“About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today” • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by ihumanable » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 9:36 PM UTC

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…

> Life is about so much more than politics.

I see this sentiment a lot, and I definitely understand the impulse especially in the current political climate. "Politics" is just the word we give for how humans interact at scale, to which we all have a vested interest. I'm somewhat surprised by people taking the attitude that the policies and power dynamics that will meaningfully impact their lives, just isn't that important.

Perhaps because in the US we have had a long period of relative internal stability, we get to have this luxury of going, "Let's not care about politics, life is more than that, it's my loved one's and hobbies and watching the sunset." But all the other bits of life that are more important than politics can only exist because of politics, because of the rules and policies and power structures we all agree to live under.

A general shying away from politics means that a smaller and smaller group of people get to decide the rules for everyone, and I just have a hard time believing that that will lead to good outcomes.

All that said, I do think that the workplace isn't a great environment to have those discussions, politics gets heated and it's hard to work with people when you've dredged up a bunch of big fundamental disagreements.

> no one should be allowed to say or do anything at work that makes anyone uncomfortable in a personal way;

This is a nice sentiment but ultimately meaningless. A rule or policy so broad that it could be applied to nearly any interaction, and one that doesn't look at the actions or intents of the person committing an "offense" but just says, "If someone became uncomfortable during an interaction, the other party is at fault." This type of broad unspecified rule just gives the rule-enforcers tremendous latitude to use it as they see fit.

> I judge people on how well they treat other people and by how much effort they make improving the world

I think there's a lot of politically engaged people that believe that through politics they can improve the world much more than through a single individual's actions. There's little I can do personally to improve the access to healthcare for my fellow citizens, but through political action fellow citizens could gain access to that. Many people would consider that an improvement.

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

#162

Post by enriquto » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 9:36 PM UTC

gregsadetsky wrote: post #143

honksillet wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What list? What’s the back story!

A list of customers with "funny" names. See https://www.platformer.news/p/-what-really-happened-at-basec... and https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/27/22406673/basecamp-politic...

But where is the actual list? The only bit of information marginally interesting in this stupid drama is the list itself, yet it is nowhere to be found! Moreover, how can a "list of best names ever" be so troubling, let alone racist? I don't understand.

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

#163

Post by blocked_again » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 9:36 PM UTC

notadoc wrote: post #78

Guessing nearly 1/3 of employees at many companies would leave immediately if offered 6 months salary. Or maybe it's because those people were upset that discussing politics was not part of their job description?

6 months salary is only for long term employees. For rest it's 3 months.

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

#164

Post by cblconfederate » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

notadoc wrote: post #78

Guessing nearly 1/3 of employees at many companies would leave immediately if offered 6 months salary. Or maybe it's because those people were upset that discussing politics was not part of their job description?

isnt that a very large amount of money?

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

#165

Post by Griffinsauce » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #49

Trasmatta wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's awfully ironic, given how Basecamp has built their entire brand off of good management, and running a non-toxic workplace. Regardless of what people think of the specifics of the policy, it's a good case study in how not to do something like this. Releasing a blog post that results in 1/3rd+ of your employees resigning is bad management.

1/3rd of your employees so far . Would like to see how many stick around having to operate in an environment where a third of your coworkers just walked (based on past experiences when this occurred due to layoffs).

With layoffs I've heard the guideline that at least as many people as you lay off will quit in the near future (because for example you gutted their team, they lost their work buddy, they lost trust, their job got harder, etc).

No idea what the source was or how valid it is, but I can imagine a lot of other employees not liking their job anymore in the near future, regardless of their position on this debacle.

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

#166

Post by pjc50 » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 9:38 PM UTC

klyrs wrote: post #142

throwawaysea wrote: post #43

I really hope more companies declare their workplaces to be politics free. I am completely tired of the long march through the institutions ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_march_through_the_ins... ) that has culminated in corporations being weaponized for one-sided progressive political agendas. These departures really just give away the biases of the tech industry at large. As for Basecamp's leaders - I thi…

I'm curious why more right-leaning folks don't see this as a free speech issue.

Right wingers only support free speech in the workplace when it's speech they agree with, such as James Damore. It's politics all the way down, not a principle.

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

#167

Post by oezi » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 9:38 PM UTC

_jal wrote: post #84

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.

Any employer that abruptly told me I needed to watch what I said at work would lose me, too. I'm not saying I demand the ability to be rude and awful, or go on political tirades, or anything even vaguely like that. But I spend more time talking to people I work with than any other set of people. Telling me I have to avoid entire categories of normal conversation is itself authoritarian politicization of the workplace…

Well, but isn't there a big difference between talking on the company slack which is archived for eternity or do it in your private buddy group. I think most companies wouldn't be very fond of large scale political discussions (which might easy hurt and offend) on company media. But since everybody is flex time/remote anyway that doesn't stop you from it anyway on different media.

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

#168

Post by simonh » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 9:38 PM UTC

deanCommie wrote: post #120

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; Agreed. But frequently calling that out IS what is deemed "political" by the person who was "just expressing an opinion", and "i just have a different ideology from you" > ; no one should really care much about other peoples’ politics. Some people's politics is other people's human rights. Would you want to wor…

Personally yes, because I’m an optimist and I believe people can change for the better and one way that could happen is through civil and professional working relationships.

I agree it’s not a comfortable situation and specific circumstances can trump a generalisation, but it’s not impossible that I could tolerate that sort of situation and in fact people do it al, the time. How many of us have worked at places where everyone knew there was one guy who was a misogynist but plenty of women there put up with it?

For me it’s about the actual behaviour. I can’t police what people think or believe, nobody really can in truth, but we can expect basic standards of behaviour.

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

#169

Post by intergalplan » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 9:38 PM UTC

newsclues wrote: post #133

Funny names?

Make friends with anyone who deals with lots and lots of people across socio-economic status boundaries—teachers, social workers, anyone in government who deals with the public on a regular basis—and they can tell you what that means. You'll think they made some of them up, but they didn't. And that's without going international.

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

#170

Post by didibus » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 9:39 PM UTC

quadcore wrote: post #144

Can someone explains a bit more what it's all about for outsiders so we can understand whats intellectually interesting in that news?

Seems like there was internal chatter about the fact that some Basecamp employees had kept a list of funny customer names over the years as a joke. And people were discussing how this happened, what they could do to change the internal culture so it doesn't happen again, how it portrays on their internal inclusivity, etc. And it looks like the founders were annoyed by all these discussions about it, so they made a policy change that you can only talk about business on official work channels. Keep in mind this is a fully remote company, all communication is done on official work channels. So after that policy change, a lot of employees felt they now worked at some authoritarian place where they couldn't just chat to their coworkers anymore except for serious business stuff, and they now need to watch what they're saying to others. As a result, about 25% of all employees quit. That said, they also offered a 6 month severance to those who wanted to leave, so who knows if employees all quit fully out of finding the phone policy draconian, or out of simply thinking the severance was a good deal.