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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”

#401

Post by StandardFuture »

kaitai wrote: post #302
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…

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".…

So, how does this address anything the parent comment has talked about?

> keep all the politics talk to a minimum

Ok, so this is one management strategy and the parent comment provided another. You seem to be implying that one management choice has moral superiority to the other?

> whatever can be just as divisive and counterproductive

Yes, and their management choice could be to minimize these just as you choose to minimize politics. That is entirely orthogonal to making managerial decisions to ban certain topics.

They could choose to ban some of the non-politics topics of discussion as well. Hell, they could just say "shutup and work". They could say no work related discussion allowed at work.

Again, these are all managerial choices but you seem to be accusing the company of not managing at all?

> when they can pee or whether they fear for their lives at the speed trap that's stationed about a mile up the road from the office.

> their skin color/presence or lack of uteruses/accents come along.

You have addressed nothing about the actions of employees as the parent comment discussed. You have only addressed that people have different looks, feelings, organs, and politics. Great observation.

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

#402

Post by awj »

rPlayer6554 wrote: post #160
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 sorry...what fantasy land do you have to live in where you think it's ok to use a company social media account to promote your own politics not only without permission from the company, but an explicit denial.

By "your own politics" are we still referring to things like "hey it's not okay that you're making fun of people and their different-sounding names"?

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

#404

Post by 99_00 »

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.

Who is the oppressor and who is the victim?

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

#405

Post by rmk »

The old-fashioned dictum, "don't talk politics and religion at work" is very much worth following. I hope plain old professionalism comes back into fashion --- we can all use a return to norms that have existed for a very long time, and for very good reason. Free political and religious association can proceed unhindered outside the office, while the sanctity of work and common courtesy is preserved at the workplace.

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

#406

Post by ErikVandeWater »

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.

Making a neutral web where the combined decisions of the millions of users determines the outcome is not giving power to a "small elite"

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

#407

Post by darkhorse13 »

coldtea wrote: post #331

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…

I agree that Basecamp sounds like a dream company to work for. I don't agree with the founders on their politics at all, but my God do I agree on all the other stuff like remote work, and work life balance.

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

#408

Post by j11m »

segmondy wrote: post #347
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…

It's the season of ramadan, how would you support muslims that are fasting now or need to take off time to pray or go to their mosque on Fridays?

What's the problem? Workplaces are required to allow for "reasonable flexibility" in the practice of religion. An employee may need to take some PTO for certain types of jobs, but every job I've worked has a decent amount of leeway.

This is all covered under US employment law.

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

#409

Post by silexia »

baron816 wrote: post #66
fighterpilot wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if I liked the job I would take it. Six months paid holiday would be too good to pass up.

Yeah, let’s say your salary was $200k. They give you $100k immediately, you turn around and find another job after a month off at $190k—that means you’re making about $273k this year.

I think this is continuing your pay until you find new job... not as sexy as you think.

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

#410

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

TigeriusKirk wrote: post #10

If a third of the people were willing to leave the company over a decision, it sounds like there was a real, meaningful mismatch in priorities. Which is fine, but it's for the best for everyone to end that mismatch.

Maybe I'm just not a world class manager, but I feel like even if there were that kind of mismatch in priorities, it's hard to see getting rid of 30% of people at once being intended. Unless these people were all net negative contributors . . . although that hardly seems likely since they weren't selected on any performance-based metric, and the list seems to include some fairly high up people.

It seems like a real stretch to read this as anything other than a bit of a self-own. Even if you wanted to get rid of all these people eventually you'd probably want to do that more gradually.

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