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Changes at Basecamp

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Re: Changes at Basecamp

#91

Post by tshaddox »

stephsmithio wrote: post #74
paxys wrote: post #27

Can 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…

While I hear the, "But anything could be viewed as societal and political discussion", it's kind of a straw man argument. We all know what types of discourse Jason and David are referring to and they augmented their request with, "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." F…

> We all know what types of discourse Jason and David are referring to

Do we? For any potential example I could think of, you’re telling anyone who is directly affected by or cares deeply about that example that their concern is not one of the political issues acceptable to discuss, but rather one of those types that we all know can’t be discussed.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#92

Post by sleepydog »

swyx wrote: post #7
Afforess wrote: post #5

> No more paternalistic benefits. Cutting benefits and calling it a feature. Amazing. A lot of "work will set you free" vibes from this.

cutting benefits and paying out the cash value of them so you can decide what to do with it . i understand the objections to the other points in the post, but why do you present half the story on this one?

I wonder what the cash value is, since a large group can usually negotiate a better deal than an individual. Will employees get the amount the company spends per employee, or the amount it would take for them to get the benefit for themselves?

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#93

Post by ZephyrBlu »

oxylibrium wrote: post #23
valyagolev wrote: post #2

> 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…

DHH specified that advocating for things on personal accounts is fine.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#94

Post by tshaddox »

baggy_trough wrote: post #84
mattdeboard wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually do not know what types of discourse they're referring to. Can you specify?

Presumably the more toxic and censorious forms of social justice activism.

Is anyone able to actually articulate an example of a political or societal topic that is supposedly obviously of the type that shouldn’t be discussed at work?

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#96

Post by smoe »

stephsmithio wrote: post #74
paxys wrote: post #27

Can 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…

While I hear the, "But anything could be viewed as societal and political discussion", it's kind of a straw man argument. We all know what types of discourse Jason and David are referring to and they augmented their request with, "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." F…

I don’t think it is a straw man. They say “remotely related to politics, advocacy, or society”, I can’t think of many things that are not remotely related to these or quickly can turn into them. So it does seem to be restricted to work and the smallest of small talk. Which is fine to me. Those kind of discussions pre-WFH I had during breaks and after work activities with co workers. So now it is just trough other channels than the main company communication one.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#97

Post by detaro »

stephsmithio wrote: post #74
paxys wrote: post #27

Can 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…

While I hear the, "But anything could be viewed as societal and political discussion", it's kind of a straw man argument. We all know what types of discourse Jason and David are referring to and they augmented their request with, "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." F…

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 private channels" can play out either way I guess: it can be a completely valid replacement of using company channels, but it is an additional hurdle if you have no signals to go by who to talk to. And if you actually have a problem with work channels getting out of hand, I feel like it's a gamble to hope it works better in the dark.

If my employer told us we had to move the more social/less technical chat channels outside of company infrastructure, I'm not sure that'd be better overall. And sort of odd to go with each new hire "oh and btw there's this second chat without the bosses, come join".

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#98

Post by drewbug01 »

davidgerard wrote: post #82

Are they trying to head off unionization?

That’s usually a nice side-effect. This is a bigger trend developing in tech, I think ... the exact contours of why various C-levels are pushing this now is yet to be seen (not every company policy change to this effect was announced on a blog post, it’s happening elsewhere too).

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#99

Post by anm89 »

paxys wrote: post #27

Can 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 are actively misinterpreting what they said.

a) They explicitly state that employees are allowed to actively discuss these things, just not in group chat.

b) They explicitly state that this isn't "some high consequences zero tolerance policy" and that the consequence for violating the rule will be that you are reminded of the rule.

It's sad that this is the top comment.

Re: Changes at Basecamp

#100

Post by brown9-2 »

shados wrote: post #34

This is a tricky one. On one hand, there's the obvious issues: almost everything you can talk about is societal or political. Talking about your lawn growing is societal because it means you can have a lawn and that gets into the housing crisis sooner or later. If people can't speak about politics, marginalized group will have difficulty bringing up tough issues that impact them in their day to day job. On the other…

> And god forbid you're NOT part of that channel, because then you're the "one person who doesn't care" or some such

is this a serious thing actually happening to anyone?

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