Long post: I have a story to share about my workplace.
I work for a school district support department. We receive a few emails a week from HR with various information regarding COVID testing and vaccines. We are currently in the stage where both are available to us freely by appointment. For now. I’ve gotten tested a couple times and I’ve been fine (obviously).
Then they started sending out communication once a week with a survey that wanted all staff to fill out to let them know if we had gotten the vax, planned to get the vax, or had no plans of getting the vax. This was under the guise that they “wanted to make sure everyone who wants a vaccine gets one,” and so the school district could ostensibly ensure there were enough quantities and appointments available. Their words. I never responded to these surveys and deleted the emails.
Then a new email came out in which they repeated the information about vaccine availability and all the stuff everyone already knows since it’s been drilled into our heads for months. This one was different, though. At the very end was a small blurb along the lines of “it’s great if you got a vaccine and want to share that with others, but please respect other staff members’ privacy in regards to asking others about their choice to be vaccinated.” I found this interesting, since I’m in a pretty liberal urban public school district.
Anyway, the upshot was that I was on the phone some days later with my counterpart in HR, and she was quite outspoken about her anti-vaccine stance. We ended up finding common ground, which doesn’t happen often in this district climate. Most like-minded people are concerned about voicing their views, as we are the minority (she would fit right in around here!) Anyway, it was refreshing to discover an ally and as it turns out, the blurb about respecting people’s privacy, was directly due to her going off on a colleague for pestering her about why she hasn’t gotten the shot. I thanked her and was glad for it, as I’d been pestered as well and I’m tired of having to explain my reasons or give some noncommittal answer.
So I made a new ally friend, and I was able to give credit to the person who stood up and put an end to the virtue signaling privacy invaders in the office.