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“About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

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Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#601

Post by flippinburgers »

kaitai wrote: post #302
koheripbal wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our experience when we issued our "No Politics / No Religion" policy at work was very positive. The few people who had an issue with it, subsequently quit or were terminated, and many of their co-workers actually thanked us afterwards for it. We didn't have to pay them to leave. One tried to use the company social media accounts to advance her politics, so we fired her, and the other person became frustrated that she…

Why not just... manage people well? No need to make it no politics/no religion at work. Endless talking about keto or veganism or BeachBody or CrossFit or vaccines or children or being anti-child or emacs or vim or whatever can be just as divisive and counterproductive if it's not managed . Lots of people are assholes or misinformed about a lot of stuff. Big deal. Manage. That's the active part of the word "manager".…

There may have been more opportunity for subtle management beyond a dictated top down policy of no politcs/religion at work, but at the end of the day it is clear that the two employees being described by OP needed to go.

Based on the extreme degree of ... inflammation ... fanned by twitter, fb, etc I would say that people who are not able to keep their opinions under control beyond an occasional two person conversation are the ones who need to seek some sort of counseling.

There are conversations and then there are youtube meltdowns. I have no desire to work with the latter. You speak of professionalism and respect. In the diverse world we live in keeping to oneself seems the only reasonable path for the time being.

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#603

Post by DiNovi »

ipaddr wrote: post #152

Interestingly the employees who left have the best career prospects. Entire iOS team, head of marketing and head of product team. The 6 months free money is hard for anyone entering a strong job market to pass up. A lot of comments seem to think 1/3 left because of the no politics policy. 1 / 3 left because it would increase their wealth or give them the summer covid took away last year. How many people would leave y…

Just weird to me that people think like this. The obvious issue is poor management and nothing else

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#604

Post by dragonwriter »

superultra wrote: post #593
digitaltrees wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. It’s about professionalism. Flame wars at work create a hostile environment where quiet voices are silenced. It’s the same reason HN bans political flame wars.

It’s ironic that “professionalism” is so malleable. We’re talking about misuse of customer data in a borderline racist way, and when employees did their job and raised red flags, the founder dug through search logs in a petty attempt to embarrass an employee - in front of the company. Tell me again how this is “about professionalism.”

That it is about professionalism doesn’t seem to be in dispute.

Who’s professionalism might be, though.

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#605

Post by christophilus »

klyrs wrote: post #142
throwawaysea wrote: post #43

I really hope more companies declare their workplaces to be politics free. I am completely tired of the long march through the institutions ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_march_through_the_ins... ) that has culminated in corporations being weaponized for one-sided progressive political agendas. These departures really just give away the biases of the tech industry at large. As for Basecamp's leaders - I thi…

I'm curious why more right-leaning folks don't see this as a free speech issue.

It can be seen that way. But it can also be seen this way: I agreed to come work for this company, and now, I have to deal with unwanted evangelism from my coworkers. They should be free to say whatever they want on their own time, but I shouldn’t be forced to listen to it / deal with it when all I want to do is the damn job I signed up for.

Maybe it’s the captive audience that is the distinguishing factor. I’m not sure.

For example, I work on a software platform where our customers regularly host content that I find offensive and sometimes even disturbing. But I’m not forced to watch/listen to it, so I’m fine with it.

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#606

Post by thorough »

wbl wrote: post #563
digitaltrees wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. It’s about professionalism. Flame wars at work create a hostile environment where quiet voices are silenced. It’s the same reason HN bans political flame wars.

Saying "I don't think we should make fun of our customers" isn't a flame war. 1/3 of employees don't leave because a few unreasonable people are told to tone it down.

DHH says the trouble didn’t come from objecting to the list. In fact, he’s disavowed it repeatedly. He said the trouble was that the employee said that the list was not merely unprofessional but was one step on a ladder of racial oppression that leads to genocide.

It’s one thing to say someone is acting unprofessionally. It’s another thing altogether to accuse them of being on a path to genocide. If I did that to someone when it was so clearly uncalled for, I would be an asshole and my relationship with that person would be strained from that point forward.

If you don’t like that strain in your workplace, you try to draw a line on speech. It’s not something I’d want from the government, but it seems appropriate for a workplace.

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#607

Post by lolinder »

rsj_hn wrote: post #390
baron816 wrote: post #181

What I think is lost in the conversation here is that people don’t really have organizations they can go to to advocate their political positions. People have their families, their jobs, and maybe a couple of friends and that’s about it. They need an outlet to push the ideas and causes they care about. The workplace is one of the few places where they can feel like they’re having an impact, but that’s not really appr…

> What I think is lost in the conversation here is that people don’t really have organizations they can go to to advocate their political positions. Why should workplaces serve as political-outlet therapy locations because people can't think of other organizations to use for this purpose? There are, in fact, countless numbers of political organizations and groups in the U.S. and you are free to start your own if you…

I think that's OP's point.

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#608

Post by thorough »

superultra wrote: post #593
digitaltrees wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. It’s about professionalism. Flame wars at work create a hostile environment where quiet voices are silenced. It’s the same reason HN bans political flame wars.

It’s ironic that “professionalism” is so malleable. We’re talking about misuse of customer data in a borderline racist way, and when employees did their job and raised red flags, the founder dug through search logs in a petty attempt to embarrass an employee - in front of the company. Tell me again how this is “about professionalism.”

You are leaving something out that seems quite relevant to me, which is that the list wasn’t just objected to as unprofessional but that the conversation was escalated to the highest possible level, linking it to genocide.

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#609

Post by anon7725 »

marcinzm wrote: post #537
digitaltrees wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. It’s about professionalism. Flame wars at work create a hostile environment where quiet voices are silenced. It’s the same reason HN bans political flame wars.

You mean the professionalism of the founder going off on people in petty ways after they pointed out that making fun of customer names is bad and the company should review it's culture? Or where they banned any ability to give negative feedback about management under the disguise of banning political discussions? If anything, I see everyone who is leaving as being the professional ones in this situation.

I agree that a leader should not single individuals out in a public way. That’s wrong.

However, if DHH’s verbatim quote of his response is accurate, it sounds like things had gotten out of hand with this company’s culture.

If a leader says “this is unacceptable - we will do better going forward”, that should be enough in this kind of situation. But apparently it wasn’t for the employee that you allude to.

A third of the company had joined some D&I committee and that committee apparently felt that its scope extended to the entire operations of the company. It sounds incredibly disruptive.

Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

#610

Post by uh_uh »

predaking wrote: post #480
Cyberdog wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think people in charge of hiring, particularly outside of the SV bubble, are going to be eager to pick someone up who left their last job because they couldn't agree to stop bitching about politics on the company dime? I don't see how demonstrating the inability to follow basic company rules in the interest of productivity improves their career prospects. Even inside the SV bubble, things aren't that warped, a…

I think "couldn't agree to stop bitching about politics on the company dime" is really minimizing the leadership vaccuum that caused this in the first place. As someone who hires I'd have zero issue with a talented person who also felt passionately about not working with people who enable racism or toxic environments. That's part of how you build good companies.

Would you also have zero issue with a talented person who felt passionately about gun rights, free-speech or banning abortion?
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