From Diesel Sweeties by way of Neil Gaiman, a story about why
not to talk about your hobbies at work:
Matt, of the webcomic Three Panel Soul, was interested in learning
to use a rifle. He mentioned this to someone at his workplace,
around the time of the Virginia Tech shootings (but entirely unrelated
to those events). Someone else overheard and "felt unsafe". They
went to management, and he was fired. Then, to add insult to
injury, he (according to Diesel Sweeties, I can’t find this part
elsewhere) was visited by the police for making comics about this
sequence of events!
I can’t figure out what one should do about things like this. Make
people stop being freaked and stupid about guns doesn’t appear to be
an option, since any method I can think of to encourage/require
children to understand what guns are and how they work and why to
respect them without being afraid is going to be shot down (no pun
intended) by the same adults who are terrified of guns themselves.
Okay, so if we can’t enact major cultural change, what can we do? It
irks me that talking about a hobby at work could get you fired, but
given that social interactions in the office are such a big part of
the Normal American Lifestyle, if you never talk about yourself at
work I fear you put yourself at a disadvantage—you look
unfriendly—and that will hurt your chances at promotions.
![[FSF Associate Member]](/users/bts/fsf-button-4448.png){kind=small}
Post a Comment