Changes at Basecamp • Hacker News Board

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#221

Post by kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 1:15 AM UTC

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…

>"are we paying women and men the same for doing the same job?"

Yes. Wow problem solved! No one in America pays people differently based on their gender. It is based on your experience, your ability to negotiate, and how you sell yourself. I bet short dainty men earn less on average too.

Also, I applaud them for banning politics at work. Nothing you mentioned is relevant to Basecamp or things that they are producing. Talking about politics just creates animosity and drives teams apart. Not everyone has the same viewpoints and most people cannot "just get along" when they disagree.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#222

Post by drewbug01 » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 1:17 AM UTC

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.

I’m telling you though - that’s not how it plays out. This is something I’ve lived through - I’ve been asked not to talk about relationships at work because they aren’t heteronormative.

It’s not a hair-splitting thing, I’m explicitly asserting that there are people who will twist it this way; at least they have in the past and I don’t see how it’ll be different now.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#223

Post by tshaddox » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 1:17 AM UTC

drusepth wrote: post #169

djrobstep wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But what's an example of a political issue that would affect someone's work at Basecamp? Let's say I work at Basecamp and believe that workers should be entitled to seats on Basecamp's board, just as they are in all large companies in Germany. Should I be punished for raising this?

This seems like something you would want to bring up with your boss / HR / higher-ups, instead of starting an open discussion/debate with the whole company, right?

No reason it couldn’t be both.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#224

Post by PragmaticPulp » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 1:18 AM UTC

sktrdie wrote: post #14

agd wrote: post #11

Think we'll see a lot more companies coming out with statements like this. Who wants their work slack to look like the worst parts of Twitter and Facebook? With employees cancelling each other and demanding they recognise various political points? Not me. You can tell there have been a lot of difficult discussions with various employees behind the scenes. It's all a distraction. Work should be about work.

So? We are humans. We get distracted by a whole bunch of things that happen to us daily because, well, we're emotional creatures. When you are somewhere most of the day you end up being distracted by many other things than "just work". If you cut the politics then something else will keep our primordial animal minds busy. A place where you have to only "be about work" is impossible to achieve. Even sweatshops in Bang…

> If you cut the politics then something else will keep our primordial animal minds busy.

Apples and oranges. Politics triggers people at an entirely different level, to the point that many can't let it go.

Basecamp's decisions may not make sense if you've only worked with level-headed coworkers who are capable of disagreeing with each other on politics and still maintaining respect for each other. However, once you've seen what happens to offices where people let their angry political debates from Facebook and Twitter spill over into the office, it makes a lot more sense.

Company chat shouldn't look like Twitter flamewars or Facebook rants. Some people can debate things and then check their feelings at the door when it's time to get back to work, but many can't.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#225

Post by detaro » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 1:18 AM UTC

nemo44x wrote: post #220

detaro wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

If you don't see a difference between "don't talk about any political topics" and "stop pushing for the company to do something about your pet topic X", then yes, that is your point. But given you recognized a difference between "talking about your hunting" and "pushing for the company to support the NRA", I doubt that is the case.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#226

Post by bo1024 » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 1:18 AM UTC

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…

Very interesting - the Basecamp statement addresses both discussions about politics broadly, and discussions about internal company policies related to diversity, ethics, and inclusion. In fact, it changes the power structures around those to make them more top-down. It seems a bit disingenuous to lump these changes in with the first kind.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#227

Post by PragmaticPulp » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 1:20 AM UTC

brown9-2 wrote: post #100

shados wrote: post #34

This is a tricky one. On one hand, there's the obvious issues: almost everything you can talk about is societal or political. Talking about your lawn growing is societal because it means you can have a lawn and that gets into the housing crisis sooner or later. If people can't speak about politics, marginalized group will have difficulty bringing up tough issues that impact them in their day to day job. On the other…

> And god forbid you're NOT part of that channel, because then you're the "one person who doesn't care" or some such is this a serious thing actually happening to anyone?

I worked at a company that had to institute a similar policy for more or less this reason: The people pushing certain political agendas wanted to force everyone else to pick a side on certain political issues.

When the conversations get to a point where even opting out is perceived as the "wrong answer", things get ugly.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#228

Post by sokoloff » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 1:21 AM UTC

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…

The post specifically contains "People can take the conversations with willing co-workers to Signal, Whatsapp, or even a personal Basecamp account, but it can't happen where the work happens anymore."

That seems entirely reasonable to me.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#229

Post by tshaddox » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 1:22 AM UTC

drusepth wrote: post #188

tshaddox wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about people whose personal interests and activities directly involve politics? Like people interested in political analysis or reporting, or people interested in competitive policy debate, or even people who actively do advocacy work in their free time? Is small talk about the advocacy work you did over the weekend worse than my small talk about building drones over the weekend?

>Is small talk about the advocacy work you did over the weekend worse than my small talk about building drones over the weekend? I think you're way more likely to find coworkers that get mad or upset over the advocacy work you did over the weekend than you are to find coworkers mad about you building a drone. One of these topics seems to have a much higher chance of negatively affecting either you or your coworker in…

> If you're enjoying some watercooler conversation with a coworker, would you prefer them chatting about the drone they built or the door-to-door-campaigning they did for 2024, or the protest they were at against ?

Well, I’m the one who likes fiddling with drones in my free time, so I’d personally be more interested in that discussion! But that’s a different question than which of these conversations should be prohibited by the employer.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#230

Post by mwcampbell » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 1:23 AM UTC

gregd wrote: post #205

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…

The issue I see here is that Jason Fried and DHH state that this decision lands solely with them. Giving Basecamp the benefit of the doubt is impossible until and unless they center marginalized voices and give them positions of power at Basecamp. Otherwise this decision is cowardice wrapped in some arbitrary policies.

> The issue I see here is that Jason Fried and DHH state that this decision lands solely with them.

To me that's just sensible leadership. To keep the company productive, you have to let the leaders make decisions while the subordinates focus on doing the work.

> Giving Basecamp the benefit of the doubt is impossible

But maybe the only way to solve the problem of polarization is for all of us to give each other the benefit of the doubt more than we might be comfortable doing.