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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”

#721

Post by throwarayes »

grey-area wrote: post #479

I don't think this is really about making fun of people's names, or holocaust references. It's about power. The managers at basecamp were unhappy that their employees asserted power over them in the workplace, and decided to assert their own power in turn over what they view as their personal fiefdom and retract some of the freedoms they had so graciously granted their workers, because those ungrateful workers actual…

Agree. If only for:

> Hansson’s response to this employee [that apologized for participating in the list] took aback many of the workers I spoke with. He dug through old chat logs to find a time when the employee in question participated in a discussion about a customer with a funny-sounding name. Hansson posted the message — visible to the entire company — and dismissed the substance of the employee’s complaint.

(From The Verge article[1])

In summation an employee participated in the list and wanted BaseCamp to change its ways on diversity. DHH took to publicly bullying this person and shutting down discussion.

1 - https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/27/22406673/basecamp-politic...

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

#722

Post by jollybean »

grey-area wrote: post #589
jollybean wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is an unfair representation and you are straw-manning the situation at least somewhat. The company doesn't think that 'name calling' is appropriate, rather, they don't believe that this activity is the beginnings of some kind of 'race war' and object to language such as 'leads to genocide' as hyperbolic. "unhappy that their employees asserted power over them in the workplace," Yes, if your staff are exer…

This is not the appropriate language: it's their company, and their responsibility. It's not a 'personal fiefdom'. I used the word deliberately. They mistook their relationship with their employees for a feudal one, they have now discovered it was not. It's unreasonable to believe that excessive fear-mongering such as language regarding 'leads to genocide' should be accepted at face value. I imagine gentle disagreeme…

"They mistook their relationship with their employees for a feudal one, they have now discovered it was not"

This kind overly dramatic rhetoric demonstrates the lack of perspective on the part of the antagonists which is possibly at the root of the problem.

There is no reason for leadership to risk the company and all of their time and investment over 'fake rhetorical wars over the meaning of words' which have very little substance on either side.

Of all the ways for a company to fail, having internal resurrections over nothing is at least something that can be avoided.

They company executives acted as though they were owners managers of the company - which they are - and gave their staff an option, which some of them took.

That's it.

" gentle disagreement with this graphic would have been completely fine "

It wasn't just a disagreement over a graphic, it was a group of people forming an alliance to shape the nature of the company in their social view.

That's going to require some restructuring.

Aside from the tone of the communications, the company did what any other company would do, and now they're more or less situated as most other companies.

A lot of people are here in for a rude awakening in life; questioning some actions the company is making and having them addressed is reasonable, but forming alliances, challenging the leadership is suicidal unless there's a high degree of legitimacy, which there isn't.

If the company refuses to stop dumping chemicals, then yes, you can form an alliance. If you're worried the company has a doc floating around with crude jokes - but they stopped it ... and you want to restructure the company in your social terms because you think there's something existential at foot ... you're going to be fired.

Even if the tone was off, the company acted within reason.

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

#723

Post by Uhhrrr »

NathanKP wrote: post #671
christophilus wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I see a Jehovah’s Witness coming up to my door, I pretend to not be home. I’d really hate to be forced to have that same feeling at work, but be unable to escape it. If you can’t do your job without evangelizing your coworkers in some form or fashion, maybe you should reconsider your career choices.

You are halfway there, but now think a bit further. Imagine if you were working at a job, but you are stuck with immature coworkers that are making fun of aspects of your culture, making fun of names that are similar to your own name, or similar to names of your friends and family. You can't escape these immature people because you need to work the job with them in order to make money. So you deal with it for a while…

Making fun of a culture is culturalist, not racist. And all cultures have aspects worthy of mockery.

And making fun of names doesn't even rise to that level. No one thinks less of a culture or a person just because their name reads like "fuck", or "Biggus Dickus", etc., in English. It's just a funny impedance mismatch between languages.

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

#724

Post by fighterpilot »

HNfriend234 wrote: post #509
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…

There are non-profit organizations or similar private organizations that are better suited for political activity. The workplace is not the correct place. I was also harassed by the "silence is complicit" attitude. Some other employees I work with would go up to me and ask me questions like "we want to know where you stand on xyz political issue".....and I'm like.....it is really none of your business. They then take…

That's psychopathic behavior.

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

#726

Post by fighterpilot »

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.

Victim signalling is correlated with psychopathy (it's something like a 0.5 correlation) and virtue signalling is correlated with narcissism.

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

#727

Post by redisman »

nell wrote: post #514

30% of basecamp employees left → 70% stayed in spite of the 6-month severance. I think everyone should evaluate if the company we worked for offered a 6-month severance how many would stay?

Not bad right? If you’re very employable it’s just a free 50% annual bonus

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

#728

Post by rayiner »

GVIrish wrote: post #666
Cyberdog wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think people in charge of hiring, particularly outside of the SV bubble, are going to be eager to pick someone up who left their last job because they couldn't agree to stop bitching about politics on the company dime? I don't see how demonstrating the inability to follow basic company rules in the interest of productivity improves their career prospects. Even inside the SV bubble, things aren't that warped, a…

> Do you think people in charge of hiring, particularly outside of the SV bubble, are going to be eager to pick someone up who left their last job because they couldn't agree to stop bitching about politics on the company dime? I think that's a big mischaracterization of what happened. For one, it seems a lot of the issue was about the 'funny names list' and heated debate around that. It wasn't people going to war ov…

> For some employees, they can't get away from politics and societal issues because it affects them every day and their very existence has been politicized.

What a lame excuse for politicizing everything.

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

#729

Post by midrus »

As an European. I don't get this.

So, employees create a list for making fun of people.

Employees start to fight each other because they take offense.

Company states at work, you're supposed to work, not to discuss politics.

Th bad actor is the company so we all leave. (??!!!)

Honestly, I don't get it. I think it is a cultural thing in the US, due to the long term racism issues ,etc. And how extremely easy is for Americans to feel offended. Sorry if that hurts, I accept your down otra but would appreciate what I am missing.

As somebody from a first world european country, we go to work to work. If we're developers we're expected to do development.

We like football (soccer) and some like politics and discussing controversial stuff, but we do that in the proper forums. For football it is the pub. For politics ist is elections, friends and family.

Business are business and we're there because we need money and a profession we like.

I feel these problems happen only in America, it sad to see this going on.

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

#730

Post by redisman »

heartbreak wrote: post #655
mmmcookies wrote: post #375

I wouldn’t hire any of these people if they left due to the policy change. How about you put your money where you mouth is and join a non-profit if you care so much about these issues. Instead, it’s a bunch of incredibly privileged individuals throwing a tantrum from their ivory towers without any skin the game. It’s pathetic.

> if you care so much about these issues What issues might those be?

Willingness to take a 6 month severance? Yeah I’ll take that vacation
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