldn’t be discussing things like politics and religion at work. We’re not allowed to wear shirts or put up things that are political or divisive. Stuff like that doesn’t eliminate the drama, but it helps. Also, engineers don’t tend to be overly dramatic types.

When I was young I roadied for a friend’s band, and so was hanging around a lot of musicians and artists, and the amount of drama was kind of insane.

CharlesReed , (edited )
@CharlesReed@kbin.run avatar

The only times I've ever had a drama free workplace was:

  1. At the beginning of my career when I was an intern. They didn't care enough about me to include me in the gossip, and I was only going to be there for a few months anyway.
  2. When my last job started letting us work from home, so I was no longer stuck at a desk in a high traffic area where multiple people would stop and chat. Headphones with a mic were a godsend, because when someone would start to approach, I'd just smile and point at the mic. Kept a lot of the gossipers at bay, though not all. WFH eliminated all that, I was so happy I could finally just focus on my work and not get caught up in situations that didn't even pertain to me.
sharkfucker420 ,
@sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml avatar

I was about to say yes but i forgot my boss threw a chair at another employee after a cocaine bender

bobs_monkey ,

Like many others have said here, it simply is unavoidable. People are gonna people, and a number of them usually do it to illicit some reaction, whether it’s agreement which reinforces their nonsense, or ragebaiting that gives them a giggle and still reinforces their nonsense. Realistically the only thing you can do is ignore them and get on with your day.

I think the biggest thing to remember is that a lot of people have very little social interaction outside of their home lives and work. They spend their time either at home with family or even alone, loading their brains with whatever garbage they find on the Internet, and then spew it back into the world to see what sticks. In many people’s minds, you are simply the one in front of them at the moment when they want to spout off. It seems like you’re taking it personally, when in reality a lot of these yoyos are too shortsighted to even consider you as a person. You are an NPC to their main character.

What helps is remembering that usually none of what anyone says is personally targeted. And even if it is, what does it matter in the grand scheme of things? Half the population has double digit IQs (not that that’s a great metric to go on, but still). Just keep doing your thing, stay focused on your work, and don’t let morons live rent free in your head. I know it may sounds difficult, but it really is as easy as just paying no mind to them.

flamingo_pinyata ,

As someone said before it’s not directly a consequence of a workplace, it’s a part of interracting with a random selection of people from wildly different backgrounds.

Nod your head as if you weakly agree. Throw in a random opinion of your own, but I don’t recommend the extreme ones. Questions also work especially when they are seemingly neutral and cause doubt in the original speaker.

For example if a Christian nationalist starts hating on Mexicans don’t fall into the trap of repeating typical responses about respect for immigrants. Ask him how he reconciles that with the fact that Mexicans are predominantly Christians. Or something unexpected like that.

xilliah ,

Ugh, I know exactly what you mean! I hope to become better at simply being frank and setting boundaries. Seriously, I just met you and you tell me your mom just died? OK, that is terrible, of course, but what the actual fuck, I’d almost go so far as to call that borderline abusive.

Then the guy next to me at this one job I had. Complaining the whole day. Every day. And you know what? I think it’s my fault. I just let people like that use me as an emotional trashbin. If I were there now I’d definitely do something about it.

It’s incredibly hard to overcome that behavior. I can recommend martial arts, since it allows you to process these behaviors and related emotions physically. Sounds a bit silly but my god you know exactly where your thresholds are and not to hesitate to hold your stand and how you’re gonna do it.

You can’t get rid of that one toxic person. They’ll always be there in every group. The stoics wrote about it thousands of years ago, that it is our fate and we can only learn to handle it.

Dagwood222 ,

Ever heard the phrase “Life on life’s terms”?

Unless you’re willing and able to create your own company and control who you employ, you’re goign to be dealing with people.

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