8 ms·

I have a different take on this, different than most comments here: I think that the founders/owners knew what they were doing based on reading their book and l

• Wolfr_ 6y ago
  If that's really their intent why not do a layoff round with a bigger severance package for 10-20 ppl to get back to 30 people, it would be less painful than this PR disaster?
  • ezekg 6y ago
    All press is good press?
  • haihaibye 6y ago
    Purging overly political employees is probably illegal, so they made a policy then offered $ to voluntarily self select themselves out.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• deanCommie 6y ago
  > no one should be allowed to say or do anything at work that makes anyone uncomfortable in a personal way; Agreed. But frequently calling that out IS what is deemed "political" by the person who was "just expressing an opinion", and "i just have a different ideology from you" > ; no one should really care much about other peoples’ politics. Some people's politics is other people's human rights. Would you want to work with someone who you knew in their heart was racist and thought that people of your race were inherently less capable than their own. (Even if they believed you individually were okay)
  • browningstreet 6y ago
    But taking the conversation there -- that politics is about racism -- is exactly the kind of extremism we struggle with these days. For the most part, we should be able to co-exist across the political spectrum, but equating politics to something extreme, or having to bring up a false equivalency in conversation, keeps things heated.
    • deanCommie 6y ago
      Politics isn't about racism. Politics isn't ONLY about racism. Politics isn't ONLY about NOT racism. If you ban politics, you also ban politics about racism. But if politics was about whether the city should spend a budget surplus on a sidewalk upgrade or a new park bench, then nobody would even think about banning those discussions. So when you ban politics, you ban politics about racism. Because those are the controversial ones. And less abstractly, more concretely, about the basecamp situation, the politics that led to this ban were explicitly politics about racism.
      • bumbastique 6y ago
        Too much of politics is about racism and similar identarian issues these days, at the expense of more fundamental topics. For example, BLM should really have been about police brutality and police abuse in general. It's not just black people who get regularly shit on by the cops. But by making it all about race, the more general point is missed and no progress is made. Another example, you get Biden paying lip service to trans rights, but nothing about introducing Medicare For All - which would actually make things better for everyone, including those with gender dysphoria who require access to healthcare professionals. Of course, people who see all the country's problems through an identity politics lens don't like it when you point out things like this.
      • wl 6y ago
        Gun control. Abortion. Climate change. Drugs. The death penalty. Racism isn't the only controversial political topic out there.
  • 6y ago
• emadabdulrahim 6y ago
  > no one should be allowed to say or do anything at work that makes anyone uncomfortable in a personal way; I get that you mean very well with this statement. However, given a large and diverse enough group of people working together, it's practically impossible that NO ONE will never feel uncomfortable in different situations or interactions. Be it personally or professionally uncomfortable. Period.
  • throwawayay02 6y ago
    Divide it into smaller groups.
    • emadabdulrahim 6y ago
      If aiming for comfort 100% of the time is the highest value of a group of productive people, then they simply have the wrong goal to strive towards. And it won't be a very inclusive and accepting group either. We would not be where we are today if it weren't for the people that put themselves in a very uncomfortable positions to talk about something and possibly offend a bunch of people along the way, or people who haven't backed down even when made uncomfortable and stood for whatever they believed in to make their point clear.
• ihumanable 6y ago
  > Life is about so much more than politics. I see this sentiment a lot, and I definitely understand the impulse especially in the current political climate. "Politics" is just the word we give for how humans interact at scale, to which we all have a vested interest. I'm somewhat surprised by people taking the attitude that the policies and power dynamics that will meaningfully impact their lives, just isn't that important. Perhaps because in the US we have had a long period of relative internal stability, we get to have this luxury of going, "Let's not care about politics, life is more than that, it's my loved one's and hobbies and watching the sunset." But all the other bits of life that are more important than politics can only exist because of politics, because of the rules and policies and power structures we all agree to live under. A general shying away from politics means that a smaller and smaller group of people get to decide the rules for everyone, and I just have a hard time believing that that will lead to good outcomes. All that said, I do think that the workplace isn't a great environment to have those discussions, politics gets heated and it's hard to work with people when you've dredged up a bunch of big fundamental disagreements. > no one should be allowed to say or do anything at work that makes anyone uncomfortable in a personal way; This is a nice sentiment but ultimately meaningless. A rule or policy so broad that it could be applied to nearly any interaction, and one that doesn't look at the actions or intents of the person committing an "offense" but just says, "If someone became uncomfortable during an interaction, the other party is at fault." This type of broad unspecified rule just gives the rule-enforcers tremendous latitude to use it as they see fit. > I judge people on how well they treat other people and by how much effort they make improving the world I think there's a lot of politically engaged people that believe that through politics they can improve the world much more than through a single individual's actions. There's little I can do personally to improve the access to healthcare for my fellow citizens, but through political action fellow citizens could gain access to that. Many people would consider that an improvement.
  • spenczar5 6y ago
    That’s an optimistic view of politics. It seems more tribal, more like taking sides, more like sports. Politics these days, particularly in the west, particularly on the internet, has a real “you’re-with-us-or-against-us” component. I think that’s the thing people want to stay away from when they say they don’t want to care about politics.
