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Changes at Basecamp

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Re: Changes at Basecamp

#211

Post by rpdillon »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #191

There's a great blog entry I just read about this, "On Politics At Work". I think the author effectively hits on a real problem with a lot of these discussions. https://json.blog/2021/04/26/on-politics-at.html To some folks, "politics at work" means "endless battle royale political debates among coworkers in a Slack all day long; why wouldn't you be against that? But to others, "politics at work" means "are we paying…

In a follow-up on DHH's blog[0], he says:

> Note that we will continue to engage in politics that directly relate to our business or products. This means topics like antitrust, privacy, employee surveillance. If you're in doubt as to whether something falls within those lines or not, please, again, reach out for guidance.

I would read this to mean that political issues that are tied to business decisions (like pay equality and recruiting practices) are in-bounds for discussion at work.

[0]: https://world.hey.com/dhh/basecamp-s-new-etiquette-regarding...

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#212

Post by tshaddox »

mwcampbell wrote: post #155
drewbug01 wrote: post #81

Issues that directly impact me and mine at my workplace are considered “political” by those of more conservative mindsets. That’s the really ugly flip side of this, and I know it’s been said elsewhere but: conservative politics in the US make some people’s entire existence political, full stop. So you do a lot more than just cut out “distracting” conversations this way. You uninvited certain people entirely, and in d…

> You uninvited certain people entirely, and in doing so have taken a hell of a stance on that persons inherent worth. I don't understand how banning discussions on politics in official company communication channels leads to that. On the contrary, doesn't such a policy create a safe space for the people you're talking about to work together with other people who have different views?

Compare these two messages that might appear in a company’s casual chat channel:

“I’m getting married this weekend and I’m so excited!”

“I tried to get a marriage license today but the county clerk refused to give me one because we are a same-sex couple, which is really upsetting!”

Both statements involve the same event in a person’s life, and it’s an event that tends to be very important and is a very natural thing to share with coworkers. Only one of the statements happens to involve (and even take a stance on!) a political debate which was extremely prominent in US national politics 6 years ago and extremely divisive and highly-charged.

If a company has a policy like this, what should their response be to these two people? Should one, both, or neither message be allowed in the company’s casual chat channel?

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#213

Post by tyingq »

stephsmithio wrote: post #74
paxys wrote: post #27

Can there ever be a non-work related conversation between employees that is not a "societal and political discussion"? In the past week I have spoken to coworkers about high housing costs (bunch of us are testing the market right now), property taxes, EV rebates, weed legalization, homeless/drug use problem on the streets. All of this is apparently a fireable offense at Basecamp? People are going to say "obviously st…

While I hear the, "But anything could be viewed as societal and political discussion", it's kind of a straw man argument. We all know what types of discourse Jason and David are referring to and they augmented their request with, "But if you make a mistake, it's not the end of the world. Someone will gently remind you of the etiquette, and we'll move on. This isn't some zero-tolerance, max-consequences new policy." F…

I don't feel like it's a strawman. I don't know the culture there, but what about:

- Talking about unions, or pay equity (Might be illegal to ban either)

- "Hey Jodie, my partner and I are marching in a Gay pride parade this weekend, wanna come?" (Is that political at Basecamp?)

- Some ex-military employees form an informal group to welcome and mentor new employees coming out of the military. (Is that political?)

- One of our new clients is a controversial group/business/etc, what should we do?

I could keep going for a while...it's difficult to avoid "politics".

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#214

Post by snotrockets »

anm89 wrote: post #99
paxys wrote: post #27

Can there ever be a non-work related conversation between employees that is not a "societal and political discussion"? In the past week I have spoken to coworkers about high housing costs (bunch of us are testing the market right now), property taxes, EV rebates, weed legalization, homeless/drug use problem on the streets. All of this is apparently a fireable offense at Basecamp? People are going to say "obviously st…

You are actively misinterpreting what they said. a) They explicitly state that employees are allowed to actively discuss these things, just not in group chat. b) They explicitly state that this isn't "some high consequences zero tolerance policy" and that the consequence for violating the rule will be that you are reminded of the rule. It's sad that this is the top comment.

No, original post had don't discuss. They backtracked to "not on main", maybe after realizing this could be read as barring protected activities.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#215

Post by nemo44x »

tshaddox wrote: post #177
nemo44x wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure - the USA Government wants to sign a deal to buy your software. But a group of people start a divisive email thread on how the USA Gov is a racist, white supremacist, sexist, imperialist government and the company should boycott them. Or that Israel wants to sign a deal but a thread is started that we should boycott and divest from the the Zionist murderers of Palestine. Or the Republican Party wants to sign a d…

I appreciate that you provided a lot of examples. For each example, I’m wondering if you think it shouldn’t be discussed because the debate itself isn’t important to the company (e.g. “it doesn’t matter whether the US government is a white supremacist government, we are doing this deal with them either way”), or because the company has taken a stance on the debate (e.g. “the US government is not a white supremacist g…

I believe it is up to the share holders and that’s it. If the share holders don’t want to do business with a certain group of people, it is their prerogative. They can vote. Employees can quit.

