Do you think hyper politically partisan orgs "vet" their IT staff?

Posted by TxTechnician@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 11 comments

Just a passing thought. I'm pretty sure it's illegal to hire bases on political affiliation and leanings. So they could never outright say it. But they could do a personality test or similar. Think about it. Fox News, the work culture there must be hyper fixated on political bs. How could you possibly seperate politics from work when your workplace is ..... Whereas something like working for an administration, like being the Whitehouse staff or something. You are working in a place where the political affiliation changes with the times. Thoughts?

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11 Comments

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Internet-of-cruft@reddit

Without getting into specifics.. I have first hand experience with some organization that have parts that are hyper political. The IT staff there doesn't care for the politics, and there's internal forums where they actively speak about and against it. I have personal experience with interviewing for a senior role in the past and politics *never* came up.

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TxTechnician@reddit (OP)

Man that's interesting. Could you imagine if your IT staff revolted because someone did something so awful that they just couldn't take it. Not talking about sabotage. But talking about "quiet quitting" ... I know that staffs at places like Twitter and Google had forums and chats where staff would discuss internal politics. Well. I assume any of those big places have enough checks and balances in place to prevent any real damage from disgruntled IT staff.

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Internet-of-cruft@reddit

Eh, I can definitely see parts doing the quiet quit. We're talking about *big* companies with a lot of places you can hide out in a low key role. On the same token though, there's a quite small, highly technical core that I am well aquatinted with. They don't spend time squabbling about political posturing. It's more important that they complete their technical job requirements and keep things operating well. I've seen lesser qualified / quiet quitters be fired for being technically poor. The IT staff are pretty good at treating the "this is the pure work we need to accomplish" separate from the politics. Still crops up, but never in a way that affects daily operations.

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TxTechnician@reddit (OP)

It'd be damnes hilarious to find out the head of IT at fox news is the flamiest LGBTQ person hardcore commie/socialist you ever met. And the head of IT at the Daily Show is a old crank talking about how "kids just don't wanna work these days" and has a "Hilary for prison" bumper sticker tatooted on their arse

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jefe_toro@reddit

You have it backwards. Media organization like Fox News really don't care about your political ideas, but jobs at the White House are going to be granted based somewhat on loyalty to the current administration. Not all jobs are going to be like that but many are

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Individual_Jelly1987@reddit

Fox cares very very much about the political agenda you will help project.

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jefe_toro@reddit

They absolutely don't. I've worked as an engineer for Fox News and they absolutely don't give a fuck.

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TxTechnician@reddit (OP)

OK, I can see that.

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cc_rider2@reddit

I don't know whether companies actually do it or not, but in the U.S. it is legal to discriminate based on political affiliation in most states. My guess is that for non-political roles they likely usually don't care.

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TxTechnician@reddit (OP)

>My guess is that for non-political roles like sysadmin, most places likely don't care. Yes. But I assume that at a place like Mother Jones or Fox News. The degree of "it's possible if we hire this (insert hype or partisan political slur) they may sabotage us". Whether that be through malicious lazyness or introducing a random "update". Like,if a guy showed up to my office wearing political attire (either which way) I'd have reservations about hiring them. Because they feel that strongly about politics in general (showing up to an interview wearing the attire I mean).

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Flatline1775@reddit

In most states political ideology isn’t protected so you can absolutely discriminate on that basis and I’m sure many companies do. Not good companies…but companies.