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There will now be signs in the break room: NO GOSSIP NO POLITICS YOU WERE NOT HIRED TO HAVE OPINIONS OF YOU OWN JUST CODE

markmark 6y ago
Sounds awesome.
chii 6y ago
you're not wrong. it's just not explicitly stated, but an implicit understanding that your job is to <do the thing hired for>. See what happens if you spend more than any trivial time on the job doing something else other than what you were hired for!
- angry_octet 6y ago
  But you are making a separate contention now: that employees are spent considerable company time on discussions of politics. If they were, up till now it was with the endorsement of their managers. The Basecamp policy is now that you can't discuss politics (or anything controversial) on any company platform, including e.g. in the break room, on the discord chat or whatever on your commute, out of office hours, etc. And they are officially removing any feedback mechanisms from company structures, figuratively salting the earth to prevent anyone discussing anything. Obviously everyone could move to a platform in the cloud for discussions, but the writing is on the wall. While this may well be a gross violation of labour laws, US employee rights are so weak it doesn't matter: say anything and you're canned.
  - sepin4 6y ago
    Just as you ask for the right to be political on work premises and channels, they ask for the right to be apolitical on those same places. There are people on both sides of the fence. Which right is more important and how do we choose which one to disregard. There will always be disagreement between people and it should be practically impossible to create a society of perfect harmony. In order for both sides to at least tolerate each other's existence you need to create autonomous zones for each one. A company which doesn't want political involvement other than what is directly related to its business is exactly that. If you want to be politically active during working hours, then you don't fit into this company and there is no one stopping you from working for another one which is politically active or starting one yourself. People work better with people with the same core values. Only when both choices remain you actually have freedom and some semblance of tolerance. Remove either option and all you get is strife. Obviously some zones are "banned", like "I would like to kill people" and "I would like to rape people", because we all(or at least most ) agree this is not OK. However, I really hope all(or at least most) people have not gotten to the point where being apolitical is actually not OK and so is its zone.
jononomo 6y ago
Exactly. I don't understand people who don't get this.

markmark 6y ago

Sounds awesome.

chii 6y ago

you're not wrong. it's just not explicitly stated, but an implicit understanding that your job is to <do the thing hired for>. See what happens if you spend more than any trivial time on the job doing something else other than what you were hired for!

angry_octet 6y ago
But you are making a separate contention now: that employees are spent considerable company time on discussions of politics. If they were, up till now it was with the endorsement of their managers. The Basecamp policy is now that you can't discuss politics (or anything controversial) on any company platform, including e.g. in the break room, on the discord chat or whatever on your commute, out of office hours, etc. And they are officially removing any feedback mechanisms from company structures, figuratively salting the earth to prevent anyone discussing anything. Obviously everyone could move to a platform in the cloud for discussions, but the writing is on the wall. While this may well be a gross violation of labour laws, US employee rights are so weak it doesn't matter: say anything and you're canned.
- sepin4 6y ago
  Just as you ask for the right to be political on work premises and channels, they ask for the right to be apolitical on those same places. There are people on both sides of the fence. Which right is more important and how do we choose which one to disregard. There will always be disagreement between people and it should be practically impossible to create a society of perfect harmony. In order for both sides to at least tolerate each other's existence you need to create autonomous zones for each one. A company which doesn't want political involvement other than what is directly related to its business is exactly that. If you want to be politically active during working hours, then you don't fit into this company and there is no one stopping you from working for another one which is politically active or starting one yourself. People work better with people with the same core values. Only when both choices remain you actually have freedom and some semblance of tolerance. Remove either option and all you get is strife. Obviously some zones are "banned", like "I would like to kill people" and "I would like to rape people", because we all(or at least most ) agree this is not OK. However, I really hope all(or at least most) people have not gotten to the point where being apolitical is actually not OK and so is its zone.

jononomo 6y ago

Exactly. I don't understand people who don't get this.