cross-posted from: https://linux.community/post/1152236
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.
No. But not all drama is super dramatic.
There are some places that have a crazy office politics environment (2007 Microsoft, I’m looking at you). If that is the case, I would just change jobs.
However, if you just have annoying coworkers who are off topic, I would just steer the conversation back to work items (“oh, before I forget, can you tell me about [work related item]?”), then leave the conversation. Other tactics that work for me: look really awkward during personal conversation, never ask how someone is doing, wear headphones.
Someone once told me it’s important to care, but not that much. This has also helped me.
Beat of luck to you!!
Nope. Where there are people there is drama.
Some are better at managing their drama than others but no workplace is drama free.
You live in a time with a lot of change and not a very cohesive culture time. Politics are getting rough, people have their own communities and echo chambers making it harder to adapt to others.
No drama means you have a good community that is similar and takes care of each other. Right now that is hard to find
I’m semi retired, disabled, and a house husband. Sometimes I need a little chaos to feel something
No there is always someone who causes problems, and other people to react to it and gossip and talk about it.
I’ve had entire hourly slack meetings about what someone said.
People expect the workplace to be fair, and to be treated with respect, and some people don’t care about what people expect. They treat people badly if they feel they can get away with it.
I guess I just learned to accept that the only behavior I can control is my own in the workplace. If someone is saying stuff I find objectionable then I keep it strictly professional and let them know I expect the same in return.
I’m mostly alone for it so yeah.
A drama free department, yes! We have that where I am. The whole company? That seems unlikely. But accounting and IT are calm and not dramatic at my workplace.
Yes, my current job is drama free. Not that the work isn’t very very hard and stressful, but that my coworkers all work as a team and there has been zero drama in the 2 years I’ve worked there.
I can’t say I’ve ever encountered much “workplace drama” in my life. When I worked in call centers there would’ve never been time to find out anyone’s opinion on anything. Of course then you trade drama for the stress of the job.
Now I’m back to food service, and other than most of my coworkers not being invested enough to put in their full effort, it’s pretty good. Aside from one person, I don’t really know anything about anyone’s lives that I don’t want to and I’m quite happy with that.
YMMV a lot on both of those
Probably not, but I’m sort of oblivious so I don’t really notice. 🤷♂️
Yes, and it was my first job out of university. Incredible. It has set the standard for me. Everyone extremely polite, restrained, no oversharing, no politics discussions in the office, no drama. People would just gravitate towards those that shared their views and would have coffee breaks at different times than other groups. Everyone was painfully aware of how bad these things can get, so we all made an effort to keep the environment light.
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report them to HR for racist comments in the workplace.
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report them for sexual harassment.
3 & 4) especially 4 just report to HR for having too many political comments on the floor.
All the stuff you listed is inappropriate and contributing the drama. You report it so that you can say “I’ve already made it known I’m not trying to have these conversations with you, please stop” and when they don’t you go back to step one till they get fired.
The alternative is to learn to accept your coworkers as they are, unprofessional or not, and not let their bullshit irritate you so much.
Not saying which is correct, but you have options.
OP wanted less drama, reporting people seems like it will have precisely the opposite effect, even if it may be the right thing to do.
In the short term, sure… But the reason its like this in the first place is because everyone takes the stance of not rocking the boat. I say throw em overboard.
And shit we’ve all been there, I had a coworker say some vile shit around me before and just let it slide because its easier. I’m in a different position these days and find keeping things secret / quiet only allows these issues to fester.
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I’ve probably really only had one job where this was a problem, and it was already a politically charged environment because of the work we were doing. Despite the nature of the work, the drama wasn’t political at all. It was just all young people just out of college airing way too much of their personal lives too freely. With all of the rivalries, infighting, and occasional sabotage, it felt like a 2000s MTV series in there.
