If a third of the people were willing to leave the company over a decision, it sounds like there was a real, meaningful mismatch in priorities.
Which is fine, but it's for the best for everyone to end that mismatch.
Which is fine, but it's for the best for everyone to end that mismatch.
I'm not saying I demand the ability to be rude and awful, or go on political tirades, or anything even vaguely like that. But I spend more time talking to people I work with than any other set of people.
Telling me I have to avoid entire categories of normal conversation is itself authoritarian politicization of the workplace, and I'd happily tell him to go fuck himself, too.
prefer a workplace where I don't have to bite my
tongue 24/7 simply because my political views
aren't popular
If the discussion is about the person you are talking to getting to enjoy the same basic rights everyone else does (or even just exist) that's not just any political discussion and it affects them very personally and directly.
As they say, "your liberty to swing your fist ends where my nose begins".
You think this. Others don't. Your values are not universal. If you want to advocate for your positions, arguing on a company slack while being paid to do something else isn't the time.
If a coworker was saying or acting in an anti-semitic way (possibly not even consciously), I would absolutely feel unsafe as a Jew in a company that told me "that's just their beliefs, you don't have to agree with their politics". I would call that out on the company slack & if they continue doing so would expect them to get fired.
In the case of your other example of black and Jewish people: it’s already inappropriate to be racist at work.
This is sometimes hard to see for people who are themselves not part of the "contentious" group (and not always due to malevolence, sometimes it's just hard to sympathize with people who aren't like yourself).
Which is a reasonable solution, don't get me wrong. But this kind of solution is what people mean when they talk about limiting politics at work, and these kinds of conflicts are why it's a good idea. In order to work with people who don't share your precise values, there have to be ground rules to minimize conflict.
How I'd respond to homophobia in the workplace: I will call it out and expect that person to get the hint and no longer make homophobic comments at work. If they repeatedly continue to do so afterwards then yes I'd expect them to be fired, but it will not be out of the blue or without warning.
EDIT: I think the current top thread already better formulates my opinion so I suggest reading that instead of continuing here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27001075
Your position is probably straight up illegal by the way.
You seem to expect this to be an inevitability but I've worked with plenty of Muslims in my 18 years career as I live in a city with almost half a million Muslim residents and I've never encountered a Muslim being homophobic at work.
I have in the past called out people making misogynistic comments at work & generally people do get the hint and stop doing that. If they don't then you've identified a problem.
EDIT: I think the current top thread already better formulates my opinion so I suggest reading that instead of continuing here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27001075
See, but here is the rub. What if the comment is just "according to my islamic faith, my religious belief system does not support gay marriage".
For all I know, you would call this statement homophobic, but if you punished this person for saying this a couple times, it would absolutely be illegal.
> Nothing to do with Islam.
Yes it does. Many people, do not support gay marriage because it a part of their faith. And if you fired or punished them for stating that this is their faith, then it would absolutely be illegal discrimination on your part.
If they say that as a reaction to a gay man posting somewhere "I'm out of office next week as John & I are getting married" than answering this with "with all due respect, as a Muslim I can't support you getting married to a man" is out of place. If they repeat after being called out that then yes that's a problem.
They have the very reasonable possibility of simply not saying anything but that may require developing a company culture where people learn if and when to do that - this may require some "political" discussion between consenting adults and that's fine!
Maybe someone asks them about their faith, in an informal setting, such as during lunch, and then they answer the question that was asked of them regarding how their faith applied to gay marriage.
If you then punished them for this, then that would absolutely be an example of illegal discrimination, on your part.
Again this is in no way unique to muslims, and is just as likely to be the case with similarly devout christians so I don't see why you need to focus on islam specifically. I've personally also worked with orthodox jews who I am sure hold a lot of opinions I disagree with and somehow they managed to never voice homophobic or misogynistic comments & I managed to never tell them what I think about interpretations of the bible as the literal word of god.
This is a situation which among reasonable people doesn't require outright ban of "political speech". You can cultivate a good company culture that deescalates flame wars without such a blunt instrument that may also have a lot of undesirable side effects.
It is very much possible, that according to the law, you are engaging in illegal discrimination against certain religions.
> I don't see why you need to focus on islam specifically
Well, the important reason why to focus on certain groups, is because of the possible illegality of your actions. Thats why.
> Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.
When it comes to discrimination and freedom of religion, the ACLU[2] has this to say:
> Instances of institutions and individuals claiming a right to discriminate in the name of religion are not new. In the 1960s, we saw objections to laws requiring integration in restaurants because of sincerely held beliefs that God wanted the races to be separate. We saw religiously affiliated universities refuse to admit students who engaged in interracial dating. In those cases, we recognized that requiring integration was not about violating religious liberty; it was about ensuring fairness. It is no different today.
[1] https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=55...
[2] https://www.aclu.org/issues/religious-liberty/using-religion...
Now scramble those weakly / strongly held opinions for every individual...
Aren't they a remote company?
From my perspective that seems like an odd way to think of work. You have a life at work but it necessarily has certain constraints since you've sold your time, attention & best efforts to your employer.
That has not been my experience of these channels in general though. I think it depends greatly on the company culture and the people, code of conduct, and tone set by leadership.
> an inclusive workplace is one where leadership doesn't have to monitor each channel
I disagree with this statement. Just because there are dedicated channels for a specific subject does not mean they should be unmoderated. There should be a code of conduct and at least light moderation / ability to report misconduct just like all other company communication mediums in shared spaces (i.e. not DMs).
You don't already feel this way? There's a long list of things that would have you packing your desk if you discussed them at any other company. Society has already decided certain extreme positions are too brand damaging or disruptive to tolerate.