And yes I don’t think the debate is relevant to a business organization. The elected government decides who business can be and which business can be conducted. If you don’t like it then by all means, petition your representatives. But please do it on your own time.

You can do business with the Catholic Church and Planned Parenthood. If you’re keen to then use your earnings to crush one org or the other.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#216

Post by detaro »

xiphias2 wrote: post #158
detaro wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the problem is that no, we do not know what they are referring to. Lots of murky lines, lots of people with bad experiences that what for them is essential is considered over lines, worry that it'll be used to silence internal discussion of things the company does, ... (and of course if you impose it on a company used to something different, it's potentially a massive culture shift) The "you can take it to pr…

Blacklist/whitelist, main vs master, is there a bias in promoting women, what are the rules for dating a colleague, is an anti-bias training needed are all topics that are divisive, though some of them are easy to solve (David has strong opinions for naming variables, remote working solves the dating problem and no peer reviews means that less talk needs to be done about promotions).

Okay, come up with a company policy for those (and if people feel strongly about it you probably want to know rather than have them just bitch in private about it), and if people get obnoxious about it do something about that. Instead of leaving your gay employee wondering if she needs to ask permission to mention getting married because that would be bringing up a "societal or political topic" (or to pick an example from elsewhere in the thread, if someone can mention that they went on a hunting trip on the weekend).

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#217

Post by tshaddox »

robjan wrote: post #210
drewbug01 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not unable to work; unwelcome at work. I mentioned it elsewhere, but saying “my husband and I went to [insert benign weekend activity here]” is now a potentially political conversation because there are people in modern, 2021 workplaces who thing that being gay at all is a “political” issue. So again - not that I can’t work, but I’m unwelcome at work. Even if the company would never enforce the policy that way: they…

I think there a difference. A statement of indisputable fact i.e. "I went to the park with my husband" is different from an opinion or belief such as "I think x should be y", regardless of how accepted it is in the workplace or society as a whole.

You think that the statement “I think my marriage should remain legal” is significantly different from the statement “I went to the park with my husband”?

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#218

Post by drewbug01 »

babesh wrote: post #199
drewbug01 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn’t that long ago that even in tech, you couldn’t mention same-sex spouses without backlash. And that’s still the case today in other industries (particularly ones that don’t have a sizable internet culture influence like tech does). So like to apply that specifically to a work context: that’s saying “no watercooler chat about what you and your spouses got up to over the weekend” because your spouse existing is…

I worked in tech over twenty years ago and I knew multiple same sex couples back then. It wasn’t an issue at all. This was the Bay Area. May have been different elsewhere. It is still not an issue in the Bay Area.

The Bay Area has always been a bit ahead of the curve there - but my point isn’t just an LGBT thing... that’s the example most relevant to me personally. People of color could probably talk about similar issues related to this kind of policy.

Of note: Basecamp was at least until recently based primarily in the Midwest, in Chicago. Bay Area culture influences them in the same way it influences all tech culture, but they are certainly situated in a different culture than that of the Bay.

(Also of note is that while SF specifically was friendlier to LGBT people historically, this is a difference of degrees: LGBT folks in SF experienced plenty of discrimination over the years. And personally, it’s the only place I’ve been called a “faggot” while walking on the sidewalk - multiple times. Anecdote, but still.)

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#219

Post by sokoloff »

drewbug01 wrote: post #189
jiofih wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some people’s entire existence political, full stop > you uninvited certain people entirely Can you elaborate on this? I What makes a person unable to work without bringing those political issues up?

Not unable to work; unwelcome at work. I mentioned it elsewhere, but saying “my husband and I went to [insert benign weekend activity here]” is now a potentially political conversation because there are people in modern, 2021 workplaces who thing that being gay at all is a “political” issue. So again - not that I can’t work, but I’m unwelcome at work. Even if the company would never enforce the policy that way: they…

If someone comes to me and reports anyone (of any gender) for using that sentence and claiming that it was political, they'll be first invited to repeat themself because I must have heard them incorrectly and then if that doesn't clue them in, I'll continue along the conversation until they realize that I don't believe that's the least bit political of a statement and if they continue to think that it is, they are only welcome to do that thinking at work with their mouth shut and away from their keyboard.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#220

Post by nemo44x »

detaro wrote: post #187
nemo44x wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a lot of things that aren’t political per-se you shouldn’t share with the broader group. For instance, maybe my family has a history of killing wild animals for food. I wouldn’t share our kill shots with my company the same way I would with friends that are interested in hunting. Because I know it’s something a good chunk of people don’t want to see and it’s unnecessary to share. Now imagine I had a few frien…

> And we went out of our way to not only share pictures of these killings (which are all legal) but started to intimidate people that didn’t like to see them. And your managements only way of reacting to that is banning all potentially political talk? Really? My boss would go "go make a #hunting channel and keep it there". And I presume if I tried to get him into gun rights activism the response would be "no, stop pe…

This entire article and thread and Twitter are people complaining that the boss just said “no stop pestering us about it”.

You made my point?

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