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“About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

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Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#221

Post by gregmac »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #105

I have a different take on this, different than most comments here: I think that the founders/owners knew what they were doing based on reading their book and lightly following them. I have never been a customer. I know that I am just guessing, but they might have been making the lifestyle decision that they wanted a smaller and more focused company that was more joyful to manage/run. Also, I have some sympathy for a…

> no one should be allowed to say or do anything at work that makes anyone uncomfortable in a personal way; no one should really care much about other peoples’ politics. Life is about so much more than politics

While this sounds good in principle, there are still lots of people offended by others' personal choices and mere existence, and who do consider these political issues.

Examples:

https://twitter.com/JillWohlner/status/1386767595374850061

> As a gay woman, you tell me I can't have a 'political or societal conversation' and that sounds a lot like I can't talk about my wife at work. Bc being in a gay marriage is a f'ing political statement to people.

https://twitter.com/liatrisbian/status/1386774755286601728

> And as a non-binary person, telling me to not have political or societal conversation at work sends me the message that I should hide who I am and can’t have conversations around pronouns etc.

> In fact, I have been told to not have those political or societal conversations. Worded the exact same way as that basecamp post.

> You know what that lead to? Not daring to say a fucking word while being misgendered all the time.

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#222

Post by grumblestumble »

Graffur wrote: post #92
grumblestumble wrote: post #89

A lot of the conversation from the "no politics at work" crowd here is centered around "these folks were wasting company time and losing productivity protesting this". That entirely misses the point. The loss of productivity around this issue is entirely on the leadership team. They let this fester - they were complicit in allowing this dumb-ass list to be circulated around the company for years, and when it became a…

Is Bigbuttson an actual name? That is funny to an English speaker.

Deliberately not an actual name, but I'm guessing the actual one he referenced is along those lines (he specifically mentioned it being Nordic)

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#223

Post by bradleyjg »

dboreham wrote: post #214
koheripbal wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our experience when we issued our "No Politics / No Religion" policy at work was very positive. The few people who had an issue with it, subsequently quit or were terminated, and many of their co-workers actually thanked us afterwards for it. We didn't have to pay them to leave. One tried to use the company social media accounts to advance her politics, so we fired her, and the other person became frustrated that she…

I'm confused. Aren't such discussions banned by social norms everywhere for a very long time? I can't recall any public political or religious discussions at any place I've worked in decades.

I see you don’t work with very many American fresh college graduates.

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#224

Post by Ar-Curunir »

minimaxir wrote: post #63
Hamuko wrote: post #50

Didn't Coinbase do something similar and only have 5% take the buyout option? How is this so different from what Coinbase did?

Two theories I've seen: 1) Coinbase's corporate culture is more libertarian (where an argument on "don't focus on politics" may go across more reasonably) while Basecamp's entire corporate brand is based on power for employees. 2) Coinbase was about to IPO and thus taking a buyout is harder to justify financially, while Basecamp equity is essentially worthless.

> Coinbase's corporate culture is more libertarian (where an argument on "don't focus on politics" may go across more reasonably)

How is it reasonable to enforce "no politics" when the company's culture is based on a niche political tendency?

The more reasonable interpretation is "no politics that looks different from our existing politics"

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#225

Post by [deleted] »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #190
grumblestumble wrote: post #89

A lot of the conversation from the "no politics at work" crowd here is centered around "these folks were wasting company time and losing productivity protesting this". That entirely misses the point. The loss of productivity around this issue is entirely on the leadership team. They let this fester - they were complicit in allowing this dumb-ass list to be circulated around the company for years, and when it became a…

>They let this fester - they were complicit in allowing this dumb-ass list to be circulated around the company for years Edit: nm, answered in other comments. What list? I don't see anything about that in the tweet, or in Basecamp's blogposts the other day...

[deleted]

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#226

Post by jjeaff »

themolecularman wrote: post #206
koheripbal wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our experience when we issued our "No Politics / No Religion" policy at work was very positive. The few people who had an issue with it, subsequently quit or were terminated, and many of their co-workers actually thanked us afterwards for it. We didn't have to pay them to leave. One tried to use the company social media accounts to advance her politics, so we fired her, and the other person became frustrated that she…

I'm hoping the company I work for will follow suit and ban discussions about this stuff in the workplace. Two years ago we had Ibrahim X Kendi speak at our company, he's now considered by many to be a "neo racist". Within months our open Slack channel for Q&A was shut-down. However we still have a lot of the internal activists.

I don't think he's considered by very many to be a neo-racist. Only in right wing circles and few of them would even know who he is anyway.

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#227

Post by themolecularman »

Trasmatta wrote: post #123
baron816 wrote: post #90

The proposed changes are wholly reasonable, and definitely not that different from 99% of the companies out there. The real problem is that they’ve spent years hiring for a type of person where this sort of thing is anathema.

Yeah, DHH is very outspoken politically, and fairly progressive. Of course there was going to be a selection bias where they hired similar people. This shouldn't have come as a surprise to them, and they should have realized the backlash. Shockingly bad foresight.

I agree, the Verge article mentions this explicitly that DHH and JF are routinely outspoken on progressive issues:

> Both founders are also active — and occasionally hyperactive — on Twitter, where they regularly advocate for mainstream liberal and progressive views on social issues.

What did they expect?

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#228

Post by jtdev »

baron816 wrote: post #181

What I think is lost in the conversation here is that people don’t really have organizations they can go to to advocate their political positions. People have their families, their jobs, and maybe a couple of friends and that’s about it. They need an outlet to push the ideas and causes they care about. The workplace is one of the few places where they can feel like they’re having an impact, but that’s not really appr…

This “silent is complicit” angle is positively poisonous.

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#229

Post by exolymph »

deanCommie wrote: post #150
odshoifsdhfs wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends I will be looking and reaching out to them soon. A) they are now looking for a lot of people. B) I fully agree with their idea about apolitical work spaces, and I know a lot of folks that do as well. I have quit jobs due to the BLM fanfare, you are either with us or against us mentality in the workplace where I just wanted to do my job and get paid to do so. edit: I chose BLM because it was the big thing last…

If I was DHH and Jason I would be extremely wary of any applications coming in right now. When your policies are being celebrated by Breitbart and other alt-right trash publications, you are going to attract a lot of folks with extremely questionable integrity. Not saying you're one of those, but if you can't recognize your point in history and are quitting your job over "BLM fanfare", then you also know the answer t…

You have "commie" in your handle. C'mon man.

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#230

Post by kyriee »

themolecularman wrote: post #206
koheripbal wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our experience when we issued our "No Politics / No Religion" policy at work was very positive. The few people who had an issue with it, subsequently quit or were terminated, and many of their co-workers actually thanked us afterwards for it. We didn't have to pay them to leave. One tried to use the company social media accounts to advance her politics, so we fired her, and the other person became frustrated that she…

I'm hoping the company I work for will follow suit and ban discussions about this stuff in the workplace. Two years ago we had Ibrahim X Kendi speak at our company, he's now considered by many to be a "neo racist". Within months our open Slack channel for Q&A was shut-down. However we still have a lot of the internal activists.

By who?
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