Some years ago I had manager that replied to a staff member ”you are paid to work, not to think or speak”. Yep, the company went bust. People need to be cared for, if they want to talk about Pluto and politics, let them and listen. This all goes back to a passive vs active operations. The pandemic created too much active work, online meetings.
A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship
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Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship
#22Another problem with politics-in-the-workplace is it seems like there is only one accepted political dogma. If people were constantly blasted in the face with my politics they would be very annoyed. But I’m supposed to accept their politics unquestionably. Totally agree with this article - just do your job and get on the soap box during your own time.
What is "politics"? Where do you draw the line?
"I'm going to pick up my kid at school this afternoon, because otherwise he has to spend over an hour on the bus. It would be nice if they had more school buses so kids wouldn't have to deal with such long bus rides."
"Excuse me, Becky, but you cannot be discussing local politics in the workplace. That's a fireable offense, you know."
Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship
#23Spoken like a true racist
Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship
#24Work is political - saying that people should get on with work without discussing "political topics" prevents them from discussing and solving the issues within their own work.
Yes there is a need to make sure work that directly brings money into the organisation gets done but part of that work is making sure everyone everyone works equally.
"There's no way the ring is getting to Mordor if Gimli is pushing for elf reparations." This suggests we can't deal with more than one thing at once. We can deal with the big bad of our generation (I would argue climate change), while also improving the material condition of disadvantaged people across society.
Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship
#25Another problem with politics-in-the-workplace is it seems like there is only one accepted political dogma. If people were constantly blasted in the face with my politics they would be very annoyed. But I’m supposed to accept their politics unquestionably. Totally agree with this article - just do your job and get on the soap box during your own time.
My politics generally align with what you call the 'one accepted political dogma', but I have to admit that workers who overtly signal their activism over actually doing the work they're paid for are supremely annoying. In fact, amongst the silent majority they probably do more harm than good for their cause.
Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship
#26It would have been nice to see a nuanced, thoughtful, insightful look at the various viewpoints that exist within this complex issue. Because many parts of this "activism" are important e.g. how women are treated in IT or what values does a company need to defend in this modern age.
Instead we get an utterly cringeworthy "everyone should just be quiet and follow the wisdom of Lord of the Rings" which adds absolutely nothing to the discourse.
Flagged.
Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship
#27I’ve never really experienced activism per-se in the workplace. Master/slave in the code base was raised as an issue but that’s about it!
I have, however, worked in an organisation that transitioned from a clear fellowship of everyone working towards a common goal and putting their other concerns on hold to one where you felt your interests were competing.
I ultimately left because of this transition (life is too short!), and it’s interesting that it was the introduction of self-interested, mercenary sales guys and a commercially oriented CEO that triggered it.
I like fellowship/mercenary dichotomy.
Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship
#28Another problem with politics-in-the-workplace is it seems like there is only one accepted political dogma. If people were constantly blasted in the face with my politics they would be very annoyed. But I’m supposed to accept their politics unquestionably. Totally agree with this article - just do your job and get on the soap box during your own time.
The response by DHH and Jason wasn't really to ban politics though, it was that only their political stance was acceptable. As a result of the policy, it's not that Basecamp had no opinion on the names list - instead, the outcome was that they did have a stance that it was bad, but not bad enough that you could link it to systemic racism.
"No politics" is a smokescreen. What it means in reality, here or anywhere else its instituted, is that "leadership decides the acceptable position on political issues."
Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship
#29Why is that every, single article that gets posted on this subject at HN completely ignores the “funny names” list that actually caused this incident. Folks keep acting like it was kids screaming BLM on the company message board and it’s kind of infuriatingly disingenuous. It feels almost purposeful that folks are ignoring the specific political grievance that employees had, and they are framing it as activist pressu…
This is probably less about Basecamp and more about the "straw that broke the camel's back" of people being tired of activists being so loud. Semi-unrelatedly, I noticed something interesting: People who try to solve problem X seem to dislike other people who try to solve the same problem in a slightly different way almost as much as they dislike the people who cause X in the first place. I find myself being put off…
That's a really interesting insight. I hadn't seen that before but it appears very true when reflecting on the current political climate. It's as if not agreeing with a given solution to a problem is the same as not wanting to solve the problem.
Re: A Policy of Activism in the Workplace Is Anti-Fellowship
#30I could hardly disagree more with the premise that activism is anti-fellowship. This seems like a very narrow take on activism.
> I could hardly disagree more with the premise that activism is anti-fellowship.
If you are doing activism, in the workplace, that runs against the beliefs and opinions of (some of the) the people you work with. How could this be anything but anti-fellowship?