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generally people in the creative industries are nicer and drama free, but when they melt down they really melt down. I’ve worked on a few big movies, famous artist music videos - they’ve all been lovely. Worked for a small scale entertainment company, was a complete nightmare.

in the corpo world I have found very few people that are just chill, but I work with a lot of startups with VC funding - so likely a lot of pressure and billionaire bootlickers. Worked for a large TV shopping channel, old money, it was like a competition to see who could be the most bigoted; worked for a newly minted $50MM startup, everyone trying their hardest to be a cool rude dude who could out-cuss Gordon Ramsay.

I remain incredibly nice, thoughtful, understanding, professional, my LinkedIn is filled with positive recommendations.

Reading these comments I feel fortunate to work for a company where this is all uncommon.

There is arguably some drama when layoffs happen or when there are organizational changes, but it’s pretty tame.

All I can think of is I work for a large company in a relatively educated field (I’m a senior software developer for a technology company) in a very corporate environment. Most of my peers are just looking to be professional and foster a productive team dynamic, so they can keep a healthy balance between work and their families

Yes. This is going to get downvoted.

Women in the workplace, who have leadership roles are the problem. I turned down 2 jobs back to back when during the interview I had found out that I’d be reporting to a woman.

Not a fkin chance in hell am I dealing with that stress again. Now I’m in an org where my department is exclusively men and no women have any say on how to run our department. It’s glorious.

If “politics is what happens when 3 or more people must make a decision”, drama will always follow. While there are careers that have less drama, there is no such thing as one without it. My suggestion: find allies. Not in an oppositional way, but in a way that they support you and your work. Think if someone were to call you an asshole in front of everyone else, your ally would stand up and say “no they aren’t”. If you work at a place where there is no such person, it is apathetic at best, and toxic at worst.

alternative post title: how can I grow a thicker skin, so I simply stop caring what my coworkers think or say?

This is really the secret. Many years ago, I learned a wonderful phrase:
Fuck you and the camel that came on you.

Once you learn to adopt that attitude, whatever some idiot says becomes far less important to your life. There will only ever be one person in this world whom you can really control, and that’s you. For everyone else, you can either try to convince them of stuff or accept that they aren’t worth the effort and move on. The latter option tends to get used a lot more.

If you can, just avoid the shitty coworkers. You won’t always be able to; so, when you have to deal with them, just keep the conversations short, professional, to the point, and then excuse yourself. A simple, “sorry, I really need to get back to work” often works wonders. Also, keep work and personal lives separate. Learn to leave work at work, and that includes the people (unless you find someone who is actually worth making a personal friend of). Once you get home, stop thinking about Mr. Shitty McShitface and go do something you enjoy. Work to live, don’t live to work.

I would also recommend taking a hard look in a mirror. Sure, you might actually be surrounded by assholes, at the same time if you feel like exploding at people for every idiotic thing which dribbles out of their mouth, then you’re probably an asshole too. Stop trying to “fix” or control everyone around you and just accept that you can’t. Life gets far easier when you realize that they aren’t your problem. If you’re doing things right, you should be job hopping every few years anyway. Your pay will stagnate and fall behind if you don’t. So, in a couple years, those idiots won’t even be around you anymore.

So, how do you “grow a thicker skin”? It’s tough and takes practice. But, just keep putting in the effort to not give a fuck . Eventually, it becomes a reflex and you’ll find yourself with No More Fucks to Give.

Unfortunately this is everywhere. I work as a welder at a large shipyard, and we have the same drama.

We have a female welder who steals tools and personal items from others, then cries “Christian persecution” when she experiences any consequences for her actions. Shockingly, it works and she’s never punished or arrested. They do make her give the items back, so that’s something.

We have the MAGA crazies who vandalize company property with their dumb political / sexist / racist / homophobic crap. They just recently vandalized & destroyed one of the few female bathrooms with a sledgehammer. Shipyard police are still “*looking into it.” I now have to either use a gross porta-potty or walk a mile to use a real bathroom.

We have a ton of anti-vaxxers who believe some of the most batshit crazy things. Though, the more hard-core ones were fired some time ago. The ones who complied and wore a mask got to stay.

