I don’t talk about politics or religion at the workplace, yet there is a drama queen that loves just blurting out what she thinks to everyone around.
My way to go so far has been to ignore her, but sometimes I just want to yell at her how incoherent she is.
Then I’d be the one starting drama I guess…
I’m looking for advice to deal with these kind of people. I don’t want to work listening to conspiracy theories.
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“Please don’t talk about politics in the workplace. It is unprofessional.”
Headphones and a volume dial that goes to 11.
Well, it’s one louder, innit?
Or noise canceling headphones, and only up to 5 so you don’t destroy your hearing.
Not no tiny ones either, or they’ll still walk up to you with their nonsense. Get some bigass highly visible headphones.
They when they start yapping at you anyway pretend you can’t hear them. When they start waving around frantically in front of you, and this is the important part, slowly take off the headphones, look at them sideways and go “huh?”. Make them repeat themselves. Don’t engage. Get back to work asap with the headphones again.
Eventually they’ll tire of this song and dance every time and move on to someone else. Hopefully.
I, personally, have always been fond of headphones that double as ear muffs. Back in the day that meant Sennheisers - it may mean something else now, though.
ignoring them is the best thing. when you start feeling super annoyed, that’s a good time to take a break & walk away for a few mins.
also, the headphones suggestion is on point.
Mind your own business, Sarah. I know it’s you.
Try to maintain a safe distance of at least 30 m at all times. If you’re stuck with her in the same room, ask lots of work related questions and keep the conversation strictly professional. Dry work stuff only. The more boring the better. As soon as the conversation is about to go off the rails, steer it back.
When you figure it out, please let me know.
Maybe it will be some consolation for you to remember that you and your coworker have a common adversary: your employer. If you find yourself taking your ignorant coworker’s bait, you can try constructively twisting it or redirecting her complaints against the ownership.
Oh shit. Are we coworkers? Is it me?
Talk to your boss in private and say that political talk at the workplace makes you uncomfortable and you don’t think it’s appropriate.
You don’t. You care about what you care about.
What you can do is a combination of stone face and meditation.
Stone face is never giving a reaction of any kind. They shoot off their mouth, you just look away, walk away, or stare blankly at them. Should they question it, you just state you’re going back to work (if leaving their presence), or “nothing” with nothing else added.
The meditation part is so that you don’t crack. You learn to control your breathing, which gives you the later ability to both exist in the now without dwelling on the events of the now, with the side benefit of being able to tune useless signals out.
Both take practice. And they kinda depend on each other. You do stone face without meditation, you end up just eating yourself up inside from the stress. You do meditation without stone face, you end up looking calm and happy, which encourages the behavior.
Now, it’s important to remember to do it when a person is voicing their silliness that you agree with, too. See, if you only go blank with one area of politics, or only that person’s religious vomit, you end up causing problems for yourself. So hold everyone to the same standard that politics and religion are just utterly useless to bring up around you.
Are there cases where someone is going to push? Sure. You fall back to stating that you’re hearing them out, but you have work to do. This does come with the consequence that you’re going to have to also stay distant with other conversation and stay on task at work, at least verbally. That can be a loss if the workplace is otherwise relaxed and less “work now scumdog slave!”, but it usually ends up being worth that.
Here’s a hot take: Take shrooms. You’ll understand to your core that literally nothing matters and society is just a game of house that went too far. There’s so much you can’t control, so your coworkers political beliefs will seem like a very funny and intricate delusion they hold themselves to.
Of course this might not be your experience, but sometimes things take too much bandwidth in our heads and we hyperfocus on it and then it affects our mental health and personality. A mental shakeup helps reframe everything and I’ve found that my anxiety over how the world is going greatly gets dealt with better in my head after a good trip.
Would it be good enough for you if you heard the conspiracy theories around you, but you could mostly not be affected by what they’re saying?
You give a Fuck cuz you somehow “care”. You have to not care, and to do so you must think and accept that she’s just stupid and there’s nothing you can say to her to change that.
