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I'm not sure why you've extrapolated this kind of behavior to every customer support position. I've not encountered it in any of the ones I've worked. Also, I

I'm not sure why you've extrapolated this kind of behavior to every customer support position. I've not encountered it in any of the ones I've worked. Also, I'm not seeing evidence that the Basecamp employees that had an issue with this behavior were "going to complain about every possible grievance".

Daishiman 6y ago
> I'm not sure why you've extrapolated this kind of behavior to every customer support position. I've not encountered it in any of the ones I've worked. I've not extrapolated it to every position, but I've worked with enough industries to know that there many have very difficult customers and it takes a toll. > Also, I'm not seeing evidence that the Basecamp employees that had an issue with this behavior were "going to complain about every possible grievance". DHH alluded to certain analogies in the discussion of racial and ethnic prejudices triggering needlessly emotional responses, and frankly I totally agree that a lot of contemporary framings of certain discussions don't allow for tolerating disagreement. And if you're going for those discussions that are going to draw such strong lines, yeah, either you rein in the discussion soon or you allow your teams to be fragmented needlessly. And the same thing happens with management. Management isn't going to be willing to entertain every single discussion. To me it was clear from the start that they had limited energy to discuss the topic and once that was up it was time to move on. They may be right or wrong, but being clear on it is better than being ambiguous or allowing the thing to continue.
- tomlockwood 6y ago
  > needlessly emotional responses This isn't objective at all - and illustrates the problem perfectly.
  - Daishiman 6y ago
    On the contrary, it's in the face of ambiguity and subjectivity that management has to make hard decisions based on philosophy and values; leadership exists to clarify grey areas. And the difference between management making those decisions and staff is that management is ultimately where the responsibility for those decisions, right or wrong, lies. On subjective policies a lot of things will come down to personal judgement calls. The founders have spoken as such; and frankly if staff considers the decision to egregious, at this point, they're free to assess whether their values are compatible or not.
    - tomlockwood 6y ago
      > On the contrary, it's in the face of ambiguity and subjectivity that management has to make hard decisions based on philosophy and values; leadership exists to clarify grey areas. From the article: "That confusion is compounded by the fact that, for a small company, Basecamp has taken an outsized number of political stances — all of which employees are encouraged to discuss. Most prominently, the company and its founders have been vocal critics of Apple’s 30 percent tax on in-app purchases. But it has also involved itself in politics at a much lower level: in 2018 Basecamp let a candidate for Chicago mayor use its office in the West Loop as a campaign headquarters. Basecamp employees are encouraged to discuss the company’s own political positions — or, perhaps more accurately, the founders’ political positions — as much as they like. Keeping track of which issues of the moment are up for discussion thus becomes one more chunk of mental overhead for employees who are already struggling." There's no clarification here - since they've banned political discussion and this is a subjective boundary - nothing has been adequately clarified. And saying they're just banning the "needlessly emotional responses" is again, not clear.
      - Daishiman 6y ago
        You're not being realistic by demanding clarity in a murky area. So yeah, it's gonna be a personal judgement call. Founders aren't necessarily gonna have a clear idea either, so you just need to expect leeway, _especially_ in small companies.
        tomlockwood 6y ago
        > You're not being realistic by demanding clarity in a murky area. But I'm not demanding clarity. I'm saying it is impossible to provide clarity on a subjective topic like this.
        Daishiman 6y ago
        Exactly. The clarity is the boss telling you go/no go. For some things it doesn't get much better than that. But having someone actually _telling_ you "yes" or "no" is infintely better than a boss that sits in the sidelines or tries to please everyone fruitlessly.
- ryanbrunner 6y ago
  I can totally imagine a situation where some people at Basecamp wouldn't take "sorry, let's move on" as an answer and had to see DHH / others be a martyr, and I could agree with Basecamp collectively finding that unacceptable. But making the response to that effectively "you can no longer discuss working conditions or diversity and inclusion ever again" is an incredibly disproportionate response. If the response to that situation was to have a discussion with that employee / group of employees about the need to move on and come to a resolution, instead of blasting publicly that politics and committees, and basically everything other than DHH and Jason having absolute authority is no longer accepted, we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place.
  - Daishiman 6y ago
    It's not disproportionate. I've seen this time and time again; some people _can't help themselves_ being conflictive and reraising certain issues. You either put a sock on it and move or you allow this discussion to go on forever. And yes, as the owners and founders they are entirely within their rights to run the company as such. It hurts some people to remember that companies aren't committees where everyone's word matters the same. That's just the way it is.

