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Changes at Basecamp

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Re: Changes at Basecamp

#481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think I misread you, and I think I fully understand what you mean - to some, simply saying “my husband and I” triggers the feeling that you’re shoving an agenda in their face. I get it, and I don’t disagree at all. But you immediately lept to “conservative politics” as the one opposition that might object to the very existence of somebody. Clearly, without any context, if ever a word were to be said about thi…

> But you immediately lept to “conservative politics” as the one opposition that might object to the very existence of somebody. It’s not the only one, I suppose. But you’re painting it as if it’s not the primary one. It is far and away a position held by those who also profess conservative political values. I understand the hair you’re trying to split, but I don’t feel it’s worth splitting. The fact that a handful o…

> It’s not the only one, I suppose. But you’re painting it as if it’s not the primary one. It is far and away a position held by those who also profess conservative political values. I understand the hair you’re trying to split, but I don’t feel it’s worth splitting.

Maybe in Afghanistan, but not in the US. The majority of Republicans support gay marriage. Out of those that don’t, few would find “the existence” of a gay person “offensive” even if they reject extending state sanction to gay marriage. For a long time many Americans opposed re-marriage for divorced people. That doesn’t mean they found the existence of divorced people offensive.

I don’t see the point in treating everything short of complete acceptance as equivalent to opposing someone’s “existence.” Some people in America don’t want, as a matter of government policy, immigrants like me coming to the US from Muslim countries. They’re not opposed to “my existence”—invariably they’ll leave me alone if I leave them alone.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#482

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 really detest such things, and the "problem" is easily solved by "I don't give a fuck".

I don't give a fuck if you are male or female, or anything in between, if you are, black, white, yellow or whatever, neither do I care about your sexual preferences, or your religion. And neither should anyone else care.

I do care about how well you can do your job, how well you fit in our team, etc.

I helped hire most of our team members, and by luck they are very diverse in all of the above mentions traits. But who should care?

This is 2021, nobody should give a fuck about those things anymore. If you do, in either direction, you're part of the problem, not the solution.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no quota. There are goals to improve these numbers. But there is no quota in the professional world. You're simply misinformed on this. I have direct primary source information from recruiting personnel in "Google and Facebook and Amazon and Microsoft" that there are significant specific quota'd positions. These programs leaking to non-woke press is going to be an outrage.

Goals != Quotas. This is frequently misunderstood by people outside these companies (and frequently by people inside them too without integrity). You're supposed to meet goals without compromising on integrity or quality. e.g. you can't ship buggy messes. And you can't hire substandard employees. There are mechanisms ("bar raisers") in place to do this, at least at Amazon. I suppose I can't speak for Google, Facebook…

You're suggesting I'm playing broken telephone game, yet you're the one extrapolating your company's experience to all the other hundreds. I can't speak for Amazon's policies. But there are companies that have headcount for N people, and N/X slots will be for Y identity.

Then you have companies like Twitter that literally say on their hiring boards:

"Our vision for the future is clear.

50%.

At least half of our global workforce will be women.

25%

At least a quarter of our US workforce will be under-represented minorities."[0]

Key word "will", not "would like." How do you interpret that as a goal as opposed to a clear quota?

Honestly I can't wrap my head around how Twitter believes 45% men / 55% women is the ideal and 55% men / 45% women would be unacceptable.

[0]https://careers.twitter.com/en/diversity.html

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing about the policy seemed to suggest to me that gay people would have to conceal their sexuality at work or avoid mentioning it. I think you can read it as protecting conversations around gay people. Consider the following hypothetical: You: "... my husband..." Me: "You know, I don't think gay people should be married. Marriage is blah blah blah" ------------------------ By my reading of the OP "my" comment the…

OK, but it could also go... Bob: "... my husband..." Fred: "oh" Bob: "What?" Fred: "nothing" Bob: "Okay..." Fred: "....i think i'll go finish my lunch at my desk" Bob: "hey don't forget to finish that code review for me later" Fred: <acts different in subtle and plausibly deniable way with Bob from now on" Bob: "Hey, do you have a problem with me being gay?" Fred: "DON'T MAKE THIS POLITICAL" etc.

It could, but how would a corporate policy that permits discussing politics help anything? If Fred is anti-gay and going to subtly be a jerk to Bob from now on, do you think that in the alternate reality where discussion of politics were permitted that things would be better? In this alternate reality do you expect Bob to have a quick workplace chat with Fred that convinces him to be cool with gay people?

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#485

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…

Discrimination in any form should not be accepted. But is this still a political topic? I thought we all already decided that.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#486

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 really detest such things, and the "problem"…

> I don't give a fuck

Some people would say you have the _privilege_ to not give a fuck

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#487

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?

Whilst this is reasonable and well-intentioned, the unfortunate truth is that wokeness is used as tactic for gaining power. And in a company power struggles are bad for the company.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#488

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 really detest such things, and the "problem"…

That's a position of privilege. Only people who aren't discriminated against can afford to take a position of indifference.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think I misread you, and I think I fully understand what you mean - to some, simply saying “my husband and I” triggers the feeling that you’re shoving an agenda in their face. I get it, and I don’t disagree at all. But you immediately lept to “conservative politics” as the one opposition that might object to the very existence of somebody. Clearly, without any context, if ever a word were to be said about thi…

> But you immediately lept to “conservative politics” as the one opposition that might object to the very existence of somebody. It’s not the only one, I suppose. But you’re painting it as if it’s not the primary one. It is far and away a position held by those who also profess conservative political values. I understand the hair you’re trying to split, but I don’t feel it’s worth splitting. The fact that a handful o…

I find about 50% of my coworkers offensive in one way or another. Doesn't mean I make it an issue or throw it in their face or try to sabotage their work or anything like that. A lot of people who would never be friends in their private lives work together in tolerance and cooperation at the office. Expecting everyone to approve of every aspect of how you live is unrealistic.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#490

I wasn't expecting to like these changes after seeing a ton of tweets from rubyists I respect criticizing them, but after reading them... I love them all. Companies becoming vocal political entities over the past few years has been mind-blowing and I'm glad to see companies starting to reel it back and get back to, well, being companies. They make products; they don't need to have opinions on unrelated things. IMO pe…

> Seems like they handled the paternalistic benefits well also by just providing direct compensation instead. This one's odd to me, because I thought the point of non-cash benefits was that it was much cheaper than giving out cash because the employer has more bargaining power than you.

Not at all. They probably just got tired of people complaining that providing benefit X that could only be used by some slice of the workforce was therefore unjust. Which is absolutely ridiculous. But here we are.
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