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Comment by Baeocystin | Hacker News Reader

It genuinely isn't difficult in practice. Be polite and professional to your co-workers. That's it.

If someone is gay, straight, whatever, it doesn't have any bearing on their work, so it's not something that's discussed. I have literally zero desire to hear about anybody's sexual relationships at work.

If someone thinks that the mere presence of a gay person is an agenda, then they fail rule 1, which is be polite and professional to your co-workers, and it's on them to either get a grip or leave.

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> I have literally zero desire to hear about anybody's sexual relationships at work.

So you shut it down when people talk about going on a date with their spouse or talk about their kids?

Because literally, this is the bar a lot of homophobes exist at to consider a conversation about a gay relationship 'political' or even religious, and they will act on it.

No, because I'm not the social police. But I don't want to hear about it while I'm working, and so I don't participate in those conversations. I'm trying to concentrate on work problems at work. End of.

> Because literally, this is the bar a lot of homophobes exist at to consider a conversation about a gay relationship 'political' or even religious, and they will act on it.

So the homophobe is being political, and therefore breaks policy.

Perhaps they would feel better if they let their misapprehensions and hate towards their colleagues go.

In my experience it's the homophobe who gets all up in arms about "politics at work" and tries to get management to implement a no-politics policy.

Their goal is to further marginalize the already-marginalized, and shut down conversations about making the workplace a more inclusive place.

Because somehow "hey let's stop discriminating against $XYZ type of person" is somehow "political".

In my experience that has never happened

Usually its a bunch of people advocating for socialism, screaming silence is violence, and saying white people are going to hell

From what I've seen (maybe this is just the bay area) you don't usually know someone is conservative until they trust you lol

> white people are going to hell

You’re not very good at straw man arguments, for what it’s worth.

It takes effort to get to the point where you can fire someone simply for being a homophobe. People are advocating for these types of rules. They're being told to just suck it up and don't be political.

Wouldn't the ideal situation be firing someone for _acting_ as a homophobe (which a no-politics rule encourages), rather than _being_ a homophobe (or having any other undesirable trait)?

I think you focusing on a word that's not that important.

How do you define what's a fireable homophopic offense. You need to discuss it, you can't shut it down because its political and uncomfortable to discuss. You need to listen to the people that are being made uncomfortable and have these discussions. "stop being political" is making a decision, it's the side of no change.

Maybe I'm under the misunderstanding that "no politics" doesn't also apply to e.g. reporting inappropriate workplace actions to HR.

If you see a homophobic (or racist, or sexist, or inappropriate, etc) offense, you should absolutely report it to your superior and/or HR, and AFAICT Basecamp's changes don't say you shouldn't. It sounds like they're just banning discussions in the open channels with coworkers ("Hey everyone, do you think what Bob did was homophobic?").

Of course, I might be misinformed on 1) whether you're still allowed to report workplace offenses to HR, and/or 2) whether company-wide conversation about your coworkers' potential offenses is actually a positive thing to allow.

You are what you do, and you do what you are.

Where do you work, hobby lobby? We are on a website sponsored by a San Francisco based start up accelerator. Regardless of where “no politics” as a rule goes no one in this world is getting fired for saying “My husband”. It’s a disingenuous reductio.

Insisting on personal pronouns over another employee’s pushback is a much more realistic (and still compelling) line of argument.

I mean.. you know that people do in fact work at hobby lobby? I don't, but uh.. there's a whole spectrum of companies and employees outside the particular demographics of this website and this kind of policy is absolutely weaponized in practice. Not in theory, not in any kind of reductio ad anything, in actual practice.

Yes, Hobby Lobby exists and people work there. Hobby Lobby’s management will continue to do exactly what they were doing regardless of what basecamp does. If DHH sees your comment and says “you’re totally right, we are going to embrace political discussion at Basecamp”, Hobby Lobby keeps on being Hobby Lobby. It’s a silly point to make in this discussion.

They even have a website! I’d be shocked if there aren’t routinely Hobby Lobby employees visiting Hacker News.

Probably a majority of people held opinions like that extremely recently. Like, the 2000s or maybe later recent. There are still a ton of people who think like that, and you only really need one for it to become a hostile environment.

As a dev in the midwest, there are a lot of midwest tech companies where I wouldn't want to mention that I'm gay, or bring up anything about my personal life with my wife. (And Basecamp is also a midwest tech company.)

If a company I worked at went full no-politics at work after two minor incidents about the founders use of ablest language, and the acceptability of making lists of "funny" names, then I think I'd probably not know where the line is for them.

Reminds me of the gamer moment memes about ANY character that isn't a straight white male or a busty white woman is considered political.

No, but I think it’s ok if someone is that toxic at work to think the above is an offense, to let it be known so they can more easily “work themselves out of a job”

You're advocating for a middle ground that doesn't exist.

