Does anyone else hate pretty much everyone else in your job field? I'm back in school now but in the year I was working at a full time job, basically every other engineer was a chud who absolutely refused to consider other people and were only doing engineering because they got paid a lot. I know it's good to get to know everyone you work with and build solidarity but it's basically impossible when they're all so insufferable.
How do all of you deal with it?
I’m a geologist and climatologist.
Climatology people are always great. Never met a single conservative. 80% of geologists are great, and then 20% are fucking insane. About half of petroleum engineers are nazis which I’m sure is shocking
You can walk down the hallway in the geology department at my college and pass a portrait of AOC and a big "I was put on this Earth to make your life miserable" poster within like 20 feet of each other. Shits great
There are a few extremely chud professors that’s for sure which is weird
I work in one of the most satanic disciplines of civil engineering in a very conservative state and yes all other engineers are awful. I find it hilarious when people are surprised to hear the engineers are climate change deniers, libertarians, evangelical Christians, etc. Us engineers ain’t scientists lol.
The funniest part is that you have to be a real idiot to be a CIVIL engineer and not realize how society would come to a screeching halt without the existence of socialized infrastructure (public utilities, municipal governments, federal funding). The alienation I experienced at this job is what pushed me into leftist politics.
My best way to cope with it? I joined a book club for leftist literature. It’s been great. Also I’m quitting and will be starting a less evil job next month. Learning about PMCs has been eye opening and I generally agree with most indictment of us.
If nothing else it’s fun to confuse my conservative coworkers who know I’m “left of center” but know nothing about socialism when I agree with them about hating Obama and respecting gun ownership. But that’s about where our similarities end.
There is such a conservative culture in engineering. It’s insane. I guess that’s what happens when you get a ton of white male mechanically minded people together.
It also does not help that engineering is branded as a “meritocracy” which gives so many engineers literal god complexes. What they neglect to realize is that the majority of engineers got to that point because their parents were engineers and set them up with not only the requisite education to succeed but also a professional network and job opportunities before they even graduated. Also that your merit has nothing to do with your skills or abilities, and almost everything to do with how much you corporate ass you can kiss.
During my first internship my boss told me “your worth as a person is decided by how much money you can charge a client” and it has taken me five years to try and get that poison out of my head.
Those kind of people are literally the worst. Do they just think because they have engineering degrees they can understand everything?
I work in the EMS field.
We see firsthand how inefficient and inadequate the current system is, how high health illiteracy is, how people put off trips to the doctor for months or years until that little problem balloons into something life-threatening, etc.
Yet the overwhelming majority of EMTs and paramedics I know are hardcore conservatives who say we have the best healthcare in the world, we can't afford socialized medicine, we can't do universal healthcare because that might also benefit some lazy people, etc.
Fuck's sake. None of us are making six figures. We're all closer to those food stamps ("handouts") you bitch about than having a cool million in the bank, but you would never know it from the way they talk about "parasites."
EMTs are criminally underpaid, at least here in CA they are, especially for a specialized, trained field in an industry that makes hand over fist in money
We're underpaid everywhere.
The hospital I work for took the opportunity to redo the stencils on all of our ambulances to say 'heroes work here!'
But they also told us we can only have a new N95 mask once every two weeks and only if we turn in a sufficiently soiled or damaged old one. If it looks too neat and clean, they'll tell us to keep using it. So now we just make sure we smear some dirt on it or step on it a few times before we turn it in. Right at the very start of the pandemic, there was a $500 bonus as hazard pay but only if you worked so many hours over the last month. We know the hospital makes all kinds of money, but anyone who thinks we'll see any of that is fucking bonkers.
Edit: And if you lost your N95, you'll get raked over the coals for trying to "steal" an extra.
God I hate it here. Wtf is the point of PPE if you have to keep reusing it over and over like that?? Like seriously, there is a reason they are meant to be disposable. That is so frustrating to hear but also unsurprising
Have the cops rubbed off on them? That’s basically my take on how firefighters got so reactionary.
