4 ms·
The context is the same as many other companies - employee activists creating strife and division internally and causing other employees to feel uncomfortable.
by agd 5y ago
The context is the same as many other companies - employee activists creating strife and division internally and causing other employees to feel uncomfortable.
- Kye 5y agoShutting down all discussion of things that affect their employees is an extreme overreaction.
- valyagolev 5y agothanks for the inference. I wonder about the particulars, though
- wmf 5y agoAt Coinbase, employees demanded that the company take an official public position on Black Lives Matter. Probably the same was going on at Basecamp.
- a4isms 5y agoThe expression “employee activists” makes it seem very one-sided. What about old-school companies where everyone played golf. If you were, say, someone who liked hiking and canoeing, you might have been made to feel like you don’t fit in. Is that the same thing as being made to feel uncomfortable about social issues? Or is it somehow different because “playing golf” is normal, but “advocating for social justice” is not? A word like “activist” is extremely imprecise. Any time someone is making other people uncomfortable, isn’t that important? If I was a woman and the water cooler discussion every Monday morning was about various men and their misadventures picking up women in bars, I’d say there was discussion causing strife and division, but few people would say “activists” were involved. If I then complained about the unprofessional water-cooler talk, would I be the activist trying to change the company culture? If it’s the “strife and division” that’s the problem, we need not restrict ourselves to discussion “activism.” But if the real problem is that we’re ok with some strife and division, but not others, well... We ought to come clean about that and say, basically, “Don’t try to change anything, not even the stuff that makes you uncomfortable, because this is how we like it, and if something has to change, that something is you."
- mdoms 5y agoBut this post isn't about playing golf..? None of this is. What?
- educaysean 5y agoThe point is that "creating strife and division internally and causing other employees to feel uncomfortable" can happen without an employee activist pushing a politically charged agenda. My personal interpretation: If the primary intent of the policy is to reduce the instaces of exployees feeling ostracized, there are better ways to achieve it than a blanket ban on "political discussion".