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Changes at Basecamp

world.hey.com

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Re: Changes at Basecamp

#261

Post by wombatpm »

meowsnow wrote: post #50
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…

All of the communications on these channels are typically legally discoverable, so it makes sense you don't want to introduce potential vectors for political discrimination in an increasingly remote world. There are plenty of non political topics to cover...Gardening, pets, clothing, home renovation, local music events and festivals, kids, etc. In all the teams I've been on, political topics never came up. It's okay…

Gardening: So are you a climate change wacko or a doomsday prepper wacko? Clothing: Do you know where I can get my leather chaps repaired? Home Renovation: I need to get a permit and inspection for my rec room renovation. They want confirmation that the beam can hold 400lbs in the sex-swing.

Any topic can be political if you are enough of a jerk.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#263

Post by villasv »

jessaustin wrote: post #83
eplanit wrote: post #72

So refreshing. Yes, focus on the business (because it is, after all, a business). The job people are hired for is not politics or activism. Also glad to see the weird new-age peer review crap and "soft" stuff eliminated, too. A lot of that is accumulated trendiness from the 90s onward. I love the new policy and attitude, as its emphasis is more about the professional than the personality.

...accumulated trendiness from the 90s onward. If these have existed for 30 years they are scarcely "trendy".

This trendy thing called “progress”, freaking bandwagon mentality for _centuries_.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#264

Post by lupire »

kiawe_fire wrote: post #242
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…

> conservative politics in the UD make some people’s entire existence political, full stop Funny, as a conservative minority in a straight white liberal company, my entire existence isn’t just political, it’s apparently a moral imperative that I be reminded on a daily basis that people like myself not only shouldn’t have a voice, we shouldn’t be allowed to exist in society at all. Full stop. It’s made quite clear tha…

How are you defining "conservative"?

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#265

Post by ativzzz »

rexreed wrote: post #198

How does the 10% profit share work? Do they take 10% of profits and divide them equally among all employees? Contractors? Full time? Part time? Interns? Does someone know how the profit share works?

Typically you can either give everyone the same percent or say you set aside 10% of your profit and divvy it up proportional to people's salaries

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#266

Post by lupire »

imgabe wrote: post #248
tshaddox wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The blog post specifically mentioned the work chat channel. Talk about whatever you want in other channels. If you were in the middle of a meeting to plan a new product launch and suddenly announced "I'm getting married this weekend!" what kind of reaction would you expect? People might be polite but gently remind you that's not really relevant to what's being discussed at the moment and to get back to work. If you k…

Not every office is full of robots. People chitchat during meetings.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#267

Post by temp8964 »

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…

> But to others, "politics at work" means "are we paying women and men the same for doing the same job?" and "are our recruiting practices leading to a non-diverse workforce and missing out on great people who should work here?" and "what problems does our company sole, and for whom?". These are really important questions. Why wouldn't you want to bring them up at work?

I don't understand why would any company want employees to openly discuss "are we paying women and men the same for doing the same job?" This is a terrible question for any specific company to answer. Calculate the average wage of male and female employees? Very likely it won't be equal. And run regression to control different variables (experiences, skills)? If this is not inviting unnecessary internal fight, I can't think of anything else. Not any sane person would want to do this its own company.

"are our recruiting practices leading to a non-diverse workforce and missing out on great people who should work here?" Same spirit, if you don't believe it, nobody can prove it.

"what problems does our company sole, and for whom?" not sure what's the point here.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#268

Post by drewbug01 »

imgabe wrote: post #248
tshaddox wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The blog post specifically mentioned the work chat channel. Talk about whatever you want in other channels. If you were in the middle of a meeting to plan a new product launch and suddenly announced "I'm getting married this weekend!" what kind of reaction would you expect? People might be polite but gently remind you that's not really relevant to what's being discussed at the moment and to get back to work. If you k…

“ No more societal and political discussions on our company Basecamp account. “

They banned it in all channels, and told their employees to chat on Signal:

“ 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.”

So - it’s not like what you asserted, at all. What you asserted is somewhat reasonable (even if I would want to nitpick at the edge cases) ... but they’re not saying anything close to what you’re saying.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#269

Post by ehershey »

mempko wrote: post #111

The "no committees" takes away autonomy. The "no politics" takes away purpose. All you are left with is mastery. They just killed intrinsic motivation. See Daniel Pink.

You’ve got it exactly backwards. Committees take away autonomy by introducing external influence. Politics by definition is guiding policy, not acting with purpose within the confines of policy.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#270

Post by kyawzazaw »

pg_bot wrote: post #170
davidgerard wrote: post #82

Are they trying to head off unionization?

Basecamp is known to have one of the most generous pay/benefits packages in the industry. Generous to the point where I would have no idea what a union would even bargain for. I would highly doubt that this was in response to any effort to unionize.

for pay, i don't think so?
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