Recently, I interviewed my supervisor, Emily, to discuss her political upbringing and its relevance to her work today. She discussed her liberal household, one that encouraged her to vote regularly and educate herself about various candidates and their beliefs. She recognized a certain complacency in New York that bothered her. People expressed that one vote would not matter in the grand scheme of things. She questioned how such people considered themselves political if they were not willing to put in the effort to influence change.
She continued by asking me whether or not I believed the workplace was inherently political. My answer?
It depends. In corporate or financial environments it seems that politics are largely unimportant. Bankers don’t approach companies with certain political agendas nor do they choose clients based off of party affiliations. When corporations spend millions of dollars to support a campaign, it seems to me an act of self interest. It appears that their financial backing of a candidate or their lobbying for certain legislation is a mechanism to maintain power (and, ironically, money). Corporations seem comfortable with the status quo and uncomfortable by the threat of change. In other words, corporations give political money to allow them to keep doing what they’ve been doing—regardless of the politics themselves.
But at a place like Sanctuary, it seems that a certain political alignment is inevitable and invaluable. Emily explained that they’ve never polled staff members on their party affiliations but that she would “be surprised” if there were Republican voters in the bunch. Sanctuary is unique in that it provides direct services to clients but is also involved in political decisions that influence these clients. Thus, the Sanctuary staff team seems to be a self-selective group of women and men who are interested in devoting their time and energy into a certain mission with certain political outcomes. Daily action is motivated by politics—an unspoken consensus, if you will, that if we are going to share a political mission, the means to this end will be political as well.
