681–690 of 853 posts
Are they trying to head off unionization?
Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/Rahsfan/status/1387042197321633792
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.
Note in this case they're giving the cash value of the benefits for one year only, so presumably this will save them money in the long run unless they end up having to permaboost salaries, but that is doubtful. Market rate's the market rate and I don't think many people seriously make a decision based on whether one employer offers discounted gym memberships or not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How many woman engineers are in your team as a percent of total?
More importantly: who cares? The point of classical equal rights is the MLK, "my children won't be judged by the colour of their skin". The moment you ask a question like that, you are deliberately rolling back his vision by implying that a 100% male engineering group is a severe problem that needs a solution. It's not. It's an entirely expected statistical outcome given the demographics of people who study the profe…
What if someone was judged by the color of their skin or their gender by the system? There are plenty of studies that show how the LSAT/SAT for example, is biased in favor of whites. The school may say they only admitted those with the highest scores and didn't look at skin color, but skin color ended up built into the score.
So while the system should correct for this eventually, companies are attempting to correct for this issue now.
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.
> paternalistic : relating to or characterized by the restriction of the freedom and responsibilities of subordinates or dependents in their supposed interest
What restriction do these benefits impose?
Let's just call them benefits.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You are hired to build product, not obsess over the diversity of the employee base, unless you are hired in a DEI role specifically. pssst those two things are connected > Discrimination happens against an individual. This is just weirdly wrong? > If you see discrimination happen against an individual, and you privately and discreetly address it with the appropriate people (could be with those directly involved, wi…
It's hard not to escape the conclusion that the goal of Basecamp's new policy is to quietly suppress or ultimately evict people who think like you. There is no connection whatsoever between diversity and building product. Note: you haven't tried to explain your claim there is, just implied it's obvious, probably because you can't. I've seen people try to honestly intellectually defend a connection between employee di…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't feel like it's a strawman. I don't know the culture there, but what about: - Talking about unions, or pay equity (Might be illegal to ban either) - "Hey Jodie, my partner and I are marching in a Gay pride parade this weekend, wanna come?" (Is that political at Basecamp?) - Some ex-military employees form an informal group to welcome and mentor new employees coming out of the military. (Is that political?) - O…
These are partly strawman arguments too, especially since they've been careful to state it's not a zero tolerance policy. If you take this on good faith and assume the goal is to reduce dividiness rather than a hard-line ban on everything that anyone could ever construe as political (impossible in any case), it's pretty easy to come to a conclusion for each of your points and any future points you come up with. > - T…
Ironically, I think you are not taking tyingq's comments in good faith.
It is fine if you think tyingq's points are straw men, but it does not mean that everyone agrees with you. It doesn't mean that someone with a different POV is being "petty" or not acting in good faith.
I found the discussion between the two of you useful, but I don't think it was helpful for you (all considered) to question tyingq's intentions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not "whataboutism". I was genuinely curious what they meant. "Political" means different things to different people. I'm also curious if it's just the forums. I don't know if they are 100% remote, all the time, etc.
I should have worded that differently. Work isn't college. Once you get beyond a certain size, by making a public debate and exploration of stuff that isn't work a thing, you're going to go down rabbit holes that probably aren't particularly healthy for the organization. That's where the whataboutism comes in. My personal preference is for my colleagues to behave in a manner of mutual respect. I get to know my immedi…
I'm not following your use of the word. I think we may have different ideas about what it means.
From Wikipedia:
> Whataboutism, also known as whataboutery, is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument.[1][2][3]
Where did tyingq say someone else was a hypocrite? They didn't.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Part of the problem is that no, we do not know what they are referring to. Lots of murky lines, lots of people with bad experiences that what for them is essential is considered over lines, worry that it'll be used to silence internal discussion of things the company does, ... (and of course if you impose it on a company used to something different, it's potentially a massive culture shift) The "you can take it to pr…
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).
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 e…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why shouldn't employees have a say in how their own workplaces are run? EDIT: I see this is being downvoted. It's a genuine good faith question, and if you've downvoted, I'd love to know what you see as unconstructive about this comment. I'm sure the HN community would not be so petty as to downvote it out of pure ideology.
Why should they? It is not their business. If they want a say in how it is run they can leave or figure out how to buy into the business as an investor/owner. Employees are literally in place to do one thing: trade time/energy for money in service of the companies goals.
Why shouldn't they? Companies make many decisions that are not central to their business -- what snacks to provide, where to hold the company holiday party, etc.
Yes, you can claim the above somehow tie into the core business. If so, then I also get to make the connection. I'll argue that (e.g.) supporting Black Lives Matter is a net positive to the company.
Take Away: I suggest we dismiss the notion that companies should not take positions on various issues.
One may debate the wisdom of companies taking various stances, but I think it is quite ridiculous to claim that companies do not have the freedom to take various stances.