This policy seems to reflect that a not-insignificant portion of the population has collectively lost their minds over the past year of isolation and now is looking to pick a fight over things that no one would've blinked at 2-3 years ago. It's destroyed friendships, family ties, and I'm sure a lot of team cohesion at many companies.
I think requesting that this discussion takes place outside of company channels is a pretty reasonable reaction.
I have trouble imaging how a response to an apparent social cohesion issue that results in 1/3 of the office immediately walking can be considered a good outcome.
It sounds more like a corporate schism to me.
If there was a cascading series of events that led to this policy announcement that turned them off to working at the company, it's not my place to judge them. On the other hand, if they are quitting simply because they can't engage in inflammatory political rhetoric at work then I certainly hope that I never to have work with any of these people in the future.
Yeah, like pulling extracts of customer names to circulate and make fun of them. That mis-use of customer data, and tinged as it is with racial and xenophobic overtones, would have me sacked for misconduct in no time flat.
This appears to be a kneejerk reaction that's separated from the facts of this situation. According to DHH:
"It's not a list of, say, primarily Asian names. Out of the 78 names listed on the last version we were able to recover, just 6 names appear to be Asian." [0]
The overwhelming need to connect anything distasteful to racism or xenophobia is a relatively recent social construct that didn't manifest itself widely until we were all locked in our homes for a year during this pandemic. Before that, we could probably all agree that maintaining a list of customer names that are laughed at is a disrespectful and stupid thing to do.
That's literally 99.99% of employers.
> I'm not saying I demand the ability to be rude and awful, or go on political tirades, or anything even vaguely like that.
Based on your initial response, it sounds like that's exactly what you're saying. They have a problem with employees not being able to speak about politics without some of them going on tirades, and some of them accusing others of acting in bad faith, and more assuming those that try to refrain are implicitly agreeing with one stance or another.
> Telling me I have to avoid entire categories of normal conversation is itself authoritarian politicization of the workplace, and I'd happily tell him to go fuck himself, too.
And you can! And they did! These people were not only there by choice, they were given a very good way out if they didn't like the change. But I also hope none of them that left because they feel the need to proselytize at work don't come work with me.
But also, let's consider when the types of interactions being described at this company became "normal conversation".
> But I spend more time talking to people I work with than any other set of people.
Hopefully primarily about work, at least when working. They aren't paying you to talk about politics. If you're doing it outside work, nobody cares. Basecamp doesn't care either. They made that clear. Just keep it off their company communications. You can even talk politics privately with your friends if you work there, because they aren't going to turn you in (and if they would, then maybe you should consider why and maybe not bother them with stuff like that).
Most people aren't hired to speak their inner thoughts to the rest of the company. Most people don't try to. Somehow it's a problem when people are told explicitly what they should have already internalized, please don't.
But it's even worse because I care about my colleagues. We've worked hard together and produced some pretty amazing things. When I hear them sometimes say things that are frankly ignorant, bad-faith, uncharitable, etc. about their political out-group, I just have to shake my head.
Somehow I get through my day at work avoiding discussing much about my beliefs. We chat about our families, recent happenings in our lives, hobbies, trips, interesting articles we saw recently on HN, etc. Turns out none of those things is a terribly political topic. Maybe a small part of me wishes that the tables were turned, and the people I disagree with had to hold their tongues for fear of ostracism when "political" opinions arise. But in reality, I don't want them to feel this way either. I'd rather work at a place that strongly discouraged political chatter and activism using work resources.
I'd hope that we could at least get a balance where there enough companies like Basecamp or Coinbase that can meet my needs so that the companies like Google or Spotify can continue to meet yours, and we can sort into the places where we work best.
The resignations feel less less like a result of a mismatch and more like result of a slap in the face from mismanagement.
I'm a firm believer that you can help toxic people become normal (again). But it takes a lot of time and effort that you can't spend otherwise, and you might alienate others over it who don't want to suffer under the (maybe reforming) toxic person. The question is whether you want to help someone, or build products. Basecamp seems to have opted for not turning themselves into a SuperPAC/self-help group.
I'm not sure about that. In my experience, it's about priorities, and some people find e.g. political activism more important than building products. When they have to decide between "more activism" or "more products", they value activism higher.
I don't think it's a junior/senior thing, and not everybody will end up where they feel like they + the company have "grown apart". In this case, from afar, it looks like most in the company (including the founders) where pretty political, but some employees got more radicalized and the founders (who essentially set the company direction) did not.
It's a kind of schism, but it's best for everyone involved to let it happen. I find that kind of generous buy-out a very good way to do it. Some have suggested that it's some kind of demonstration of power, but I don't see that: in a power play, they would've fired the problematic employees (and having worked with activist employees, I'm confident that everyone knew who they were), not given them a large bonus for leaving. They've extended the bonus to everyone (which is great as well, you're not rewarding the bad apples, to so speak), and I wouldn't be surprised if some took the offer purely because of the money.
Firing them is a good way to tip them over it.
People with lots of options are often the first to jump ship.
I realize in this case it’s likely more complicated than that because people may have moral objections to the change in policy. But the first to jump out of a sinking ship are the people who are confident they can make their way to another boat.
Or it was just a good deal. Do we know what the "buy-out" deal was? I mean I like my job and the company I work for well enough, but if they offered a decent enough deal and I'll happily walk away tomorrow and not look back.
> Yesterday, we offered everyone at Basecamp an option of a severance package worth up to six months salary for those who've been with the company over three years, and three months salary for those at the company less than that. No hard feelings, no questions asked. For those who cannot see a future at Basecamp under this new direction, we'll help them in every which way we can to land somewhere else.
It seems like a real stretch to read this as anything other than a bit of a self-own. Even if you wanted to get rid of all these people eventually you'd probably want to do that more gradually.