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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”

#351

Post by ineptech »

mhneu wrote: post #290
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…

“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” -Elie Wiesel Choosing to not discuss politics is fine. But if you do that, you’re making a choice: you’re choosing to take the side of those who prefer political decisions to be made by a small elite, without feedback from people like us. You’re choosing not to weigh in.

In the abstract, sure, an important sentiment; but applying Wiesel's words to this debate seems like the very height of hubris. No matter how fervently I might agree with some activists' goals, I am very dubious that Basecamp's old policy was actually improving the world, or that their new policy is hurting it.

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

#352

Post by linuxftw »

Rapzid wrote: post #332
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…

> We later discovered that one of them had been considering reporting us to the state financial authorities because she didn't agree with our policy of accruing interest on client debts Wow, and I thought the HR complaint against David was nuts. Sounds like basecamp was infiltrated by Ben Kuchera's or Randi Harpers. Can't recall the name of the person GitHub miss-hired.. Recall a few years back seemed like everyone w…

Was a weird trend? They've doubled-down. There are now Chief Diversity Officers.

Duties typically consist of 1) Being a white woman 2) Sending out the monthly 'diverity of the month' celebration/awareness email 3) Rubber stamping the 'gender pay equality assessment' annual report 4) Using the word 'empathy'

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

#353

Post by tshaddox »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #172
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've noticed an overlap between activist personalities and attention seeking personalities. Some people, either consciously or subconsciously, enjoy the dopamine hit from anger and confrontation and they will seek it out at work.

Perhaps the perceived overlap is due to the fact that you end up perceiving people who have attention-seeking personalities more than people who do not, especially in places (like social media) that are designed to reward and amplify attention seeking.

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

#354

Post by throwawaygh »

koheripbal wrote: post #316
tashoecraft wrote: post #241

The problem with no religion and no politics is that it’s impossible to draw a line on what is politics or religion. Let’s say you hire a gay employee, there very existence is political. Are they wrong for mentioning that they are gay (no), but to some at the company that may be trying to advance their gay political agenda. Idk what the solution is, but just blanket “No religion/no politics” is just a way to say you…

> a gay employee, there very existence is political. If someone considers their very existence political, I think that's a big red flag. Whether it's because they think society is persecuting them for being Christian, or for being gay, it will still be a high confidence predictor that they will create drama in the office.

I had three teachers who were fired for being gay, and a former co-worker who was probably passed up for promotions because he is transgender.

It's not since very recently -- and to some extent still only in certain geographies -- that being gay in the workplace is apolitical.

I'm actually generally a fan of "no politics / no religion" cultures (IME: actual literal rules indicate the culture is broken... not opposed to rules, but I prefer places where it doesn't even need to be said out loud!). But there absolutely are workplaces where being gay is political. And prior to the 1990s being out at work was very much not a good idea in most of the country.

We're not talking about ancient history here...

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

#355

Post by rufus_foreman »

version_five wrote: post #79

Putting aside the other aspects of this story, I think a buyout offer, possibly even a "standing offer" is an interesting practice to consider at companies. I worked somewhere where there was a large, low morale group of employees that I think were just there because of money concerns + fomo if the company ever went anywhere. At the time I thought a buyout offer would have been a great way to separate the people who…

It's an interesting concept. One problem with it would be that the employees who can most easily get a job just consider it as a bonus for job hopping while the people who can't get a job anywhere else stay forever.

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

#356

Post by motives »

mhneu wrote: post #290
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…

“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” -Elie Wiesel Choosing to not discuss politics is fine. But if you do that, you’re making a choice: you’re choosing to take the side of those who prefer political decisions to be made by a small elite, without feedback from people like us. You’re choosing not to weigh in.

I don't usually like engaging in political discourse online, as its very rarely fruitful, but I'd just like to encourage you to study some philosophy before making statements like these whereby you treat your own opinion as absolute fact (or at least your phrasing comes off that way to me). The nature of inaction on these issues is not necessarily inherently immoral, and I would personally argue its supererogation rather than moral duty, so whilst it may be commendable to stand up in these sorts of situations, in my opinion you are by no means morally obliged. This whole area has been a subject of debate for a very long time and the answer is never as simple as a generalisation that can fit in a sentence or two.

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

#357

Post by humanrebar »

gregmac wrote: post #221
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/JillWohlne…

Yep.

And on the other side of the spectrum, it's extremely uncomfortable to be a Baptist, work with a lot of left wing folks, and then get asked what you did last weekend.

It's not fair to expect everyone to be fully responsible for each others' feelings.

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

#358

Post by [deleted] »

Wolfr_ wrote: post #118
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…

If that's really their intent why not do a layoff round with a bigger severance package for 10-20 ppl to get back to 30 people, it would be less painful than this PR disaster?

[deleted]

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

#359

Post by wwwdonohue »

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…

People have plenty of places they can express their political opinions. They can go to rallies, canvass for candidates, phonebank, volunteer, etc. etc. And all those would actually make a difference! I think people just like complaining, don’t like working, and have identified in politics something that they can use to loaf that is “virtuous.”
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