Possibly
A lot of people in fire/ems/law enforcement are ex-military, which is conservative as hell. I'm also living in a red state, so I look like a bomb-throwing radical when I suggest that diabetics shouldn't have to die because they can't afford insulin.
My coworkers try to talk around it, but their stance on any given issue usually boils down to "just don't be poor/black/a woman!"
Can't afford your medication? Your fault for not working hard enough and getting a "real" job. Live in fear of police? Your fault because you listen to rap music about cop killers. Got raped? Should have kept your legs closed, you stupid slut.
I thought we went into this field of work to help people, but the majority of my coworkers are hateful shitheads who laugh at the pain of others. It's no wonder the EMS field has trouble with retention. It's a field that underpays and overworks you while forcing you to put up with the worst humanity has to offer. It's bad enough you just had to see someone die. Now you have to listen to your partner spewing Qanon conspiracies for the rest of your 13 hour shift.
Meditation. Gardening. Walking.
Long, flowing black robes. Washing the rice until the water runs clear.
Tea.
Yeah that's been my experience too (software engineer). Of course I also live in a blue state in the Northeast, so it could be different elsewhere.
That sounds nice. I wish I was in a field that could pivot to something like that easily.
You don't talk to them, do the hours, go home.
Fuck "friends at work," I'm just there for the paycheck.
I get that, but at the same time, I need to be able to talk to people in the eight hours I'm there. It's draining otherwise.
The absolute worst take on workplace relationships. I cannot imagine taking this attitude and claiming working class politics.
Yeah good luck unionizing with that mentality. Or good luck nudging coworkers -- who you spend as much time around as anyone in your life, and who you have endless opportunities to talk to -- in a better direction. Shit, good luck advancing in your field if you're the guy who no one ever talks to.
I live in red Florida and good luck unionizing without that mentality either lmao. Like everyone is gonna suddenly stop being completely atomized and Decades of alienation will melt away if you ask Karen if she saw the Rays game last night, yeesh lol
Decades of alienation will melt away if you ask Karen if she saw the Rays game last night
Is that what I'm saying here?
I wish I could talk with my co-workers. Seven months of remote work is seriously weighing on me.
The absolute worst take on workplace relationships.
If you think I'm there to make friends with the people instead of needing the cash to live, I dunno what to tell you. I'm not even claiming working class politics, I'm answering OP's question of "how do I deal with CHUDs?" I don't deal with the CHUDs unless my job requires me to "deal with them."
I'm not going to radicalize them, nor do I have the mental energy or care to.
But feel free to say I'm shitty or don't understand working class politics because I don't want to sit there and play "dodge around their politics for a $1 more raise per year."
I mean Sam Harris is a common stop on the road to leftist/socialist/communist thought for many uninformed listeners. I went through a year or two long phase of listening to him after losing my faith and centering around the material/analytical worldview. Spend enough time with that goal in mind and you start seeing the massive blinders Harris has on and that he is simply the highest form of intellectual that neoliberalism can produce.
In other words, if you meet Harris listeners, better chance than not that with a little calculated critique you can spin them over to our side. Many Harris listeners just don't understand the context through which Harris and his ideas fit within the world framework and in connection to US imperialism. Just gotta keep pointing it out, and he certainly has some 'yikes' moments that almost all his listeners still give him shit for. For some reason they keep coming back though, I guess until they dont.
I mean it seems kinda defeatist to think we're never going to be able to change the minds of people over the age of 30. Sure, revolutions generally are a majority youth movement, but at some point if we're successful, we're gonna have to be able to change those minds, or at least allow material conditions to do so for us.
I don't think anyone is too far gone. Its a hell of a lot harder with the older generations, and there is a degree of neurologically based solidification as we age, but to think we are set in our world perspectives after a certain age seems symptomatic of "end of history" thinking. These older people are going to cling much harder to the worldview they've spent decades with, and its incredibly important as you present this oppositional worldview to them that you try to come from a place of forgiveness and understanding, that if they were to change they would be forgiven and welcomed with open arms.
