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I think what basecamp is experiencing is what can still happen even though you as a manager believed you managed it well. If you don't let "A misgender B" then

by oezi 6y ago

I think what basecamp is experiencing is what can still happen even though you as a manager believed you managed it well. If you don't let "A misgender B" then you might get hit as DHH did. Because one way to read the affair is that one person got upset that DHH as the manager didn't let that person pull a holocaust reference into a debate. (not saying at all if this was appropriate or not)

chipotle_coyote 6y ago
> Because one way to read the affair is that one person got upset that DHH as the manager didn't let that person pull a holocaust reference into a debate. Well it's important to keep the context in mind here: "the holocaust reference" in this case was a chart from the Anti-Defamation League making the case that normalizing seemingly minor bad behavior makes it easier to go on to slightly worse behavior, which now doesn't seem that different from what you're already tolerating, and so on, and so on. https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/pyramid-of-hate.pdf https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/pyramid-of... This is not a terribly controversial assertion, in and of itself. Was it a stretch to use it in this context? You could definitely make that case. (I've long been fond of the quip, "If you use a slippery slope argument once, you'll start using it everywhere.") But I would argue that when DHH acknowledged the list making fun of 'funny names' was a bad idea, apologized, and promised to shut it down, he had the choice to stop talking at that point. He didn't have to publicly chastise the employee who brought up the Pyramid of Hate. He took positive steps toward putting out this fire, but then threw on a match of his own -- and then doubled down on that, publicly calling out an employee who kept at it. So, if we're talking about DHH-the-manager, I would suggest he maybe didn't do the bestest job of managing here. He could have said, "yes, we'll take down the list"; instead, he went with "yes, we'll take down the list, but don't you think you're being a drama queen about it."
- fastball 6y ago
  My impression was that it was the employees who wouldn't let it go, not DHH. And one employee in particular wouldn't let it go, so DHH helpfully pointed out that at some point they too had participated in joking about a customer name, so who exactly were they trying to persecute here?
  - CallMeJim 6y ago
    This was my reading as well - from the post that DHH shared. What do you do when a (previously-complicit) employee keeps an issue going on and on and on? A little 'hey, get off your high horse, you were involved too' doesn't go amiss. (As a first, second or even third reaction it's not great - but it sounds like there had been a lot of talking preceding this).
  - Frondo 6y ago
    I saw that too, and that I think was such a crucial mistake. Discretion, as they say, is the better part of valor. Is it fun to point out someone's hypocrisy? Probably. Is it going to be productive, especially to do so in a public manner? Absolutely, absolutely not. You're embarrassing them, to what, teach them a lesson? Well, lesson learned, but not the one you intended -- they'll learn that the boss is not above a little public humiliation to score a point. Trust gone. I'd sure start looking for other places if my manager, or the CTO, started doing that, severance or no.
    - fastball 6y ago
      I mean I don't trust hypocrites in the first place, so I'm not sure it's the boss that broke the trust. One thing that I think gets lost in discussions of hypocrisy is that there are actually two types, and they should be handled very differently. The first type is when an alcoholic tells you to slow down on your drinking, e.g. "do as I say and not as I do" hypocrisy. This kind is usually ok, because it tends to be more of a "learn from my mistakes" situation than a failure to understand the contradiction in your own words. The second type is "rules for thee and not for me" hypocrisy – people that try to catch others out in their "bad behavior" but then think it is totally fine when they do it themselves, as they provide some sort of post-hoc rationalization for why it is ok for them to do it ("because context" or whatever) but totally unacceptable for others to do so. Most people conflate the two types, but I try to only refer to the latter type as hypocrisy, and I think it is generally bad to be a hypocrite in that way. And from the sounds of it, the Basecamp employees in question were definitely more of the latter than the former.
      - 6y ago
GVIrish 6y ago
> I think what basecamp is experiencing is what can still happen even though you as a manager believed you managed it well. But it doesn't really matter if the manager (or owner) believes they handled it well. It matters if the employees thought it was handled well. In the case at least a third of them didn't. Even putting aside the substance of the no politics policy, the delivery and crafting of it was terrible. There was a DEI committee, and it and all other committees were unilaterally dismissed. The no politics rule was decided with zero employee input. And worse than that it was delivered via public blog post that had to be hastily edited after the fact. Had DHH and Fried carefully taken employee input and crafted a policy that took their concerns into account, and delivered with care and respect, they could've still ended up with a no politics policy. But employees would not have been blindsided and maybe more people would've bought in. But maybe DHH and Fried really want a company culture devoid of significant employee input into how the company is run.

