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Bit of a fool’s errand to try and avoid politics at work — like a fish trying to avoid water in the ocean. The ways companies are built and maintained, the rela
by otde 5y ago
Bit of a fool’s errand to try and avoid politics at work — like a fish trying to avoid water in the ocean. The ways companies are built and maintained, the relationship between employers and employees, workplace requirements and benefits — all of these are shaped by and and built from political systems, to say nothing of how politics surrounding a person’s identity might affect their worldview. You’re never going to shut all of that out of your company.
Lots of fearmongering in the comments about “woke mobs” here, and I want to offer a counterpoint to the characterization of the Basecamp employees who left as some kind of shrill hypersensitive scolds. Put yourself in their shoes.
You notice the company you work at has a circulated list of customer’s names, some of which make fun of your race — have been used to make fun of you since you were young. You go “hey this sucks” and it gets taken down. You point out that this is part of a pattern of societal behavior you’ve known your whole life, and that pattern has affected your life negatively and materially. This is not received well — combating a single incident is easy, but unraveling a pattern of behavior is an arduous, years-long, and sometimes unprofitable path. At an all-hands meeting, a higher-up not only denies this pattern exists, but any action taken to unravel it would instead target him instead. The Big Bosses do not refute this until much later, and only partially. Would you feel respected? How would you react if someone said you were acting like a child and demanding something unreasonable? How would you feel if someone told you that you’re only doing this to perform “wokeness?”
- duxup 5y agoI can understand being hurt and more about the funny names list. But I think things have gotten out of hand when at an all hands meeting people are debating topics like: "we live in a white supremacist culture" Or demands from one employee to another at all hands meetings to denounce white supremacy. I doubt many companies could handle that right... and I'm sure many people would come away more hurt.
- seppin 5y agoDid those things actually happen at Basecamp or are they theoretical?
- newacct583 5y agoWe don't know the context, but as to your second item... when did denouncing white supremacy become something controversial? I know what you're really saying, which is that people on the right feel persecuted by being implicitly accused of being racists. And... y'know, that's fair. Probably 90% of the time in arguments like this that's an unfounded accusation made in bad faith just to score points. But still... the treatment is to point out that, yes, you guys might disagree with us woke hippies politically but you're still on the light side of the force and care about the same basic morality so of course you denounce white supremacy. Right? What's horrifying to us hippies is the extent to which so many of you simply won't, and want to turn it around into an argument instead. But you do, right? Denounce white supremacy? If your coworker demanded it, you might roll your eyes a bit but you'd do it? Right?
- wvenable 5y ago> when did denouncing white supremacy become something controversial? I'm old and never in my life have I ever been asked to denounce white supremacy. If someone asked me to denounce it, I'd be insulted that they asked. There's some serious implications behind asking someone that question that I hope would never apply to me.
- Poiesis 5y agoI think people's defensiveness can get in the way of empathy. I would be somewhat dismayed if someone asked me to denounce white supremacy, because I would hope that it would be obvious that I abhor white supremacy. I don't think I'd be insulted, though--and certainly not to the level of refusing to do any denouncing. Of course it's wrong! Hope to live in a world where it goes without saying. Until then, happy to repeat as often as anyone cares to hear it.
- loopz 5y agoSome people will never be happy, but will happily tear everyone down. They will never mature to grow out of resentment and forgive. It's way harder though as long as injustice is perpetuated. So it's nuanced.
- stevenwoo 5y agoThe context is he was responding to employee #4 who constantly quoted Breitbart on company forums (which employees brought up until Basecamp went in and erased old messages.), and the company #1 and #2 backed up the Breitbart supporter, and denied employee request to change the racist code names for outside companies. This is similar to GitHub where they fired the Jewish employee for telling people to be aware of Nazi sympathizers on January 6 because using the word Nazi offended some “apolitical” employee who objected to using the word Nazi to describe Nazis.
- sol_invictus 5y agoSo the problem is not that Basecamp doesn't allow political opinions, it's just that they don't allow the right political opinions. Why am I not surprised... This whole American thought police experiment is going to end in a massive dumpster fire in the not-too-distant future.
