Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Basecamp Employee Handbook

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 238 posts

Re: Basecamp Employee Handbook

#71

Post by amorphid »

yebyen wrote: post #69
AVTizzle wrote: post #64

There's a few comments here pointing out their rules for wiping company data from devices when traveling through customs. As a frequent international traveler, I feel naive here... can anyone point out any resources as to why this is best practice? What's on the line here, and what's going on that we need to be aware of?

Well it's probably a lot simpler than you think. If you carry it through Customs then it is subject to search. If you don't carry it through Customs then you can be searched, and you're not disclosing any proprietary company data. Easy peasy. For any company that has external NDA obligations, this seems like a no-brainer to make legal compliance very easy. You don't want to disclose your proprietary company data, wel…

That makes Johnny Mnemonic sound a little less crazy.

Re: Basecamp Employee Handbook

#73

Post by santaclaus »

stevenwu wrote: post #17

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Allowance Fresh, organic, local fruits and vegetables are great to have on-hand, so we'd also like to offer a CSA membership to you. Finding a local provider will be up to you, but you can expense the cost of a seasonal or annual CSA share as an employee benefit, up to $1,000/year. Count that as a perk I've never heard of before. Cool peek into how a company that works remotely c…

> Count that as a perk I've never heard of before.

A company I used to work for used to send people to the local farmers markets and stock up the kitchen at work. Employees were allowed to take home whatever they wanted and to cook whatever they wanted at lunch -- it was awesome! You quickly learn to make friends with the skilled amateur chefs in your department.

Re: Basecamp Employee Handbook

#74

Post by slantyyz »

fooster wrote: post #58
tptacek wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50 person companies can't as a rule guarantee year-long parental leave; that's just not realistic. They can do their best to make it work, but no company of this size in this kind of market can make promises like that.

So how to non-US companies manage to do that? 51 weeks is mandatory in Canada for example.

Isn't the mat leave in Canada is funded by your employment insurance benefits? IIRC, the latest budget also extended it to 18 months too.

Re: Basecamp Employee Handbook

#75

Post by herge »

fooster wrote: post #58
tptacek wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50 person companies can't as a rule guarantee year-long parental leave; that's just not realistic. They can do their best to make it work, but no company of this size in this kind of market can make promises like that.

So how to non-US companies manage to do that? 51 weeks is mandatory in Canada for example.

It's paid out of unemployment insurance funds from the government.

Re: Basecamp Employee Handbook

#76

Post by pc86 »

goseeastarwar wrote: post #57
tptacek wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50 person companies can't as a rule guarantee year-long parental leave; that's just not realistic. They can do their best to make it work, but no company of this size in this kind of market can make promises like that.

I think it's fair to say that given DHH's lifestyle, Basecamp can afford to do this. No judgement on how David choses to spend his time or money, I just think it's a little disingenuous to act like they're a normal startup. It's a well-oiled lifestyle company that prints cash.

DHH's money Basecamp money. Yes obviously DHH gets paid from Basecamp, and he's earned it. But just because he has a lot of money doesn't mean he can turn around and insert a massive expense into the company that turns a nice perk into a huge financial liability.

Re: Basecamp Employee Handbook

#78

Post by goseeastarwar »

pc86 wrote: post #76
goseeastarwar wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's fair to say that given DHH's lifestyle, Basecamp can afford to do this. No judgement on how David choses to spend his time or money, I just think it's a little disingenuous to act like they're a normal startup. It's a well-oiled lifestyle company that prints cash.

DHH's money Basecamp money. Yes obviously DHH gets paid from Basecamp, and he's earned it. But just because he has a lot of money doesn't mean he can turn around and insert a massive expense into the company that turns a nice perk into a huge financial liability.

That's exactly what it means. You can choose to take a yearly LLC dividend of $2M instead of $10M to make sure your staff is well cared for.

I'm not saying he should or needs to do that, it's just the economics of the situation.

Re: Basecamp Employee Handbook

#79

Post by themcgruff »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #70
mr_ndrsn wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is. We're hiring for Ops, too! https://m.signalvnoise.com/become-the-newest-member-of-our-o... Looking to spread our timezones a bit more, hoping to see lots of EU/Pac applicants!

Looking at the job req, it mentions the expectation is for 5 minute response times when you're on call (from alert to being online) and that you're on call one week a month. Is the compensation provided in line with essentially working 24 hours a day for a week once per month? https://basecamp.workable.com/j/A5A189B311 "We have a shared on call responsibility which is about 1 week (5 week days, and 2 weekend days) a…

(I run our Ops team.) The time burden goes down with the more people we have. It's still a burden though -- and our compensation (in theory) reflects that.

FWIW We're doing everything we can to make this "work hours only" M-F, which we could solve by hiring tons of people immediately, but we also have other ideals like keeping the company as small as possible that we want to realize too.

There's an open and ongoing discussion about making improvements in this area and I'm thankful that David and Jason have been receptive to many of the suggestions I, or anyone else on our team has had.

My personal stance is that we should do everything we can to give Ops a 40 hour work week that's during regular working hours and no more, even if that means people get cut a lot of extra slack to recover after a late night page, etc. (Hopefully our team would back me up in saying I encourage people to take reasonable time to make up "lost" hours.)

(Also fwiw, I participate equally in the on call rotations.)

Re: Basecamp Employee Handbook

#80

Post by dejv »

tptacek wrote: post #44
piqufoh wrote: post #24

Under parental leave; > You may also choose to take an additional 8 weeks leave unpaid. Note that this does not guarantee your employment. We're simply keeping your job open for an additional 8 weeks, unless your position becomes redundant. Is it just me, or does that sound a little harsh? (Maybe I'm used to UK workers rights) Isn't this exactly the reason why many parents don't take the parental leave they probably…

6 paid weeks parental leave for secondary caregivers puts them in the top tier of "major" companies, as does 16 weeks paid for primary caregivers; that's more than Google offered a few years ago. It's a bit disingenuous to zero in on the unpaid leave policy; what they're saying is, if you need more than 6 weeks, they'll try to work something out with you, and it'll probably be fine. They're being explicit about somet…

As a father of 11 month old, I can't imagine how people can live with just 6 or even 16 weeks of maternity leave. Even after almost one year it feels like care is (at least) full time job, which would be quite hard to outsource.

In my EU country you will get up to three years of paid maternity leave per child, so I guess I am just spoiled.

Post reply on HN