As a racially ambiguous guy, most people are professional, but I pick up occasional comments and the way people act when you try to show them a better way or correct them really shines a light on this issue.

The middle ground is that most people are, in fact, professional. It is literally impossible to actually like everyone you meet, but if you can at least maintain a professional relationship, that's fine- that's all that is required.

This is what actual tolerance looks like in action!

> The middle ground is that most people are, in fact, professional.

You say that is the case. People affected by it say it isn't (and have examples). Who to believe ...

If you're looking to compared 'lived experience', I literally grew up a visible minority in SE Asia, and have been a foreigner compared to the dominant group at work for most of my adult life.

Were there people that didn't like me because I wasn't like them? Sure. They weren't the majority, most people are just fine no matter where you go in the world, and I'm doing fine myself.

Learning to come to grips that you aren't going to like everyone (and that it is mutual) is a large part of the lessons of becoming an adult. Learning to appreciate the fact that most people genuinely are able to treat you professionally at work regardless, no matter what the social media crowds say, is just as important.

It may not be true in your experience but it does exist. I've worked in several diverse offices in the US where it's exactly like that. Race/sexual orientation hardly ever comes up as a political topic and colleagues are generally friendly with one another (with a significant number of queer and POC colleagues)

Maybe this is true in a minority of workplaces, but almost every person reading this can think of a coworker who cracked a sexist or rascist joke. That doesn't count the plurality is people smart enough to keep it to themselves and just let it influence your ability advance.

I think that you'll be able to find the work environment I described in most major metropolitan areas in the US.

It might be harder to come by in smaller metropolitan areas or rural areas.

Sure, and those workers have it great. What about all the other people who have to put up with the other work environments?

EDIT Also, it is very difficult to suss out this type of before being hired. Most people at least pretend to be professional until they get comfortable.

Work is not someplace you go and leave all your personality at the door. We’re humans, we share about our lives. You act like describing someone’s “sexual relationship” is x rated, but merely stating “my wife/husband” reveals their sexual relationship and 100% will come up in work.

Unless their statement is "My wife/husband worked on a problem very similar to the one we're trying to solve here, let's give her/his solution a shot!" it's not a conversation I want to have at work, while trying to solve work problems.

Which is fine, but small/personal talk is extremely common at work, and many people would find a workplace completely devoid of it to be rather cold. I don't think most people saying 'no politics' want to take that as far as banning all talk of anything not directly related to the task at hand.

Small/personal talk is best done in small, personal social settings. If two co-workers who know each other well are enjoying a conversation between themselves, great! I mean that. I have friends at work, too.

But personal talk absolutely does not belong in larger meetings or workplace discussions where you're trying solve work issues. It's a distraction at best, and unprofessional in general.

I guess I was thinking of something in between a private conversation and a meeting. Things like chatting in a shared office (which I know is a distracting no-no in some contexts, but not all, at least when it comes to a slightly extended greeting/farewell), or in the kitchen/corridor/doorway/photocopier room. Anywhere people naturally gather and mingle when they're not necessarily in full work mode. Depending on the workplace, that sort of thing is very common and a ban would seem weird and draconian.

It really is easy enough in practice. As tech folks, I know we as a group naturally hunt for edge cases, but I can say with complete confidence that everywhere that I've worked that put the kibosh on politics/personal during everyday business discussion was a much more humane place, for everyone, to work than one where such limitations weren't present.

I disagree that those are edge cases, but I'm happy to accept that we've had different experiences.

How about 'I'm taking paternity leave'? That's them telling you something x-rated they did 9 months ago and it will definitely change how you solve problems.

Discussion about the details of your paternity leave, how long you're planning to be away, and contingencies if you need more time: Yes, and congratulations!

Discussion about the details of the sexual act that led you to needing to take paternity leave: No, don't care, not interested, not relevant.

If 'gender of partner' counts as 'details', that's a pretty extreme stance to take. (If not, the original point still stands.)

I mean this politely- please stop assigning the worst possible interpretation to what I'm saying. It goes against the spirit of discussion, and doesn't generate insight.

I don't receive it very politely. It's clearly condescending, and from my perspective you are the one reading uncharitably. I explicitly didn't assume either interpretation of your statement; my point was that it was either extreme or, as far as I understood the thread of this discussion, irrelevant. (This subchain began with someone pointing out that one's sexual orientation will naturally be revealed in a work context.)

> We’re humans, we share about our lives.

Some humans do, some don't. It makes sense for people who aren't interested to be able to avoid it and for people who are interested to be able to have it.

The vast majority of people don't have the self-control necessary to be polite and professional when confronted with political/religious disagreement. Better to let everyone enjoy false consensus bias than to take the risk.

Exactly . I dont know how he could consider as he / she put it "gay persons very presence is political". Thats is a very sad position to have . Thier presence is just like any other persons presence. I could easily see where a person with that mindset would not last long at my company.

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