I was in the Army through the majority of the Bush administration. I agreed to exchange X amount of work for Y dollars + Z benefits. In my opinion, that’s all that is relevant. Personal beliefs on either side shouldn’t enter into it.
If you’re working for Hitler and your CPA job got converted to “Death Squad Captain”, the conclusion might be different, but as long as the pay is fair, your job is enjoyable and the company as a whole isn’t engaged in unethical behavior, I think I’d keep my job.
(The Army thing is different because I had a contract. In my opinion the “company as a whole” was engaged in unethical behavior. But they didn’t ask me in particular to do anything unethical, and until they did I was going to finish out my contract with no intention of reenlisting. Which I did.)
I would agree with those who say you should just stay put. As long as you’re not being asked to do anything unethical or to lend your personal support to causes with which you disagree, and the company itself is not engaging in unethical practices, I see very little reason to quit. If you feel the need to do anything at all, get involved with causes you do support. Donate money, volunteer time, whatever you can manage. If you checked out the political beliefs and contributions of most large company owners and CEO’s, you probably would discover that you couldn’t work anywhere without feeling like you were contributing to causes you oppose.
Frankly, based just on what’s in the OP, I think this is a case of taking political differences too seriously. I can understand if a company makes major public contributions or statements or has policies that are political, but if you just happen to disagree with the owner, even strongly, I think that’s something different. Chances are in pretty much any job, your boss or your boss’s boss has differing political opinions. It should only be an issue if those differences impact your job.
As I gather, you had no idea the owner had these opinions until they were stated. That means, to me, that the company probably isn’t actively engaged in public statements or donations supporting those ideas. Yeah, they got mentioned at a company gathering, but without knowing what was said or the context, it’s difficult to know just how political it was and, even then, expressing that opinion and using it to set corporate policy is soemthing else. If the owner is mostly just stating what thinks, is mostly hands off, and is donating her own money, I think you should just let it go.
Yeah, if you had to do some homework to find all this out, that means the owner’s right-wingyness isn’t all that overt. The owner’s family does have the same right to support whatever causes they feel are worthy, same as you. Plus, as you say, you quitting/leaving would hurt you* way more than it would hurt the owner.
In our interconnected world there is no way to avoid enriching someone somewhere you are in opposition to.
So, say you work for Progressive Causes Corp., because they align with your beliefs, and you work very hard to increase the value of the company. What if someone who owns shares of their stock is an evil republican?
Now, what if you own a printing company that specializes in anti-Obama bumper stickers. But your paper and glue supplier that you pay millions to is Super Liberal, LTD? Or your second biggest printing contract is for The Advocate magazine?
How can anyone possibly put walls up around any of this and survive in today’s world?
I’m with everyone else on this matter. I used to be liberal minded straight out of school and worked in research for a biotech start up making peanuts. Then I went to business school, got into the defense industry after 9/11, and find I am considered ‘right wing’ even though I absolutely and strongly support gay marriage and am not only pro choice, but actually pro abortion, as I believe most of the world’s problems are caused by people who can least afford to properly raise their kids continuing to have them in large numbers. Ergo, I want the stigma of even getting an abortion gone and think they should be free.
There are plenty of people who work at my very large defense employer who are staunch Democrats and actively vote in a way that is contrary to their continued job security, but that’s their right, and I support them in whatever they want to do. I hope you would extend that same politically-neutral courtesy to your employer.
I don’t think that simply working for people whose beliefs you don’t agree with is necessarily cause to get worked up.
However, if your company moves into a line of business you don’t agree with (say… tobacco growing), then you could get worked up. (assuming you took the job before they started this)
Or… if they ask you to do things on the job that you don’t agree with on a moral or political level, then that’s cause to get worked up.
Otherwise, it’s not much different than simply disagreeing with someone about their political and/or moral beliefs. Unless they impinge on your own, don’t sweat it.
Hypothetical: what if you were gay, or pro-gay rights, and the CEO was a major fundraiser for groups pushing laws like the one just passed in Arizona? That’s about as extreme as I think it can get in this country in a reasonable sense.
Asshole boss, really a running dog for his political candidate, always going on about it in the office, getting red-faced while going on about his boy, and not letting anybody else have a say. Of course, it would be employment suicide to even ask him to shut his gob, or let anybody else have a say. Had a great job, otherwise. I kept it, and liked it.
Let me pose an alternate question: Since our patronizing people, say Chik-Fil-A (sp?) is employing them, would you fire the traditional kind of employee because you didn’t agree with his politics? Sexuality? Religion?
It all goes down to ‘MYOB’. It is called good advice, because it *is *good advice. Work for, buy food from, and get your car repaired by, people with whom you don’t agree. It will be good for you.
I make it my business to ignore the personal lives of people for whom I work, because I don’t get paid to make their life decisions.
No offense,OP, but you seem to be forgetting that a job is simply an economic transaction. You perform a service and they pay you for that service. If anything conflicts with that, then quitting might be in order. Other than that, who really cares what the owners think?
