So is the DEI officer currently on staff going to cease being a DEI officer and just 'stick to HR' stuff, if politics and topics adjacent are out the window?
How is DEI even a job? What do you do, yell at people when a meeting isn't diverse enough?
Changes at Basecamp
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Re: Changes at Basecamp
#42Must be such a relief for them that "project management, team communication, and email software" don’t touch at all on social or political issues, in any ways that their staff might want to discuss.
I don't get what you're saying. Is there some unique intersection between the software they develop and social/political issues?
They essentially build communications software –– social software. To try and say that you can do this without ever considering social issues is strange to me, and seems like at worst, it could damage their products.
For one thing, there is no shortage of examples of social products that have launched offerings without thinking how they could be abused (hello cross-Slack messaging) and had to recant quickly. But to go more deep: social software is about community, and communities bring political and social issues with them.
Should you have a gender field in your user form? What values should it have? Should you have vacation auto-responders? How will they operate? Do you have activity lights? With what timeout? Should you allow users to filter or block one another? What emoji do you offer? What biases do they exhibit? Will you refuse certain kinds of customer? Will you _protect_ certain kinds of customer despite public outcry? Or certain kinds of content?
How you approach these sorts of questions can touch on a wide range of social/political issues, and they appear to be saying "only David and Jason can discuss, decide or think about these things". Which seems ... limiting.
Re: Changes at Basecamp
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
DEI is mentioned in this announcement: > The responsibility for DEI work returns to Andrea, our head of People Ops. The implication is that (prior to this announcement) they had one or more committees responsible for DEI.
Yes. I read that. And what I am flatly pondering is what that "responsibility" could possibly consist of, if the topics inherent to DEI are now not to be had at basecamp.
My interpretation was that discussions directly related to each job would obviously be allowed. I'm sure people still need to discuss employment law, immigration law, IP law, etc. for certain roles. I gathered that this announcement is about casual at-work discussions e.g. in the company Slack.
Re: Changes at Basecamp
#44Can 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…
Try reading the OP again. The headline is “No more societal and political discussions on our company Basecamp account.”
They’re not saying you can’t chat with your colleagues about politics, they’re just saying it shouldn’t happen in the space everyone has to use for work.
Re: Changes at Basecamp
#45> 1. No more societal and political discussions at Basecamp. Today's social and political waters are especially choppy. Sensitivities are at 11, and every discussion remotely related to politics, advocacy, or society at large quickly spins away from pleasant. You shouldn't have to wonder if staying out of it means you're complicit, or wading into it means you're a target. These are difficult enough waters to navigate…
I think those are particularly choice words coming from Basecamp, who have been particularly active in calling out Apple's treatment of iOS and the App Store, which is in at least some sense political advocacy. Life is necessarily political; and they should be more aware of it than most others. I'm not endorsing Apple's behavior with the App Store, but seriously, this is very out-of-character and I don't like the ton…
They also say, "We're in the business of making software, and a few tangential things that touch that edge."
Advocacy on the policies of one of the world's foremost software distribution gatekeeper seems well within how they define "their business". I don't think it takes much squinting to see how they can view this sort of advocacy as in their lane, while the popular political discussions of the day are not.
Re: Changes at Basecamp
#46Can 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 can have these conversations but you can’t have them on company property. But if you want to create your own forum with other coworkers then go ahead.
So no more using the company Slack for this type of thing.
I think people are starting to see how some groups have been undermining and infiltrating every organization they can. It’s literally in their literature to do this. Replicate what they’ve accomplished in universities and journalism - it has spread to tech workplaces, non-profits, and elite private schools. The goal is to politicize everything and then seize power and then pillage for personal gain.
Re: Changes at Basecamp
#47sam's pissed.
Re: Changes at Basecamp
#48Can 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 this is apparently a fireable offense at Basecamp?
I think you're being needlessly hyperbolic but fear not, DHH has you covered:
> If you're in doubt as to whether your choice of forum or topic for a discussion is appropriate, please ask before posting. 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.
https://world.hey.com/dhh/basecamp-s-new-etiquette-regarding...
Re: Changes at Basecamp
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. I read that. And what I am flatly pondering is what that "responsibility" could possibly consist of, if the topics inherent to DEI are now not to be had at basecamp.
My interpretation was that discussions directly related to each job would obviously be allowed. I'm sure people still need to discuss employment law, immigration law, IP law, etc. for certain roles. I gathered that this announcement is about casual at-work discussions e.g. in the company Slack.
I think we may have differing ideas as to what "DEI" work consists of; because to your response, that work sounds like the typical duties of an HR officer in collaboration with corporate counel, not necessarily, and not specifically DEI.
Maybe my bias as a DEI officer in current and past roles is on the table here-making things a bit cloudy, and I'm just without an immediate means of resolving that.
Re: Changes at Basecamp
#50Can 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 to find friends outside of work and discuss politics with them; your social network doesn't have to center on the workplace.