Crew member debate strategies

Posted by 7layeredAIDS@reddit | flying | View on Reddit | 180 comments

This is not a “boo we lost” or “yay we won” type of post but it is absolutely relevant to safety of flight (and to some degree mental health lol)

As crew members we are told to absolutely keep politics/religion/topics of controversy out of the flight deck, for obvious reasons. Our companies routinely send out reminders of such near election times. At all costs I try. I fly long haul with people of a different demographic pretty much every flight and to no fault of my own it comes up probably 70% of the time usually before we even leave the gate! I’m not kidding! It’s amazing to me to how either the captain or FO’s will bring these topics up as if they assume everyone agrees with them. It’s usually one statement thrown out as a “test the waters” type of thing and ends up being a rant

So what techniques do you guys and gals use to squash this? The book answer is something professional like “ah I don’t like talking politics”. This in my experience doesn’t really work - it’s the same divide as saying “I don’t agree with you”. Because if you do agree, you’ll gladly jump right in and contribute to the discussion. By saying you don’t like to talk about whatever is being talked about, the starter of the conversation knows you don’t agree. And then right away the same barrier is thrown up.

The best thing I’ve found is sort of the “smile and nod” approach without adding significantly to the conversation. You don’t need to go full in on passionately agreeing with the other side, just acknowledge their points and in a sort of positive way and don’t add to it. smiles “ha I know man, I know. it’s crazy” (or something similar) And leave it at that. They’ll usually run out of stuff to ramble on about fairly quickly since there’s no back and forth and you haven’t shut them down by saying “don’t talk about that” in a confrontational way.

That’s how I do it. Sort of works. What’s your experience and any suggestions on how to handle it? Are you one of the ones that does bring up these topics? I know you’re out there and it’s a lot of you!