361–370 of 1001 posts
It's sad that the target for those employees' "political disruption" is Basecamp. One of the arguably nicest companies to work in, which treats employees well, has a sane work/life balance and advocates so, pays well, embraces remote work, gives back to open source (RoR, etc.), and has good products, with no shady anti-consumer practices, that people actually like and pay for (as opposed to somewhere where they sell…
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.
This is dead on: the real issue here is not politics vs. not-politics at work—Basecamp is having a crisis because expectations were broken.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
heres the list of folks who have publicly announced their departure: https://workflowy.com/s/basecamp-resignation/qrBBdTQydmTKLu0... probably has more context to each in their threads
I read the first tweet in each of those resignations. Out of 19 resignations, most give no reason for quitting. Five or so tweets cite "recent changes and new policies" as the reason. That reason is so vague that it may refer to the new policy of paying 6 months severance to employees who want to quit. edit: Excellent point below that the severance agreements probably included a non-disparagement clause, which would…
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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…
Why not just... manage people well? No need to make it no politics/no religion at work. Endless talking about keto or veganism or BeachBody or CrossFit or vaccines or children or being anti-child or emacs or vim or whatever can be just as divisive and counterproductive if it's not managed . Lots of people are assholes or misinformed about a lot of stuff. Big deal. Manage. That's the active part of the word "manager".…
(not saying at all if this was appropriate or not)
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…
With a few exceptions, I consider it very unprofessional for an employee or colleague of mine to start discussing their sexual preferences, gay or straight. I wouldn't ask for the same reason.
> ... just blanket “No religion/no politics” is just a way to say you like everything the way it is and don’t want to feel uncomfortable
I think you are just projecting. There are tons of benefits (mentioned elsewhere in these comments) to keeping politics & religion out of the workplace.
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'm sorry, what!? The author of "How to be Antiracist" is considered a "neo racist" by how many?
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…
What an employer cannot ask at job interview, should not be discussed at the workplace
Another way to look at this is... job openings are coming to Basecamp and people know the culture is a no politics at work place. I bet a lot of people will sign up for that. Enough to fill the openings.
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…
As a customer why would I even care if someone on the other end thought my name was funny as long as my shipment arrived? This generation truly is absurdly sensitive.