.....”The workplace is FOR WORK. It used to be a golden rule- you never discussed religion or politics at work”.....
It should be applied today as well.
What’s difficult is working with “snowflakes” in general. They’re offended by anything which doesn’t coddle to their delicate natures!
When working with some snowflakes, even disagreement on a technical matter can be an offense - even while keeping things strictly professional. One such case:
One engineer, a woman, insisted on using a certain type of flowmeter which would have been entirely inappropriate for the application. It did not matter that the manufacturer themselves said it would not work, same for the client’s maintenance engineer. Both the manufacturer and the client’s maintenance engineer agreed that my choice was best, so that was what was installed. Well, she did not like the results, claimed that I was completely wrong, etc., and she installed her meter downstream of mine. The measurement from hers was pure noise - unuseable. But it was still my fault, and I got called before HR. I oppressed her, I “couldn’t work with people”, I was hostile, blah, blah, blah. Some of the other engineers and the operations and maintenance people were wondering how that conclusion was arrived.
It was clear that engineering company had become a “reality free zone.”
I went to another engineering company shortly afterwards.