Daishiman 6y ago

> I'm not sure why you've extrapolated this kind of behavior to every customer support position. I've not encountered it in any of the ones I've worked. I've not extrapolated it to every position, but I've worked with enough industries to know that there many have very difficult customers and it takes a toll. > Also, I'm not seeing evidence that the Basecamp employees that had an issue with this behavior were "going to complain about every possible grievance". DHH alluded to certain analogies in the discussion of racial and ethnic prejudices triggering needlessly emotional responses, and frankly I totally agree that a lot of contemporary framings of certain discussions don't allow for tolerating disagreement. And if you're going for those discussions that are going to draw such strong lines, yeah, either you rein in the discussion soon or you allow your teams to be fragmented needlessly. And the same thing happens with management. Management isn't going to be willing to entertain every single discussion. To me it was clear from the start that they had limited energy to discuss the topic and once that was up it was time to move on. They may be right or wrong, but being clear on it is better than being ambiguous or allowing the thing to continue.

tomlockwood 6y ago
> needlessly emotional responses This isn't objective at all - and illustrates the problem perfectly.
- Daishiman 6y ago
  On the contrary, it's in the face of ambiguity and subjectivity that management has to make hard decisions based on philosophy and values; leadership exists to clarify grey areas. And the difference between management making those decisions and staff is that management is ultimately where the responsibility for those decisions, right or wrong, lies. On subjective policies a lot of things will come down to personal judgement calls. The founders have spoken as such; and frankly if staff considers the decision to egregious, at this point, they're free to assess whether their values are compatible or not.
  - tomlockwood 6y ago
    > On the contrary, it's in the face of ambiguity and subjectivity that management has to make hard decisions based on philosophy and values; leadership exists to clarify grey areas. From the article: "That confusion is compounded by the fact that, for a small company, Basecamp has taken an outsized number of political stances — all of which employees are encouraged to discuss. Most prominently, the company and its founders have been vocal critics of Apple’s 30 percent tax on in-app purchases. But it has also involved itself in politics at a much lower level: in 2018 Basecamp let a candidate for Chicago mayor use its office in the West Loop as a campaign headquarters. Basecamp employees are encouraged to discuss the company’s own political positions — or, perhaps more accurately, the founders’ political positions — as much as they like. Keeping track of which issues of the moment are up for discussion thus becomes one more chunk of mental overhead for employees who are already struggling." There's no clarification here - since they've banned political discussion and this is a subjective boundary - nothing has been adequately clarified. And saying they're just banning the "needlessly emotional responses" is again, not clear.
    - Daishiman 6y ago
      You're not being realistic by demanding clarity in a murky area. So yeah, it's gonna be a personal judgement call. Founders aren't necessarily gonna have a clear idea either, so you just need to expect leeway, _especially_ in small companies.
      - tomlockwood 6y ago
        > You're not being realistic by demanding clarity in a murky area. But I'm not demanding clarity. I'm saying it is impossible to provide clarity on a subjective topic like this.
        Daishiman 6y ago
        Exactly. The clarity is the boss telling you go/no go. For some things it doesn't get much better than that. But having someone actually _telling_ you "yes" or "no" is infintely better than a boss that sits in the sidelines or tries to please everyone fruitlessly.
ryanbrunner 6y ago
I can totally imagine a situation where some people at Basecamp wouldn't take "sorry, let's move on" as an answer and had to see DHH / others be a martyr, and I could agree with Basecamp collectively finding that unacceptable. But making the response to that effectively "you can no longer discuss working conditions or diversity and inclusion ever again" is an incredibly disproportionate response. If the response to that situation was to have a discussion with that employee / group of employees about the need to move on and come to a resolution, instead of blasting publicly that politics and committees, and basically everything other than DHH and Jason having absolute authority is no longer accepted, we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place.
- Daishiman 6y ago
  It's not disproportionate. I've seen this time and time again; some people _can't help themselves_ being conflictive and reraising certain issues. You either put a sock on it and move or you allow this discussion to go on forever. And yes, as the owners and founders they are entirely within their rights to run the company as such. It hurts some people to remember that companies aren't committees where everyone's word matters the same. That's just the way it is.