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The 37signals Employee Handbook
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- braum 3y agoanyone make a PDF version of this?
- maicro 3y agoSounds like it's meant as a living document (they reference github, and it's available here: https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/blob/master/README.md ), so doubtful. You could always clone the repo and "print" them to PDF though, and there's a bunch of results for a quick search of "markdown to PDF" if you want a batch/automatic tool. Actually, it'd be kinda cool to have a PDF version that gets automatically "compiled" every time the repo updates...
- Amorymeltzer 3y agoFor better or for worse, I think of one thing when I think of Basecamp/37signals/Hey. From <https://basecamp.com/handbook/code-of-conduct#politics-at-work https://basecamp.com/handbook/code-of-conduct#politics-at-wo...>: >We respect everyone’s right to participate in political expression and activism, but we avoid having political debates on our internal communication systems. 37signals as a company also does not weigh in on politics publicly, outside of topics directly related to our business. You should be at peace with both of these stances. From April of 2021: Changes at Basecamp - <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26944192 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26944192> (883pts, 814 comments) Behind the Controversy at Basecamp - <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26963975 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26963975> (65pts, 47 comments) What Really Happened at Basecamp - <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26963708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26963708>(193pts, 38 comments) “About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today” - <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998127 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998127> (1366pts, 2020 comments)
- gnicholas 3y agoFollow-up question: do you think of it as a good thing or a bad thing? My guess is that either way, that's perfectly fine with them. They want employees who embrace this mentality, and do not want employees who would be upset by it.
- somewhereoutth 3y agoIf, as a politician/party, you wanted to exert complete control over a population, then banning talk about politics at work (where lets face it the majority of people spend the majority of their lives), and ensuring companies don't talk about politics themselves either, would probably be an essential step.
- sparklingmango 3y agoAdditionally, DHH somewhat regularly blogs about political things. While I understand it's his "personal" blog, can you really have a personal blog separate from work when you're the CTO of the company and the creator of Rails?
- ghaff 3y agoIt's complicated if you have personal but identified channels and are also a somewhat public figure in the context of various communities, including companies and tech projects. I guess my take is that if you want to have a truly personal blog or social media channels, it should be as anonymized as possible. (Which has pros and cons.) Certainly, there are a ton of things I wouldn't write on a public channel even if I weren't technically violating any company policy because they would bite me. When I was an analyst, I would absolutely not write anything about a CxO that differed from what I would put in a research report.
- jen20 3y agoI don't see why not - and notably they don't seem to attempt to ban other employees from having personal blogs or engaging in activism outside the workplace either.
- simple10 3y agoThe note about moonlighting is thoughtful and well written. https://basecamp.com/handbook/moonlighting https://basecamp.com/handbook/moonlighting Main takeaway is don't do anything outside of work that will significantly impact work performance, but the way it is written is well balanced and supportive of employee growth.
- granshaw 3y agoI didn’t read it as “significantly” affect work performance at all, it seemed more like it anything that DOES affect work performance is a problem EDIT: Also it seems like they don’t like you doing things similar to what they paid you to do, even if it’s not in competition at all… so sounds like after hours coding consulting even in a complete different industry would be frowned upon even if it didn’t affect your performance So all in all, still pretty strict
- ghaff 3y agoI think that's pretty normal conflict of interest language. Seems pretty reasonable in general. You do see broader permissions around things like developing open source software at some companies but they're not common.
- granshaw 3y agoYes my point was more "this policy is nothing special or more lenient than the usual"
- rugina 3y agoThey don't allow development on GNU/Linux.
- yashasolutions 3y agoreally?
- williamstein 3y agoYes see https://basecamp.com/handbook/managing-work-devices#mobile-devices-windows-and-linux https://basecamp.com/handbook/managing-work-devices#mobile-d... They also don’t allow Windows or iOS.
- dilyevsky 3y agoWhich is perfectly reasonable take (especially former)
- bri3d 3y agoThis is really normal for most small companies with good security posture, honestly. The company will pick one platform where endpoint management is functional, and require it. Code and secrets can't live on machines without endpoint management. If the productivity/hiring/morale hit from requiring one platform becomes too great, then they'll get IT to figure out how to manage other kinds of endpoints. But in a small company, trying to manage disparate endpoints across multiple OSes is hard and expensive, but allowing corporate secrets on unmanaged endpoints is also a bad idea. So, this is the trade-off.
- TheRealDunkirk 3y ago> This is really normal for most small companies with good security posture, honestly. The company will pick one platform where endpoint management is functional, and require it. Code and secrets can't live on machines without endpoint management. What is "endpoint management," in layman's terms? My corporate laptop has 2 different "endpoint manager" applications running (and about 30 scripts that run in task manager). What are these things doing for them?
- ChrisArchitect 3y agoWhen do we think this was last updated?
- Dunedan 3y agoTwo days ago: https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/commits/master/ https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/commits/master/
- timoteostewart 3y agoAs of the writing of my comment, 2 days ago: https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/commits/master/ https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/commits/master/
- gjvc 3y agonobody cares for your policing of posts
- steveBK123 3y agoLOL the last commit though delete "37signals pledges to be a company with a calm and friendly work environment. What follows applies to all active 37signals employees and contractors."
- all2 3y agoWhere is this git repo you speak of? --- Ah, I found it. https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/commit/620b0637452bda028b4ec1a084e461e03e605eba https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/commit/620b0637452bda02...
- steveBK123 3y agohttps://github.com/basecamp/handbook/commits/master/ https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/commits/master/
- lfuller 3y agoI would love to know what prompted that.
- steveBK123 3y agoThe whole set of edits look like 1) someone did something stupid and 2) they finally hired Big Boy HR that is now responsible for a bunch of stuff instead of people managers
- hintymad 3y agoI like how they promote engineers based on "mastery". This is very different from Google, who treats promotion as a tool. That is, mastery often is not the only consideration. Sometimes it is not even a consideration. Of course, no one would say so officially, but more than one VP and director expressed this principle in different ways. And we can see the results: the promoted can be most important, most influential, most needed, or most trusted. Mastery of engineering is not necessarily in the equation.
- dilyevsky 3y agoGoogle promotes for “impact” and “sufficient complexity” so I would assume it requires some level of mastery to get them both accomplished at the same time so in theory they should promote same people in the same circumstances. Ofc in practice I’m sure neither actually do
- arghnoname 3y agoDelivering value as an entry level software development position requires some soft skills, but it's probably mostly determined by skill/mastery over technical subjects. As one advances, particularly at larger or more bureaucratic organizations, soft skills become more important. Being "most trusted" for instance, is of significant value. It suggests that one has built a reputation and delivered on his or her promises over a period of time and thus, can be trusted to lead a difficult or ambitious project. These things you mentioned, being important, influential, needed, or trusted, are all proxies for providing value over an extended period of time while maintaining good relations with peers. This is a good thing to select for when promoting up a hierarchy in a large human endeavor. Of course we all know cases where people get promoted because of their social clique for whom this isn't true, but it's not crazy to not just focus on mastery of hard skills.
- hintymad 3y agoYeah, I'm neutral on the merits of different promotion philosophies. On the personal level, I'd prefer promotion on mastery because it gives an IC leverage: Jeff Dean can still code out a brand new system to solve an seemingly impossible challenge even if he leaves Google, but unfortunately for many tech leads, they wouldn't be able to draw boxes half as valuable if they were to depart Google because their expertise has already shifted to institutional knowledge of the company.