There's this 
who always spends her mornings walking around a local park. She'll pick up cigarette butts and fish hooks, trim bushes, just whatever needs doing. Apparently an 11 year tradition for her.
Today she stopped me to chat for the first time as I was picking up some fishing line. We had a nice little conversation about how important it is to protect birds and how poorly the city does so. I was just about to describe how much I also care about the local wildlife and how important stewardship is.
Within two minutes she's pointing at a bike lane and asks me if I support that. I say "Yeah, I commute on it and it's a lot safer than it used to be". She launches into a rant about how one bike can cause a 4 mile traffic jam and she wishes they'd tear out all of the bike lanes. We have a visible air pollution layer from car exhaust being trapped by the local topography, making the air so dangerous that her demographic is specifically warned against going outside for most of the summer. Okay.
Next came climate change. When she was a kid in the 40s they taught civics. Now kids are just told what to think. The climate changes cyclically and we've found fish fossils in Wyoming. People are so afraid of a perfectly natural cycle. She doesn't care if they're liberal, conservative, whatever. They're taught social studies instead of civics and it makes them believe in stuff like this.
Then vaccines. She was a nurse and couldn't work in medicine these days with that COVID vaccine shit they're forcing on young people like me. It doesn't even work and they fire nurses if they don't get it. She wishes she could get all the nurses together and collectively bargain because they can't fire everyone for refusing to get the vaccine. She's 84.
Sometimes I see a nice old person doing something good for their community and for a brief second I think "that's probably not a rabid reactionary who wants to spend their last years salting the earth". Then they speak and I remember that this is the Burger Reich. Death to America.
This exact sort of thing is why I'm worried about learning more of my coworkers' beliefs
I just know the ones I actually like will turn out to be fucking nutbars
I already know one of the chuds in my group enjoys Steven Crowder's shit lmao
I have only one coworker I talk to and he’s well read on Black American history, especially labor and civil rights struggles so we have great conversations about race and labor in the unites states. Then a few weeks ago conversation shifts to Palestine and he has the most insane shit takes, and I’m called antisemitic for giving historical context to Palestines actions. I guess he sensed that one went too far because he tried to pull it back by claiming that “the Jews run Hollywood” and then got upset when I told him that was actually antisemitic as fuck.
A few days ago he brings up the whole Terrence Howard, 1x1=2 thing. Not that harmful in the grand scheme, but this man does not know the difference fundamentally between addition and multiplication.
Lately I try to stick to strictly work or Union related things, I peeked behind one curtain and I think that’s enough to settle fully into work hermit.
i believe you mean the new, powerful math that is sweeping the nation, Terryology. lmao, i have never heard that topic come up IRL, let alone brought up by a proponent (because its hard to believe any real person believes that shit except Terrence Howard). i could not imagine how i would react to that guy.
"Hey, have you heard of this youtuber called Dave Ruben?" is the phrase that made me decide I will never work in-person again.
If that option is ever taken away from me I guess i'll fuckin starve
theres a guy at my work who's been incredibly helpful to me and has taken up all of the training that this bullshit company neglected to give me. he is lowkey the reason i still have a job. he has a bit of shaky grasp of the english language and i try to be patient with that and give him a hand, i don't think the rest of the team really talks to him because of his hit-or-miss english. sometimes we'll stay on a call even after work hours have ended to chat about football.
and then, a few days ago, he tells me whats going on in fr*nch politics. this then rapidly progessed into open racism. he complained about immigrants not integrating, and the whole "there are parts of paris that the police are afraid to go to. because of the woke.", and how some socialist freaks don't like isreal and are clashing with police (BASED), and how all arabs are violent; its just innate, its their culture. he, not speaking good english in an english language company, had the gall to bitch about immigrants not knowing french
he even tried to bond with me by being like "don't you guys have the whole knife crime thing? because of the violent immegrants?" FUCK OFF CLAUDE, KNIFECRIME IS OUR NATIONAL FUCKING SPORT ALL ON OUR OWN
the whiplash from the only person in this company who has ever been decent to me (and is also my boss' boss) turning out to be a rabid reactionary is incredibly unsettling. i don't know what to do, or if i could even keep my job if i mention this to anyone. it was unrecorded, outside of work hours, and hes my only source of support in this bullshit fucking job. so yeah, don't ask, but they might tell you anyway