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:
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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?
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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?
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An anti vaxxer trying to convert me to his cause, or however you want to call it.
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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.
Unfortunately this is everywhere. I work as a welder at a large shipyard, and we have the same drama.
We have a female welder who steals tools and personal items from others, then cries “Christian persecution” when she experiences any consequences for her actions. Shockingly, it works and she’s never punished or arrested. They do make her give the items back, so that’s something.
We have the MAGA crazies who vandalize company property with their dumb political / sexist / racist / homophobic crap. They just recently vandalized & destroyed one of the few female bathrooms with a sledgehammer. Shipyard police are still “*looking into it.” I now have to either use a gross porta-potty or walk a mile to use a real bathroom.
We have a ton of anti-vaxxers who believe some of the most batshit crazy things. Though, the more hard-core ones were fired some time ago. The ones who complied and wore a mask got to stay.
This is just human nature. This is what you get when you have two or more people together at one place.
You could always just tell them to their face that you think them saying that makes you think they are racist, unfaithful, indoctrinated in misinformation, etc.or otherwise call out the behavior/comments as unacceptable in the workplace. Won’t necessarily make them reconsider their flawed ideals but can hopefully let them know that you don’t want to hear about it. I work remote now and that definetly cuts down on small talk in general. At a previous job some guy was deep in Christianity and was talking to me about how evolution just doesn’t make sense and God must be real because of it. I just brushed off and ignored comments like that because it wasn’t worth the hassle.
generally people in the creative industries are nicer and drama free, but when they melt down they really melt down. I’ve worked on a few big movies, famous artist music videos - they’ve all been lovely. Worked for a small scale entertainment company, was a complete nightmare.
in the corpo world I have found very few people that are just chill, but I work with a lot of startups with VC funding - so likely a lot of pressure and billionaire bootlickers. Worked for a large TV shopping channel, old money, it was like a competition to see who could be the most bigoted; worked for a newly minted $50MM startup, everyone trying their hardest to be a cool rude dude who could out-cuss Gordon Ramsay.
I remain incredibly nice, thoughtful, understanding, professional, my LinkedIn is filled with positive recommendations.
That’s not workplace drama, you’ve described interacting with people. It’s difficult to say if it’s always been like this but social media hasn’t helped. People are now used to expressing their beliefs and opinions to everybody, no matter how polarizing or unpopular they might be. It’s not limited to the workplace.
For not caring about what people think, just remember that nobody’s opinion matters. Your favourite colour is yellow? Cool. You don’t like Taylor Swift? Great. You think all atheists should be killed? Neat. Opinions are like points on Whose Line Is It Anyway. They’re made up and they don’t matter.
