Well, for one thing, when working for an American company, having real flaws kills your career. Alcohol abuse in the past. Getting arrested once for drug abuse. Having participated in manifestations. All of those will turn a ridiculous amount of Americans into your personal enemy at work, to extents that I never saw in Europe.
If you ever want to be working for a large American firm : firstly, you deny anything remotely like a character flaw, you almost violently pursue a "perfect" online image. Second you hide and deny things like your real political opinion (esp. the political one). The big public secret about politics in America is that there is no real difference in tolerance on average between republicans and democrats, and they're simply all very intolerant of even minor differences of opinion, and will do everything in their power to damage you or your reputation merely because of political differences. Thirdly, realize that people around you will also act like this. So pushing to hear someone's political opinion, finding out if they really like this charity they're contributing to that just happens to be the exact same one as their boss ... DO NOT GO THERE. Get an alias and make sure it can't be tied to your real name.
I actually made a mistake against this once, and got myself terminated after an infuriating 3 month period where my performance, which easily bested the rest of the team, was constantly criticized. Not by coworkers, strictly by management. A minor mistake was "revenue-impacting" according to my boss, 5 minutes after the sysadmin manager took me out to an expensive lunch on the company's dime for catching his mistake before it became a disaster. I had double the number of bugs closed of the next team member, and the whole team constantly asked me to look at their work. My boss, who never even showed up at the office, called me in at exactly the interval documented in the HR procedures to complain about my performance, never citing a single source. After 3 months I was "let go" for bad performance. I got 2 recommendation letters from a team leader and an operational manager without even asking. I am NOT making this mistake again. This all started after a political discussion.
Of course these rules will not make facebooking with your coworkers a particularly pleasant experience. You got to have priorities, and "being yourself" is lower than having a good job and career. Not that I am a great fan of social interaction online or offline. Especially the empty "look at my shiny" that happens on facebook/google+/youtube/... And the shouting matches, even less.
Its a peculiar graphical distribution such that anywhere within 300 miles of Chicago (including rural wisconsin, etc) or on the coasts, no one cares about stuff like that. But god help you in between the areas of freedom. Appalachia, Dakotas, the remaining English speaking parts of the south, that U shaped area of wanna be theocratic dictatorship is right out of one of Charlie Stross's novels, not even a parody, really.
> You got to have priorities, and "being yourself" is lower than having a good job and career.
Perhaps for you, for me, being myself is the highest priority. You can always find a new job or a new career, but once your back has been broken, you will forever be a spineless wimp whom nobody will respect.
If you ever want to be working for a large American firm : firstly, you deny anything remotely like a character flaw, you almost violently pursue a "perfect" online image. Second you hide and deny things like your real political opinion (esp. the political one). The big public secret about politics in America is that there is no real difference in tolerance on average between republicans and democrats, and they're simply all very intolerant of even minor differences of opinion, and will do everything in their power to damage you or your reputation merely because of political differences. Thirdly, realize that people around you will also act like this. So pushing to hear someone's political opinion, finding out if they really like this charity they're contributing to that just happens to be the exact same one as their boss ... DO NOT GO THERE. Get an alias and make sure it can't be tied to your real name.
I actually made a mistake against this once, and got myself terminated after an infuriating 3 month period where my performance, which easily bested the rest of the team, was constantly criticized. Not by coworkers, strictly by management. A minor mistake was "revenue-impacting" according to my boss, 5 minutes after the sysadmin manager took me out to an expensive lunch on the company's dime for catching his mistake before it became a disaster. I had double the number of bugs closed of the next team member, and the whole team constantly asked me to look at their work. My boss, who never even showed up at the office, called me in at exactly the interval documented in the HR procedures to complain about my performance, never citing a single source. After 3 months I was "let go" for bad performance. I got 2 recommendation letters from a team leader and an operational manager without even asking. I am NOT making this mistake again. This all started after a political discussion.
Of course these rules will not make facebooking with your coworkers a particularly pleasant experience. You got to have priorities, and "being yourself" is lower than having a good job and career. Not that I am a great fan of social interaction online or offline. Especially the empty "look at my shiny" that happens on facebook/google+/youtube/... And the shouting matches, even less.