They fear that the world is trying to leave them behind, that we are trying to bury them and their lives to build our own. That is NOT what we are fighting for. Not to say we shouldn't fiercely attack reactionary/liberal notions they attempt to continue to cling to as they concede to us on others. But our movement is one of class solidarity which if we are successful will bring an end to class distinction altogether. If we can't get anything more than half of the people over 40 on our side then we stand no chance. We're not there yet and that's what our job is right now, to get us to that point.
I mean idk about you, but I haven't met a PMC that's actually happy. I guess it would depend on exactly who you include in that PMC, but my dad has spent the past couple decades in engineering management (and I have plenty of experience interacting with them) and the large majority of them know its all fucked but are too afraid of losing what they think they have that makes them happy (hint: those things don't make them happy). Listen to their grievances, and honestly a large majority of them can be directly answered from a socialist perspective.
My recommendation is to go heavy on commodity fetishism, alienation, cultural/social dysfunction both at home with the family and with communities more broadly, and US imperialist evil abroad. You'd be surprised how far you can get them to agree with you as long as you avoid the buzzwords. This while presenting yourself as a 'friend' will eventually give you the space to start bringing in the actual language and challenge them to either concede or pretty much take back everything theyve said. Either way, the seeds are already planted for them to see the benefits of what socialists/communists are talking about. That's at least half the battle.
For instance, I recently made a big breakthrough with my late 50's Trump voting parents on the basis of COVID policy and free annual preventative healthcare and screening as a right. I sent them the PSL 10 point program and the only thing they responded with was a total misrepresentation of what "free and on-demand" abortion meant (they thought it meant encouraging 8+ month of pregnancy abortions lol). If you've seen the PSL's program, then you know that the fact that that was their only gripe is huge.
I mean have you talked to them since the beginning of the pandemic and through the many high profile police racial murders? I think you'd be surprised, the faith in the system broadly that many of them once held so strongly has eroded. Talk to them about this election. No one in real life that I've found is willing to defend Joe Biden past the standard "well what else can I do".
I see it a lot like religious faith. It can be strong for decades, and over time there certainly grow cracks in it, which we try to paint over and avoid going down disturbing rabbit holes within our minds. And then suddenly, sometimes clearly linked to a sudden change in personal/adjacent reality, other times simply the buildup of contradictions within the worldview that eventually teeters over the limit: the very base beliefs that hold together the worldview, its implications, and even the Self collapse. The pain of such collapse is truly indescribable; reality itself is put into question at every level. For those that go through this, try as they might, most will not be able to return to their previous selves and the ignorant comfort they never realized they lived with. The world they once knew had been changing all along, but they had not seen it until the degree of difference between the worldview and reality tipped over the unforeseen edge.
We don't need to bring these people to be professional revolutionaries. A large chunk of the population of any revolutionary situation will simply be along for the ride, at the very most giving vocal material support if they feel strongly one way or the other.
Many people will spend their whole lives living within themselves and their personal lives, not necessarily interested in world affairs past the cursory glance to satisfy cultural norm. And that's honestly ok. In the decades to come, these people will be won by movements based on their individual narrow interests. And we as socialists win on those interests in every case, the difficulty is in explaining that to them in a way that gets passed the cursory political/world understanding they operate at.
The response included ‘one day at a time’, then an older (unwelcome, fuck off) person continued with an agreement of ‘one day at a time’. Maybe that came from themselves, maybe it came from external political messaging that I’m not aware of, but it reflects what many are trying to react to this year with. One day at a time, here’s some coping methods to get through each day ‘intact’ (which often doesn’t mean anything so drastic, but instead just with their current mindset and paradigms), and get through 2020 wow this crazy year huh.
