Actual office politics about recent politics

Question

In my small office of 15 people, all are Trump supporters and I am a lone Biden supporter.

Previously, somebody reported me to HR for an incident based on a political argument I had with somebody in the office. The whole thing was stupid; I got a warning, and I apologized.

With the recent election, my peers were excited about Trump winning. We actually watched the election results on a Zoom call together. While the early results were pro-Trump, they all cheered as I quietly sulked.

Obviously, as more votes started coming in, things started looking better for Biden. My coworkers got VERY upset. They started cursing loudly and somebody even threw their keyboard in the office when they learned Wisconsin flipped to Biden.

About 10:00am on Wednesday, several people from the office started leaving. No notice, no e-mail, no communication; they just walked out of the office. More and more people started walking out. Since Thursday morning, there has been NOBODY in the office. All my team (my coworkers and boss) are all gone. There was no e-mail. I am completely alone. I tried calling and texting several of them, but didn't get a response.

There's some big projects that are coming due to some important clients, and I'm starting to worry about nobody being here except me. I'm considering calling HR and asking them what's going on, but I don't want it to seem like I'm antagonizing some grieving Trump supporters. How should I approach this situation?

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UPDATE - 11/11

Just wanted to provide a quick update. On Friday, there was still nobody in the office, so I decided to call HR. (I didn't mention politics at all).

On Monday, they called me back and told me that the individuals (which were ALL 14 PEOPLE) have been "relieved" of their duties. So the last couple of days, I've been sitting here in the office completely alone with no boss.

Answer 1

Call HR

If your entire office has completely disappeared from their jobs with no notice and are fully incommunicado, this is a cause for serious concern. Normally in this situation I'd say call your boss, but you mention they're one of the people who disappeared. Hence, call HR, and inquire about the situation.

Leave the politics out of it. Do not mention that this happened immediately following the election swing, do not bring up your previous encounter with HR, do not mention your speculation (which is all it can be) that it's a grief reaction. Just explain that your coworkers abruptly left the office in a stream of people from Wednesday, that none of them have returned, that you have no further instructions and are unable to contact them, and are concerned about the lack of information and the status of projects they're working on. At most you could mention that some of them seemed quite upset. If HR want to know the details leading up to this exodus, they'll ask - then you can tell them.

Again, the problem here isn't that people have had a strong reaction to a political event, it's that they've abandoned the office and the job with no notice or instruction. Approach it from that angle - not as a political issue, but as a professional one.

Answer 2

I would not do anything.

If you called HR, what would they likely do next? I bet they would call these people and say "We have reports that you didn't show up for work today." or even worse "BazookaJoeBubbleGum said you didn't show up for work today." In the latter case, they name you as the snitch. Yes, you are in the right, but that often doesn't matter. In the former, they would just suspect it, as their absence is most likely coordinated. It doesn't help that HR has you down as a trouble maker so I wouldn't count on them being willing to protect you against repercussions going forward if relations in your office became difficult. Same with your boss. He already has some of the paperwork for a reason to fire you.

I would much rather a deadline be missed and the client get mad at the boss's boss for failing to deliver as I would still have to work with these people afterward. HR doesn't need to maintain relationships in that office. They are in another building and have authority. You have to work with these people closely and are already the odd one out of the social group.

Answer 3

This sounds super-weird, and unless everybody is working from home and they are just cutting you out, it's not going to end well for them, and better look for a new job, could be that the team is axed completely, but the following steps may in that case secure your professional survival.

• If you have the feeling that the situation turns dangerous, just leave. Normally i would say "dogs which bark don't bite", but one never can be sure.

• check the holiday calendar of your team if you have one

• The most important thing is that the client has somebody responding to his angry calls and communicating for the project, and that needs to be aligned. Send an email to the person normally communicating with the client asking for clarification how to handle it and that you would be willing to do that if nobody else is available (CC to your boss)

• Write an email to your boss, asking for clarification on the current schedules and resource situation (without speculating if and why people are not there). State the tasks which need to done, the tasks which you can do still, and potentially ask to prioritize to handle the situation.

• If you are in touch with the client, and they ask to speak to your boss/the responsible, tell them that you will pass this message immediately, which is exactly what you will do, and tell that they will respond as soon as possible.

Answer 4

After reading your update from today: You should be afraid. Very afraid. Your entire team got fired, over what appears to be a political (actual politics, not office politics) issue. This is probably illegal (it is in most locales, unsure about yours) and is at the very least unethical. Basically what this says to me is, if I dare to share an opinion that is different from the HR line, I could lose my job. You don't want to work at such a company; in this case you happened to be lucky because you happen to have the "right" opinion, but this may not always be the case and you want to be prepared for that eventuality by working for a different company which is more tolerant.

Now, given that your office is 15 people, all of whom except you got fired, and HR still exists, means I'm guessing you probably work in a remote office of a larger company. Depending on how big this company is and how much you care about this situation (which should be a lot, but YMMV), you may want to notify your local news agency of this occurrence. Many news agencies would be very happy to report on a large company firing its employees over political beliefs. However, be sure to put yourself in a position where they can't retaliate against you, e.g. by finding another job first, if you choose to go this route.