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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”

#961

Post by vp8989 »

tweetle_beetle wrote: post #932
dbattaglia wrote: post #918

In 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 think you're right, but I also think that in reality it is very difficult to draw a line between personal political discussions and company policy decisions in the modern world. Yes it's always boring when someone in the workplace makes bold political statements that no one asked for, but what happens when the company you work for outsources jobs abroad, is making questionable HR decisions, etc. I'm not sure it's r…

"I'm not sure it's right to say that any discussion about anything political is banned when a company policy that affects an employee can be political in nature."

Why do you think that's the policy? Did you read the blog posts?

According to DHH's post, political discussion that is related to the business is allowed. Any other political discussion is encouraged but must take place in a dedicated non-work channel. The policy is also not zero-tolerance.

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

#962

Post by scientismer »

ascorbic wrote: post #960
dbattaglia wrote: post #918

In 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…

What lots of people seem to be missing here is that this wasn't that sort of political discussion at all. It wasn't about Trump/Biden, or even policy issues. It was purely about internal actions of employees and leadership. There's a world of difference between presidential campaign posters behind reception, and discussions about the handling of a list of customers' names. The problem with jumping to blanket "no poli…

Pretty sure it was about politics, because some employees felt it was an identity politics issue and the list of funny names would lead directly to holocaust. DEI issues were also directly mentioned in the blog posts.

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

#963

Post by ascorbic »

scientismer wrote: post #962
ascorbic wrote: post #960

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What lots of people seem to be missing here is that this wasn't that sort of political discussion at all. It wasn't about Trump/Biden, or even policy issues. It was purely about internal actions of employees and leadership. There's a world of difference between presidential campaign posters behind reception, and discussions about the handling of a list of customers' names. The problem with jumping to blanket "no poli…

Pretty sure it was about politics, because some employees felt it was an identity politics issue and the list of funny names would lead directly to holocaust. DEI issues were also directly mentioned in the blog posts.

That's a pretty disingenuous reading of the meaning of the ADL pyramid of hate. All it says is that tolerating one level of discrimination makes the next level easier. So in this example, stereotyping makes it easier to ridicule.

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

#964

Post by arcturus17 »

bytelines wrote: post #818
arcturus17 wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what I thought, I’d personally find a company with an explicit non-activism policy insanely attractive, all other things being equal.

Did you have a previous experience at a job where that was an issue?

No, exactly the opposite, every company I’ve ever worked for was neutral without ever needing to enforce it, but anything other than that would be a nightmare for me, so having it as an open statement about culture suits me.

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

#966

Post by yosito »

dbt00 wrote: post #72
yosito wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this as a third of the employees were more interested in taking 6 months salary than in keeping work conversations professional. Those aren't really people you want on your team.

head of marketing, head of design, entire ios team. Probably people they wanted on the team. If you read this news as "employees (who yosito disagrees with) should shut the fuck up", perhaps you think this is good. If you read this as, "I joined this company as a place where my voice mattered and now I'm being told to STFU by a founder on a rage bender", it makes more sense why people are leaving.

> "employees (who yosito disagrees with) should shut the fuck up"

Please don't put words in my mouth. I said nothing of the sort.

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

#967

Post by monkeywork »

faitswulff wrote: post #708
monkeywork wrote: post #706

It should be made known that "about one-third" of basecamp employees would be what 15-16 or so? It's not difficult to imagine that you'd have a handful of people who felt politically / socially strong enough to take the buyout for their stated reason and another handful that saw 6 months of pay and a high demand job market and went for it as well. 1/3 sounds like a big deal if you are thinking basecamp is a massive c…

They lost the entire iOS development team, among others.

Great how many people was that team?

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

#968

Post by ecwilson »

cbozeman wrote: post #948
spyckie2 wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. H…

It’s a false narrative that this was about politics and non-work things in the workplace. It was a workplace issue that blew up and employees were annoyed with how the founders handled it.

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

#969

Post by predaking »

JPKab wrote: post #929
dbattaglia wrote: post #918

In 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 worked years ago in defense contracting, and remember being treated in a hostile fashion for admitting I was an Obama supporter. Mostly good people, but super isolating when they would talk politics. And I should note, that the pattern I noticed then and notice now with my mindlessly, tribally left colleagues who are mirror images of the right wing lemmings in defense: People who are really into politics at work ar…

“I don’t see a single standout among the folks leaving” (emphasis mine)

Considering that those folks include one of the Rails core contributors, the Head of Design, and the Head of Marketing, either:

A) you’re mistaken in your read

B) you’re not mistaken, and Basecamp made some massive hiring and staffing flaws including but not limited to who they put in leadership positions

I’m not saying which is which, just pointing out the limited possibilities.

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

#970

Post by rospaya »

xbar wrote: post #289
Ar-Curunir wrote: post #216

Earlier 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.

Nope. Those are all the results of laws which came from politically elected officials who made policy. None of my employers limited work hours or work days or children at work because of political discourse in the office. Nor did historical companies from 3 generations ago when such laws were passed. All of those laws were created because companies did NOT implement such limits.

It's extremely ironic to read this on the international workers day, May 1st.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workers%27_Day

People died so you can have an 8 hour workday, and they organized in the workplace.

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