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Changes at Basecamp

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Re: Changes at Basecamp

#371

Post by TearsInTheRain »

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…

My company has mandated that 40% of our recruiting contacts for engineers are women. We have spent weeks talking about bias in our interview process and despite having no metrics showing bias is a problem we have made changes to combat it (i.e. no video on the call) that have led to worse experiences for our candidates. Suffice to say we have had a lot of trouble hiring engineers.

> Why wouldn't you want to bring them up at work?

Imho companies that try to tackle the woke political issues are going to end up worse off and never make those few employees that keep bringing them up happy.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#372

Post by lindy2021 »

hedora wrote: post #353
lindy2021 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is our company discriminating, even unintentionally and do our LGBT and minority employees feel as safe and valued as our straight cis white employees This is an HR responsibility. You either trust them to avoid and eliminate discrimination or you don't.

With what authority will HR eliminate discrimination? At a minimum, they’d need to stop accepting employee referrals (how can they tell if the referrals biased?) and take over the technical interview process. Also, what happens when an exec elsewhere in the company discriminates against someone? Will HR have the power to unilaterally fire the exec? The CEO? The chairman of the board? How would they even detect the di…

You're hired to produce value, not instigate political change.

If your goal is to "force my values on the employees, and silence dissent (no bigoted discussions at work)", then go start your own company (although your demands best describe a cult).

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#373

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

kristofferR wrote: post #276
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…

Sounds just as dumb as when Hacker News banned "politics" for a period, and people were discouraged from posting EFF blog posts and the like, because "politics" is an impressively vague word. Politics is life, it doesn't have to be toxic.

In my experience, when people say "I don't want politics at work", what they mean is they don't want what you'd call toxic politics. For example, I consider my workplace generally apolitical despite our large and active DEI committees, because they consistently frame their work in positive terms: lots of "here's how we can make people happier and more successful!", occasional "suchandsuch was a tragedy and we hope to work towards a better future", nothing in the vein of "X group is bad" or "Y politician must be defeated".

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#374

Post by sdf131 »

pg_bot wrote: post #319
kyawzazaw wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for pay, i don't think so?

https://m.signalvnoise.com/how-we-pay-people-at-basecamp/

Without RSUs/stock options, it's misleading.

They might be paying a competitive _base_ salary but stock is frequently > 50% of Senior employees compensation package

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#375

Post by yibg »

angry_octet wrote: post #362
yibg wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you'd be completely fine with being passed over for a job because there is a quota for pink people and you're not pink? One can object to bad solutions to a problem without denying the problem itself exists. It's exactly the stifling of these types of discussions to real problems that's the issue. Any suggestion of alternatives or pointing out problems with existing practices, and you get labeled a bigot.

You understand that white people are literally pink right? And there is an effective white guy target at many workplaces: all but one. People choose other people like themselves. The preposterous nature of your contention is that I would be passed over for being too white? Well, I would simply take one of the many other jobs my strategic class and race positioning allows me to take.

The Asian students that can't get into Harvard despite higher scores disagree with you.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#376

Post by jkaplowitz »

lindy2021 wrote: post #300
jakelazaroff wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you trust any employer’s HR department? Their job is to reduce the company’s liability, not help you with your problems.

> is our company discriminating, even unintentionally and do our LGBT and minority employees feel as safe and valued as our straight cis white employees This is an HR responsibility. You either trust them to avoid and eliminate discrimination or you don't.

What if we don't, for not only Basecamp but for most employers worldwide in any industry? This is a very common view.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#377

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

detaro wrote: post #216
xiphias2 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

These kind of blanket no politics policies are typically direct responses to obnoxious behavior. I don't think we know the story at Basecamp yet, but when it happened at Coinbase, it was in response to a vocal segment of employees who demanded that the company publicly recite the slogan of a political movement they supported.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#378

Post by pradn »

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 more general problem is the same words can be interpreted differently by different people. On the internet, given a large enough audience, every interpretation with every possible emphasis will be brought out.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#379

Post by tomlockwood »

TearsInTheRain wrote: post #371
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…

My company has mandated that 40% of our recruiting contacts for engineers are women. We have spent weeks talking about bias in our interview process and despite having no metrics showing bias is a problem we have made changes to combat it (i.e. no video on the call) that have led to worse experiences for our candidates. Suffice to say we have had a lot of trouble hiring engineers. > Why wouldn't you want to bring the…

Are you saying you'd prefer to talk about politics, at work? Because it sounds like you consider this to be a political issue, that you'd like addressed.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#380

Post by eweise »

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…

Seems pretty clear to me that they mean general political discussions and not those that relate to the company. Imagine being on a team where there are differing opinions on the Israel/Palestine conflict, and it keeps getting brought up in threads? You think that team is going to gel?
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