If

If you’re on what’s essentially your last of three interviews for a job, and it’s down to you and one other guy, and you know the interviewer wants to hire you, he’s basically said as much, should you allow the conversation to turn to politics?

If it does, should you respond to his opinions on affirmative action (which he has for some reason deigned to share with you) with the sentence, “that just sounds racist to me?”

Assuming you’re both white guys, and he’s about 10 or 15 years older than you.

If later in the conversation you find out that the man who would be your manager has a virulent hatred of unions, even though the job is not one where unions are particularly relevant, should you allow that to influence your decision, if you think unions are the only reason that America got through the late 19th and early 20th century with any shred of civilization intact, as opposed to being a slave state run by a tiny wealthy oligarchy?

I probably would have been happier not knowing about his politics.

He seems a nice guy for all that.

3 thoughts on “If”

  1. Reminds me of the phrase “Everyone’s crazy but me and thee and I’m not so sure about thee.”

    Imperfect world. Salt and light imperative, and all that.

  2. In an interview, I’m not sure how much power you have to allow or disallow the conversation. You’d probably have been happier, but it might be better that you know.

    Personally, I’d almost welcome working for/with someone with different politics, just to see the diversity. Being a boss, it could be tricky if you feel the need to “debate” with him, but maybe it’s good to learn how to do that better as well.

    On the one hand, it would be nice to work with people who agree with you. On the other hand, would it really be good for you, (you being anyone)? And on the third hand (thank you star trek), I really doubt you or anyone else will ever work in a place where everyone agrees with you. Even at Cornerstone, a red state unto itself, there are really quite a few democrats who would align themselves more with you, Ed, then say, JT.

    Which just goes to show, it’s always something. ;)

  3. For the record, I decided later on that I don’t want this job for reasons completely unrelated to the political discussion. In fact, if I remember correctly, I had mostly decided that before the discussion occurred, which probably contributed to my forthrightness. :)

Comments are closed.