I work with a person who often goes on inappropriate political rants at work, on a variety of topics, like how "Illegal immigrants are clogging up our emergency rooms and driving up the cost of healthcare!" as well as the perils of socialized healthcare, how our country is being "invaded by outsiders", and (in a confusing attempt at two-wrongs-make-a-right sexism): how women are superior to men. It's all strikingly offensive. I don't even want to get into all the reasons why I disagree. In particular the disparaging comments about "outsiders" are cruel because half the company is on an H1B Visa. And these comments are hypocritical because all of these people on H1B Visas are underpaid and overworked. This person threatens to fire and "send them back where they belong" if they complain.
At Amazon, bringing up any of these topics or even disclosing an employee's visa status was a "fire-able offense". Overall Amazon was very progressive about workplace environment issues. There was an official definition of "hostile workplace environment" which included talking about religion, politics, race, sex, visa status, etc at work. Unfortunately, there's no such concept here, and no HR department to help mediate. Several times I've tried talking to this person about how she's affecting the workplace environment, but to no avail. She doesn't think she's doing anything wrong.
So, here's what I'm going to do to try to help, in some metaphysical way. Every time she goes on an inappropriate rant, I'm going to donate money to a charity that helps the group of people her rant oppresses. So every time she rants about illegal immigrants driving up the cost of health care, I'm going to donate money to a charity that provides health care services for the poor in areas known to have high concentrations of illegal immigrants. Every time she rants about democrats, I'm going to donate to the democratic party. Every time she makes a racist or sexist comment, I'm going to donate to the ACLU. I'm thinking $25/rant will be a good start.
I have a few charities in mind to start with, but if anyone has any suggestions or charities they particularly like, please post them in the blog comments.
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3 comments:
An interesting solution. It might get expensive if the news coverage of the presedential election and the statements candidates will be making get her riled up more than usual...
Do you worry that she might read your blog?
Sam
Her reading my blog is a risk, but one I decided I wanted to take. I don't think she knows about or reads blogs, but I've also made sure to keep my last name and company name out of my posts.
Speaking of the presidential election, I love democracy: no matter how powerful or rich an oppressive person is, I get one vote, she gets one vote. My one vote is just as powerful as her one vote.
Well, in my opinion this is the most intelligent and smart "peaceful protest" that I've ever seen before. :-D :-D
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