Yeah this is what I was talking about, it's definitely learned political messaging. And whether it seems like it or not, if you position yourself in their lives in a way that they already see you as human and of empathetic/sound mind, your opposition to that learned political messaging will form cracks in their framework that in the moment they will diffuse and distract from. To the person confronting the "one day at a time" person, it seems like nothing said gets through. And if we're talking about the way it HAS BEEN for the past few decades I'd agree with you. But COVID has clearly been quite a fracturing force in the lives of those that are comfortable with the status quo and the slow march of history approach. There are huge contradictions in the capitalist system that have been papered over for decades, and this pandemic may have been the thing to send the complex system past its equilibrium point. How many more crises will it take for these people's reliance on the preservation of the worldview they've clung to past its expiration date to collapse? Depends on the person. But how do you think we all got here, on Chapo.chat? Our minds are shaped by the conditions and people around us. And while the US has maintained these conditions in a stasis for a critical portion of the population thus far, its capabilities to do so are clearly deteriorating at an ever increasing rate. There will come a day when it will be less painful to change worldviews than to continue pretending its possible to retain/go back.
Electric utility engineer speaking, yeah most engineers kinda suck. There are a decent number of good ones who are pretty easily radicalized if you can convince them of their privileged position. Within offices, engineers mostly enter as labor aristocracy, and school breeds them as such (also why you see so such insane gender gaps in the field). Less than 70 years ago, the careful construction of the labor aristocracy within the US was paramount to the tasks of the ruling class. Having a nuclear family was all but a written requirement for being in the labor aristocracy, and obviously the category was reserved for the male 'breadwinner'. I don't think I even need to mention the racial component here, which is obvious.
We can see how this labor aristocracy developed within the US quite clearly. Engineering and engineering management was near the peak of the labor aristocracy up until the 80's, as the proletarian pressure provided by the USSR released and the US entered its "High Finance" stage of hegemonic accumulation. The shining example of labor aristocracy became advertising, banking, investments, general business, etc. But the engineering sector of the labor aristocracy maintained its white picket fence character. I can't speak for the software/computer hardware sectors, but in the physical engineering sector, a large majority of the engineers still live in the 50's, even those just graduating college. It's so incredibly demoralizing to see and interact with.
This is an excellent summary of something that I've experienced myself (similar industry) but never been able to make the same links.
My solution was dropping out of the engineering field lol
Pivoted to IT/networking stuff, the people I've worked with aren't all peachy but it's a hell of lot better than eng. I also have a friend with a similar experience with it and they focused on milling/machining gigs and seem to like those people more.
The only conclusion that I'm drawing from this is that engineering as a field was a mistake 😤
I have some D&D sessions with some coworkers who are fairly progressive but still basically libs.
The rest as far as I can tell are middle aged pearl clutching neolibs or conservatives. Our manager, whom everyone despises, was trying to get people to open up about the BLM protests that were exploding in our small county a few months back as an attempt to out potential supporters.
And one of the VPs sent a company wide email about my specific branch saying if protests got too close to close the doors and call the cops. I almost literally face palmed at the irony.
The town I am is conservative and unincorporated. The protesters were maybe like 25 college aged people with the only black people in town.
I deal by coming home to a pup and loving partner and absorbing myself in my hobbies and theory. Having mutual aid outlets help too cause those ppl are usually comrades.
So there's the professional aspect: the line of work I'm in is full of chuds and bootlickers, so that never sits with me well. But then there's just the social schism that can never be bridged: I didn't go to college and I don't have letters after my name. I don't have the typical upper middle class upbringing. Most of my scars and bumps are from bad shit going down versus an old football injury or whatever regular white people experience. When I talk at work about my upbringing, most people look shocked. When people see my ink (which is very rarely) they look physically repulsed.
To make matters worse: since I'm not from this part of the country, I don't have an established support circle to lean on socially. I basically have no friends. Half of my friends are dead anyhow.
Anyhow. I feel your pain.
