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

Changes at Basecamp

world.hey.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 853 posts

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#251

Post by villasv »

lindy2021 wrote: post #244
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #191

There's a great blog entry I just read about this, "On Politics At Work". I think the author effectively hits on a real problem with a lot of these discussions. https://json.blog/2021/04/26/on-politics-at.html To some folks, "politics at work" means "endless battle royale political debates among coworkers in a Slack all day long; why wouldn't you be against that? But to others, "politics at work" means "are we paying…

We already have a solution for the issues you described, HR. Defiling work communication channels with political opinions only serves to distract, deride, and divide.

> We already have a solution for the issues you described, HR.

Surely you must be joking.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#252

Post by wombatpm »

voidfunc wrote: post #114
PascLeRasc wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine is a software engineer in a conservative industry, and their company brought out the same "no politics at work" last summer. Their benefits package has some language specifically referring to only extending health insurance coverage to hetero spouses, and only permitting time off for a new child if the employee gave birth to it, so nothing for adoptions, fathers, or surrogate births. People have been…

Perhaps they should have looked at the benefits package before taking the job?

Or pay attention during an interview. There was a time when Big Idea (The VeggieTales People) were hiring a ton of tech people to manage their render farms, animation systems, etc. A common topic of conversation revolved around when were you saved by Jesus Christ?

If you were not a evangelical Christian, you quickly realized you would not be happy working there

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#253

Post by reducesuffering »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #191

There's a great blog entry I just read about this, "On Politics At Work". I think the author effectively hits on a real problem with a lot of these discussions. https://json.blog/2021/04/26/on-politics-at.html To some folks, "politics at work" means "endless battle royale political debates among coworkers in a Slack all day long; why wouldn't you be against that? But to others, "politics at work" means "are we paying…

> But to others, "politics at work" means "are we paying women and men the same for doing the same job?" and "are our recruiting practices leading to a non-diverse workforce and missing out on great people who should work here?" and "what problems does our company sole, and for whom?". These are really important questions. Why wouldn't you want to bring them up at work?

Because there is only one accepted answer. Anyone who drifts from that into the opposing side will be reprimanded, scarred for their remaining tenure at the company, and/or fired. Good luck objecting to your company having N number of positions literally reserved for only certain races. Source: company X recruiter.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#255

Post by lindy2021 »

villasv wrote: post #251
lindy2021 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have a solution for the issues you described, HR. Defiling work communication channels with political opinions only serves to distract, deride, and divide.

> We already have a solution for the issues you described, HR. Surely you must be joking.

If you don't trust your employer's HR department, then why did you accept the position?

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#256

Post by bradleyjg »

djrobstep wrote: post #113
anm89 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, this is how it should be. If that is a deal breaker then find a different employer. Work is not a forum to compete for your personal views. It is a forum to exchange your time for money or equity as per your contract. If you feel it should be different, make sure you are holding enough equity to set the rules or as I mentioned, find a new job that agrees with you.

Why shouldn't employees have a say in how their own workplaces are run? EDIT: I see this is being downvoted. It's a genuine good faith question, and if you've downvoted, I'd love to know what you see as unconstructive about this comment. I'm sure the HN community would not be so petty as to downvote it out of pure ideology.

Activism that imposes zero costs on the activist, indeed provides social benefits, just isn’t very convincing.

Going to jail for your beliefs or standing up to cops with dogs and fire hoses—-those make otherwise indifferent people stop and think.

The fact that “stay and change things from the inside” is maximally convenient for soi disant activists doesn’t strike many of us as a coincidence.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#258

Post by [deleted] »

tshaddox wrote: post #212
mwcampbell wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You uninvited certain people entirely, and in doing so have taken a hell of a stance on that persons inherent worth. I don't understand how banning discussions on politics in official company communication channels leads to that. On the contrary, doesn't such a policy create a safe space for the people you're talking about to work together with other people who have different views?

Compare these two messages that might appear in a company’s casual chat channel: “I’m getting married this weekend and I’m so excited!” “I tried to get a marriage license today but the county clerk refused to give me one because we are a same-sex couple, which is really upsetting!” Both statements involve the same event in a person’s life, and it’s an event that tends to be very important and is a very natural thing…

[deleted]

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#259

Post by StanislavPetrov »

paxys wrote: post #27

Can there ever be a non-work related conversation between employees that is not a "societal and political discussion"? In the past week I have spoken to coworkers about high housing costs (bunch of us are testing the market right now), property taxes, EV rebates, weed legalization, homeless/drug use problem on the streets. All of this is apparently a fireable offense at Basecamp? People are going to say "obviously st…

>Can there ever be a non-work related conversation between employees that is not a "societal and political discussion"?

I think there are two questions. How much work time is taken up by non-work related conversation, and how much does an employee's non-work related political advocacy disrupt their work and the work of other employees? The unfortunate truth is that many (especially younger people) believe it is not only their right, but their duty, to agitate for the political and social change they believe in, at all times, and, in many fields, this mentality isn't compatible with a functional (much less efficient) work environment.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#260

Post by fouc »

bsima wrote: post #186
rtpg wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another basic example: imagine working at Basecamp and being like "Can we sponsor Django Girls?" (whatever the Rails equivalent is) Like maybe you want to have a more diverse team and this is one way of trying to recruit for it. Without these "oh politics is sin" things, the bosses saying no might require them to justify it. Instead they can now weasel their way out of this kind of stuff, and basically shield themsel…

> "Can we sponsor Django Girls?" Sure, just do it with your own money, not company money

> Django Girls is an international non-profit organization started to inspire women from all backgrounds to get interested in technology and to become programmers, offering a safe and friendly environment.

It's something that most tech companies would be willing to sponsor, not political at all.

Post reply on HN