• hogFeast 6y ago
  > Life is about so much more than politics As someone who isn't from the US, it is very hard to comprehend. There is a meme about Americans. You meet an American, and ten minutes later they are drilling you about politics. And I understand why US society is like this, I am familiar with US political history. But it is very, very, very weird at a personal level. Like why do this? You are breaking a person's whole reality down to their politics...it doesn't seem like a good idea, it seems like the opposite of diversity or just accepting someone's humanity.
  • jacobr1 6y ago
    How recent is that meme? Politics has long been decisive in America, but it seems like only in the past 20 years has it become something people have been become forward and culturally tribal about. Does that impression hold up for non-Americans too?
    • hogFeast 6y ago
      The standard interpretation is that politics became more divisive in the mid-90s...but, imo, that doesn't hold merit. Clinton worked with Republicans after he lost Congress. Obama worked with a Republican Congress. And you can go further back and point to someone like McGovern (or Goldwater on the other side) as reactionary/divisive candidates. You had Eisenhower Democrats and the like but there has always been a spectrum in both parties (and that is still the case today i.e. Manchin). I think two things have changed. One, the media. Politics in the media is different from the practice of politics, the latter largely about compromise. Because of bandwidth of media/politics as entertainment, the fringes of both parties have become more extreme (it has gotten so bad, you wonder whether some politicians know they are actors anymore). Two, diversity. Countries that have diverse populations will always have divisive politics. The US system is the most robust in the world but it is moving towards problem territory (for example, the Democrats seem to have settled on always electing a man and woman for P/VP...this is basically the segregated politics you see in Lebanon or other places with fairly massive political issues, the "our turn to eat" politics is more common to Africa than the developed world). My impression is heavily coloured by studying American history/politics for a long time. But other people I know just find American politics very weird...it is just very weird, everything is politicised...like Germany pre-Hitler.
• goatinaboat 6y ago
  no one should be allowed to say or do anything at work that makes anyone uncomfortable in a personal way I agree with this but plot twist: in a world where “silence is violence” you cannot choose to simply opt out.
• gregmac 6y ago
  > no one should be allowed to say or do anything at work that makes anyone uncomfortable in a personal way; no one should really care much about other peoples’ politics. Life is about so much more than politics While this sounds good in principle, there are still lots of people offended by others' personal choices and mere existence, and who do consider these political issues. Examples: https://twitter.com/JillWohlner/status/1386767595374850061 https://twitter.com/JillWohlner/status/1386767595374850061 > As a gay woman, you tell me I can't have a 'political or societal conversation' and that sounds a lot like I can't talk about my wife at work. Bc being in a gay marriage is a f'ing political statement to people. https://twitter.com/liatrisbian/status/1386774755286601728 https://twitter.com/liatrisbian/status/1386774755286601728 > And as a non-binary person, telling me to not have political or societal conversation at work sends me the message that I should hide who I am and can’t have conversations around pronouns etc. > In fact, I have been told to not have those political or societal conversations. Worded the exact same way as that basecamp post. > You know what that lead to? Not daring to say a fucking word while being misgendered all the time.
  • humanrebar 6y ago
    Yep. And on the other side of the spectrum, it's extremely uncomfortable to be a Baptist, work with a lot of left wing folks, and then get asked what you did last weekend. It's not fair to expect everyone to be fully responsible for each others' feelings.
• betwixthewires 6y ago
  I'm kind of tired of the sanitization of work thing. Human beings are grimy, sweaty creatures. People make friends, people dislike other people, people speak with candor, people lie, people want to have sex with each other. "No being human at work" is ridiculous IMO. I value and understand the need for a professional environment, but it seems we are playing to the lowest common denominator and trying to create one size fits all rule sets to avoid overtly saying which problem we are trying to solve: that the politics of those people are toxic and they ruin everything they touch. You know what people I'm talking about. Everyone here knows what people I'm talking about. Why don't we just admit what's going on here and make the very specific rules we need to make to finally put a stop to it?
• ryandrake 6y ago
  You're never going to make a policy work that's goal is to "not make anyone uncomfortable". Politics aside, if you have an employee who is uncomfortable when it's warmer than 60F sharing an office with another employee who is uncomfortable when it's colder than 70F, bam, your HVAC policy is unworkable. Back to opinions: There is a very wide range of topics that might be uncomfortable to any one person. You'd need to avoid the union set of all of those topics--which might mean you can say nothing at all!
  • SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    I mean... yeah. That's been the prevailing culture in all the jobs I've had - when you're talking with your coworkers, your options are work or completely banal small talk ("sure is sunny today!"), unless you're in a small group you know well enough to be sure another topic won't make them uncomfortable.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• najtdale 6y ago
  What an employer cannot ask at job interview, should not be discussed at the workplace
  • humanrebar 6y ago
    Eh. They can't ask your marital status, but keeping that secret your whole tenure would be silly. Same for medical history but it would be awkward to never mention a pregnancy that is obviously showing.
• bdowling 6y ago
  > I think that the founders/owners knew what they were doing... > ...they wanted a smaller and more focused company that was more joyful to manage/run. I agree with you because the six month severance offer was so generous that it can only mean that they wanted a lot of people to take it. Also, if they found that they were losing too many people, then they would start offering people money NOT to take the severance offer. But that didn't happen. So, I have to conclude that the 1/3 headcount cut is intentional. edit: I didn't realize this happened so fast. Now I think it may have been a misstep.
• gifnamething 6y ago
  The list made people uncomfortable. How would you deal with that?