by oezi 6y ago

chipotle_coyote 6y ago

> Because one way to read the affair is that one person got upset that DHH as the manager didn't let that person pull a holocaust reference into a debate. Well it's important to keep the context in mind here: "the holocaust reference" in this case was a chart from the Anti-Defamation League making the case that normalizing seemingly minor bad behavior makes it easier to go on to slightly worse behavior, which now doesn't seem that different from what you're already tolerating, and so on, and so on. https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/pyramid-of-hate.pdf https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/pyramid-of... This is not a terribly controversial assertion, in and of itself. Was it a stretch to use it in this context? You could definitely make that case. (I've long been fond of the quip, "If you use a slippery slope argument once, you'll start using it everywhere.") But I would argue that when DHH acknowledged the list making fun of 'funny names' was a bad idea, apologized, and promised to shut it down, he had the choice to stop talking at that point. He didn't have to publicly chastise the employee who brought up the Pyramid of Hate. He took positive steps toward putting out this fire, but then threw on a match of his own -- and then doubled down on that, publicly calling out an employee who kept at it. So, if we're talking about DHH-the-manager, I would suggest he maybe didn't do the bestest job of managing here. He could have said, "yes, we'll take down the list"; instead, he went with "yes, we'll take down the list, but don't you think you're being a drama queen about it."

fastball 6y ago
My impression was that it was the employees who wouldn't let it go, not DHH. And one employee in particular wouldn't let it go, so DHH helpfully pointed out that at some point they too had participated in joking about a customer name, so who exactly were they trying to persecute here?
- CallMeJim 6y ago
  This was my reading as well - from the post that DHH shared. What do you do when a (previously-complicit) employee keeps an issue going on and on and on? A little 'hey, get off your high horse, you were involved too' doesn't go amiss. (As a first, second or even third reaction it's not great - but it sounds like there had been a lot of talking preceding this).
- Frondo 6y ago
  I saw that too, and that I think was such a crucial mistake. Discretion, as they say, is the better part of valor. Is it fun to point out someone's hypocrisy? Probably. Is it going to be productive, especially to do so in a public manner? Absolutely, absolutely not. You're embarrassing them, to what, teach them a lesson? Well, lesson learned, but not the one you intended -- they'll learn that the boss is not above a little public humiliation to score a point. Trust gone. I'd sure start looking for other places if my manager, or the CTO, started doing that, severance or no.
  - fastball 6y ago
    I mean I don't trust hypocrites in the first place, so I'm not sure it's the boss that broke the trust. One thing that I think gets lost in discussions of hypocrisy is that there are actually two types, and they should be handled very differently. The first type is when an alcoholic tells you to slow down on your drinking, e.g. "do as I say and not as I do" hypocrisy. This kind is usually ok, because it tends to be more of a "learn from my mistakes" situation than a failure to understand the contradiction in your own words. The second type is "rules for thee and not for me" hypocrisy – people that try to catch others out in their "bad behavior" but then think it is totally fine when they do it themselves, as they provide some sort of post-hoc rationalization for why it is ok for them to do it ("because context" or whatever) but totally unacceptable for others to do so. Most people conflate the two types, but I try to only refer to the latter type as hypocrisy, and I think it is generally bad to be a hypocrite in that way. And from the sounds of it, the Basecamp employees in question were definitely more of the latter than the former.
    - 6y ago

GVIrish 6y ago

> I think what basecamp is experiencing is what can still happen even though you as a manager believed you managed it well. But it doesn't really matter if the manager (or owner) believes they handled it well. It matters if the employees thought it was handled well. In the case at least a third of them didn't. Even putting aside the substance of the no politics policy, the delivery and crafting of it was terrible. There was a DEI committee, and it and all other committees were unilaterally dismissed. The no politics rule was decided with zero employee input. And worse than that it was delivered via public blog post that had to be hastily edited after the fact. Had DHH and Fried carefully taken employee input and crafted a policy that took their concerns into account, and delivered with care and respect, they could've still ended up with a no politics policy. But employees would not have been blindsided and maybe more people would've bought in. But maybe DHH and Fried really want a company culture devoid of significant employee input into how the company is run.