I started a job at a sawmill and at first things were good, it seemed liek the group I was working with was a good bunch of folks but a couple of things have stood out to me.

  1. This sweet older lady that I was shadowing for the first day, we were joking and talking the whole day and i thought she was just a really nice person. And then one day I overhear her in the lunch room saying "they just don't deserve to live honestly" when referring to addicts, like wtf? how can someone be so pleasant and then turn around and say something so barbaric.

  2. I was shadowing another guy who seemed friendly and we were getting along well, and then one time while a group of us were standing around just talking, he was complaining lightheartedly about his wife when he starts dropping bombs like: "Best place for a woman is in the kitchen" and "A woman looks best behind a vacuum" there were more but I don`t remember cause I was honestly shocked.

I was looking forward to getting to know the people here and getting in on the group dynamic but now im not sure if im gonna be able to stand anyone here lol, so far it was only these two but going forward I want to be able to counter reactionary bullshit like this when I hear it. Chapos how do you counter this shit when you come across it without pissing off your coworkers?

  • TillieNeuen [she/her]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Lots of good suggestions here. If I'm not feeling up for a long session of asking questions and digging deeper, I'll sometimes try to put a twist on the topic that brings out another side to the issue. I had a coworker say some bad shit about addicts too, for example, so I took us off on a tangent about how pharmaceutical companies knew that people were getting addicted to opioids and deliberately pushed the drugs to make a profit, etc. If you really feeling like going for it, you can get into the CIA and drugs. Or for your other example, you can go off on a tangent about how being able to feed yourself and maintain your home is a basic life skill and you've never really understood how some men seem proud of being helpless. Well, that last bit might be coming on too strong--but you get the idea.