This is just human nature. This is what you get when you have two or more people together at one place.

I’ve been working for almost 10 companies in 20 years, and I have only found 2 drama free workplaces so far. It’s random and I don’t think there are signs that could show you whether a job is good or bad.

Most HR people are happy when they hire you but it usually means nothing, sorry.

Last but not least, drama free could also mean “we’re gonna fire everybody in a few months,” which makes the choices more difficult to make.

That’s not workplace drama, you’ve described interacting with people. It’s difficult to say if it’s always been like this but social media hasn’t helped. People are now used to expressing their beliefs and opinions to everybody, no matter how polarizing or unpopular they might be. It’s not limited to the workplace.

For not caring about what people think, just remember that nobody’s opinion matters. Your favourite colour is yellow? Cool. You don’t like Taylor Swift? Great. You think all atheists should be killed? Neat. Opinions are like points on Whose Line Is It Anyway. They’re made up and they don’t matter.

As someone said before it’s not directly a consequence of a workplace, it’s a part of interracting with a random selection of people from wildly different backgrounds.

Nod your head as if you weakly agree. Throw in a random opinion of your own, but I don’t recommend the extreme ones. Questions also work especially when they are seemingly neutral and cause doubt in the original speaker.

For example if a Christian nationalist starts hating on Mexicans don’t fall into the trap of repeating typical responses about respect for immigrants. Ask him how he reconciles that with the fact that Mexicans are predominantly Christians. Or something unexpected like that.

Like many others have said here, it simply is unavoidable. People are gonna people, and a number of them usually do it to illicit some reaction, whether it’s agreement which reinforces their nonsense, or ragebaiting that gives them a giggle and still reinforces their nonsense. Realistically the only thing you can do is ignore them and get on with your day.

I think the biggest thing to remember is that a lot of people have very little social interaction outside of their home lives and work. They spend their time either at home with family or even alone, loading their brains with whatever garbage they find on the Internet, and then spew it back into the world to see what sticks. In many people’s minds, you are simply the one in front of them at the moment when they want to spout off. It seems like you’re taking it personally, when in reality a lot of these yoyos are too shortsighted to even consider you as a person. You are an NPC to their main character.

What helps is remembering that usually none of what anyone says is personally targeted. And even if it is, what does it matter in the grand scheme of things? Half the population has double digit IQs (not that that’s a great metric to go on, but still). Just keep doing your thing, stay focused on your work, and don’t let morons live rent free in your head. I know it may sounds difficult, but it really is as easy as just paying no mind to them.

The only times I’ve ever had a drama free workplace was:

1. At the beginning of my career when I was an intern. They didn’t care enough about me to include me in the gossip, and I was only going to be there for a few months anyway.
2. When my last job started letting us work from home, so I was no longer stuck at a desk in a high traffic area where multiple people would stop and chat. Headphones with a mic were a godsend, because when someone would start to approach, I’d just smile and point at the mic. Kept a lot of the gossipers at bay, though not all. WTF eliminated all that, I was so happy I could finally just focus on my work and not get caught up in situations that didn’t even pertain to me.

I was about to say yes but i forgot my boss threw a chair at another employee after a cocaine bender

It’s the nature of people, but I think you’re going to find it in some jobs/industries more than others. I work for an aerospace company, and they regular tell people they shouldn’t be discussing things like politics and religion at work. We’re not allowed to wear shirts or put up things that are political or divisive. Stuff like that doesn’t eliminate the drama, but it helps. Also, engineers don’t tend to be overly dramatic types.

When I was young I roadied for a friend’s band, and so was hanging around a lot of musicians and artists, and the amount of drama was kind of insane.

So is the issue your co workers or is really that it bothers you so much?

Maybe the real thing here is you need to learn how to let the crazy and annoying wash over you. Because at the moment you’re letting that leak into your personal time - you’re thinking about things that are annoying you when really, why should they?

They’re “winning” not because they annoyed you at work, but because you’re letting it bother you when you’re not at work.

There are skills in being able to ignore things that annoy you, or learning to let things go or even compartmentalising parts of your life.