- acituan 5y ago> You point out that this is part of a pattern of societal behavior you’ve known your whole life, and that pattern has affected your life negatively and materially. This is not received well — combating a single incident is easy, but unraveling a pattern of behavior is an arduous, years-long, and sometimes unprofitable path. One can empathically agree that such injustice, and any injustice, sucks, and still advocate compartmentalizing between institutions of the society writ large. That unprofitable path is not Basecamp's to bear. Not all injustices of the society receive a corresponding level of PR and therefore can be equally leveraged in the context of employee activism in a private enterprise. If rank ordering of the issues of the society is left to the ripples made by affluential corporate citizens, that will introduce a host of biases that will alienate the full set of citizens of the democracy, and will likely create its own class of injustices. The issue is not about surgically removing politics from work, it is to prevent its (mis)use as a backchannel. To be clear, I feel equally strongly against corporate activism at the C-level or at the corporate identity level. But most employee activism is not only not a counter to that, it amplifies and parasitizes those very dynamics.
- sol_invictus 5y agoIt's quite the opposite - it's a fool's errand harboring fragile employees who are willing to make such a show about a email containing juvenile name calling. You cannot build a solid baseline on an employee who can implode any second on the most miniscule issue. This will hurt Basecamp in the immediate term but over time they will be better off.
- philosopher1234 5y agoThis comes off as though you didn't even read the comment you're replying to. I don't see how you can, in good faith, frame their point as "the most miniscule issue".
- simondotau 5y agoWithin the context of Basecamp internal company chat, demands that employees must prove they're not A Bad Person by repeating an particular string of words (as though that would prove anything anyway) is an incredibly minuscule issue indeed.
- philosopher1234 5y agoHow is this related to the GP comment?
- simondotau 5y agoIt sounds like the two of us have different ideas about what the GGP referred to as the issue when they said "You cannot build a solid baseline on an employee who can implode any second on the most miniscule issue." I'll leave it to the GGP to clarify.
- sol_invictus 5y agoLets try it the other way around - convince me that the issue at hand isn’t way overblown. I promise to try to be as objective as possible.
- dnautics 5y ago> You point out that this is part of a pattern of societal behavior you’ve known your whole life. Sure, as a poc I can empathize with this but to then escalate it beyond "hey this sucks, let's stop, let's be better humans" to godwinning it with real atrocities in the outside world is toxic to the workplace. I would not want to work at a place where a POC of my own color was constantly making everything out to be a racial issue, and saying that my colleagues were the worst and equating them to literal terrorists and nazis because they did an ignorant thing here or there, not the least because I'm sure that even as a conscientious person I make mistakes from time to time and I'd rather be treated with forgiveness than blame. Being treated with forgiveness instead of blame goes for technical stuff and incident management, too. If you start doing this with social issues 100% the culture of blame will bleed over into the technical issues and it won't be pretty.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ylem 5y agoI agree with you about the decision not to reflexively fire those responsible for the list. Though for the conversation to veer towards white supremacy and for ~30% of the company to leave, I do wonder if something else was going on there. I could be a bad judge of humans, but if it was just one guy overreacting, I would think that fewer people would have quit.
- dnautics 5y agoTo be honest, I would leave almost any company that offered me 6 months salary in severance, if for no other reason than to work on projects for a couple of months while seeking a next job and then making double salary for four months. I passed up that opportunity once (and it was the right choice because it was my first tech company experience,I needed to build up years behind the keyboard and a portfolio), but I definitely would not today.
- ylem 5y agoI guess it's just a different way of thinking that I'm unfamiliar with. I have turned down other job offers (30-40% salary increase--not 2x) because I like where I am--coworkers, projects, autonomy, city, etc.
- tarsinge 5y agoI don’t follow the justification of the general statement you put first with then Basecamp specific customer’s name list issue. Basecamp were wrong in how they handled it, but I think the general point still has its merit: there is too much political discussion nowadays, and maybe the workplace should stay professional. Too bad Basecamp just ruined that discussion.
- hinkley 5y agoI think one of the reasons companies introduce matching donation programs is that it’s politically easier to manage than trying to pick five charities to support. Someone will have a loud reaction to whatever you chose. Matching makes you vote with your wallet. Put up or shut up.
- paulddraper 5y ago> Bit of a fool’s errand to try and avoid politics at work No? Politics and religion: the two topics you avoid in professional settings. Over drinks? Sure. But not at work.