Basecamp has long been a sort of pipedream workplace for me, and nothing I'm seeing here changes that.
So I must wonder: are they hiring backend/architecture/management/IT folks right now?
“About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”
941–950 of 1001 posts
Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”
#942So all the free speech maximalists are here in force, right? …right?
Which free speech activists have been advocating that employees shouldn't have to do work when they're at work? None, because believing that isn't a part of free speech rights, and Basecamp made it clear they didn't care what employees said off company time, so it's an irrelevant strawman.
> Which free speech activists have been advocating that employees shouldn't have to do work when they're at work?
Ironically you’re strawmanning my comment, yourself.
Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”
#943The old-fashioned dictum, "don't talk politics and religion at work" is very much worth following. I hope plain old professionalism comes back into fashion --- we can all use a return to norms that have existed for a very long time, and for very good reason. Free political and religious association can proceed unhindered outside the office, while the sanctity of work and common courtesy is preserved at the workplace.
I recall that old-fashioned society wasn't so great if you weren't DHH's demographic.
It's not an all-or-nothing deal. You can take the good while leaving out the bad.
Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”
#944How to get rid of all your intolerant, activist employees in 1 easy move.
Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”
#945Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of their iOS devs who left has been incredibly vocal about how he no longer felt like this was somewhere he could work because of this policy and its effects, so I think you're plainly wrong (or insisting that there's no way we could take a person at their word). https://twitter.com/georgeclaghorn It's a lot more likely that the 1/3rd that left both left because they were unhappy with the policy, and because they…
> a new job hunt takes 3 Where is this? At Senior level in London it can take days once you're good and ready.
Where is this? At Senior level in London it can take days once you're good and ready.
Basecamp is fully remote isn't it? So it could be anywhere.
Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”
#946Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Interestingly the employees who left have the best career prospects. The people who can most afford to not put up with are always those with the best career prospects. If you aren’t certain that you can get a job somewhere else that matches even the newly-worse conditions of your present job within the cushion provided by the offered buyout, then a buyout isn’t attractive.
Except there's nothing to 'put up with' other than policy which is going to be effectively the same almost anywhere, or possibly worse. If you try to form an 'issue group' at an arbitrary company, to take on the executive team, and make demands with excessive intellectualizations that 'making fun of names' lead to 'genocide' - you're not going to get offered severance, you're going to get fired immediately. The kind…
The policy is only one part of it. No more 360 peer reviews. Allowing a diversity group then eliminating it. Announcing it all with a blogpost. And more.
It’s putting up with terrible leadership that seems to want to keep their heads buried in the ground and not have to deal with anything.
Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”
#947Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Workplace is inappropriate for politics" is a really ahistorical stance to take. All the things that you enjoy nowadays (8 hr work day, 5 day work week, no child labour, etc) came about as a result of organized politics at the workplace.
Do you feel good initiatives require someone to be political to be apart of? Watered down a bit more... do you believe someone can be a good person without affiliating with a group in order to do it? That's very odd to me... Similar in vein to self-studied engineers/academics vs those who need a college group of peers to do it.
Politics is not “Dems vs Republicans” or “Tory vs Labour”. All the aforementioned improvements came from organized workers protesting against their bosses. That is politics.
Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”
#948Interestingly 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…
Yes, people are reacting to the policy. But it's definitely that the policy is a reaction to something as well. Probably, the founders believed that the toxicity of the internal culture had reached a point where it was extremely detrimental to the workplace. And, knowing DHH, it was probably not only a financial decision but a lifestyle one. He may have realized that the advocates that actively discussed and promoted…
Why can't people just keep their shit to themselves?
In the work environment, I don't care if you want to save the whales or arm every teacher with an AR-15.
Do you do your job well enough that you don't personally impact me? You do? Good. Shut up about non-work shit and keep working.
Every single person I've ever seen who was a "passionate" "political" person is a fucking trainwreck in some area of the their life. How about your fix yourself first? Then once you've got yourself ironed out, you can try ironing out the rest of society...
Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”
#949In fall 2008 I moved from Long Island to New Hampshire (for family reasons) and found a job in a small niche B2B shop doing C# Windows apps. On my first day of work, I notice the receptionist desk has a stack of McCain/Palin 2008 bumper stickers. The next couple of months were filled with employees talking non-stop about the election, from their deeply conservative point of view. Being quite progressive left-leaning…
I remember the same thing in 2000 when my colleague brought "Sore/Loserman" sign mocking (unknowingly) my candidates. I could not help but think less of him. I am not proud of that, but that was it. It's inside our DNA, to live in tribes. At work, it'd be better if we belong to the same tribe. Please, keep your other tribes outside.
Re: “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”
#950From what I understood this wasn't a "we want to talk about Trump and BLM all day" situation but a "owners/leaders refuse to reckon with a toxic aspect of our internal culture". At some point the two mixed, the "pyramid of hate" is definitely out of the SJW playbook and probably went a bit too far for some people's taste. But shame on the leaders who for years have written books and blogs about how awesome their cult…
The ADL has been around for over a century saying everything encapsulated in the pyramid. What is an "SJW" to you?