Okay, the closed "Religion and Nursing" thread made 1 thing very clear to me. There are things at work/school you should NOT,NOT,NOT talk about unless you are absolutely sure that everyone else is in the same boat as you and therefore no possibilty that anyone feels threatened.
From the thread, we all know religion (#1 thing NOT to talk about!) is one of these things.
Someone on the thread said something to the likes, "MY mommy told me never to talk about money, politics, religion, or sex" in polite company. "Polite company" meaning, i guess, any group of people who are not close friends. I think this truism is basically true.
My examples:
So, I made a mistake at a first job by taking my co-workers for close buddies and expressing freely my ideas about sex and how it should be. BIG MISTAKE! Led to major misunderstandings and embarrassment... (#2 thing NOT to talk about!)
Then, even though I wanted them to stop and didn't want to hear it, I let co-workers complain, jabber, and gossip to me about the poltics of the company and who was making more $$$ than whom. BIG MISTAKE! I felt uncomfortable and distrusting of my supervisors and personally under a microscope by everyone and felt like I was being dishonest by hearing bad things about people and then going to work with them the whole time while I was there. I felt like spurting out everything that was being said to relieve the tension and distrust. I should have just told them to keep their ramblings to themselves. (#3 and #4 things NOT to talk about!)
CONCLUSION: The best conflict resolution technnique is conflict avoidance. Anyone want to add their own experiences to these examples or better yet, add other things that u think one should NOT to talk about to my list of "THINGS NOT, NOT, NOT to Talk about at Work" ?
to Talk about at Work" ?