“About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today”

Re:“About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts t... by devoutsalsa on Friday April 30, 2021 @06:02PM (#26999979)

A few years ago I worked with someone who would constantly complain about a certain politician. Honestly the unending onslaught of negativity was the problem for me. They could have been complaining about a toaster over’s inability to bake both sides of a sandwich and I still would have gotten sick of it if they kept saying it. I’m at work to make money, not to be subjected to endless banter about anything at all.

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Re:“About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts t... by bradleyjg on Friday April 30, 2021 @05:57PM (#26999903)

I see you don’t work with very many American fresh college graduates.

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Re:“About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts t... by mixmastamyk on Friday April 30, 2021 @06:25PM (#27000256)

This may be the answer. Some useful traditions are not being passed down, especially at startup-type places which don’t allow older employees.

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Re:“About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts t... by res0nat0r on Friday April 30, 2021 @06:44PM (#27000460)

I think this is more of the issue. Young startups and management are much more lax with this type of thing and let it fester and become a bigger issue than it ever should have been. I’ve worked at fortune 10 companies and smaller startups founded by older folks and there has never been any overt sexual innuendo or politics talk which would be obviously divisive. Most everyone has enough emotional intelligence to know these things should be left at home since there’s no reason to bring them up at work.

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Re:“About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts t... by jessaustin on Friday April 30, 2021 @08:52PM (#27001723)

Once I was hired at a company founded and run by boomers, and on the first day noticed several stacks of magazines like "Hustler" etc. just sitting on the floor in a manager's office, while we conversed with other colleagues some of whom were women. This was probably 15 years ago, and I didn't quit or anything, but let's not exaggerate the virtues of old people.

If anything this C-suite freakout seems like a result of too much Covid isolation. Lots of executives are hyper-extroverts who need lots of coddling from people they've hired for that task. Some needs just aren't fulfilled over Zoom. This last year set these super entrepreneur dudes [and, to be fair, their top-percentile coding-god employees too] on tilt, and they're lashing out trying to get back on track. It's their company; if they want to sacrifice some jobs and profits on the altar of their warped personalities how can we blame them?

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Re:“About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts t... by res0nat0r on Friday April 30, 2021 @11:52PM (#27002910)

I'm not arguing either way, but both are extremes in decorum. Most companies run by generic middle of the road boring folks adhere to general decorum overall vs explicitly offensive behavior. This isn't because they're more virtuous IMO from my experience, just because they like most folks want to work 9-5, collect a paycheck and go home and not rock the boat.

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Re:“About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts t... by bradleyjg on Friday April 30, 2021 @09:10PM (#27001846)

> This was probably 15 years ago, and I didn't quit or anything, but let's not exaggerate the virtues of old people.

That’s true, but every time we humans have tried “let’s throw everything out and start over” it’s ended in tears. And that’s the prevailing vibe I get right now.

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Re:“About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts t... by jessaustin on Saturday May 01, 2021 @12:14AM (#27003026)

We're not talking about the French Revolution here. This is a small-to-medium (or, recently, perhaps "medium-to-small") privately-held SaaS firm. For its entire existence, this firm's marketing has taken the form of checks written against a hypothetical account of expertise in business organization and cultural transformation. This week most of those checks have bounced, but that is because of the particular properties of this organization, not "kids these days".

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Re:“About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts t... by mixmastamyk on Tuesday May 04, 2021 @03:15PM (#27041678)

That you can find an exception from the bad old days, where a company was run like a <80s mechanic shop, doesn't negate that experience dealing with people is useful.

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Re:“About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts t... by bradleyjg on Friday April 30, 2021 @06:31PM (#27000323)

Chesterson’s fence comes to mind.

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Re:“About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts t... by twiddling on Friday April 30, 2021 @07:02PM (#27000669)

I love that observation by G.K. about the fence you find and thinking through why it was erected.

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Re:“About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts t... by Udik on Friday April 30, 2021 @06:26PM (#27000260)

I don't think a political discussion now and then at work is an issue per se. As long as you remember you're talking with colleagues, and you have to keep a respectful tone and be friendly and collaborative with them all the same one minute after the conversation is over. And insulting your colleagues (for example suggesting that they're racist, or homophobic, or otherwise a problem at work or in the society) is of course unacceptable.

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Re:“About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts t... by goatinaboat on Saturday May 01, 2021 @01:03PM (#27007830)

I don't think a political discussion now and then at work is an issue per se. As long as you remember you're talking with colleagues, and you have to keep a respectful tone and be friendly and collaborative with them all the same one minute after the conversation is over. And insulting your colleagues (for example suggesting that they're racist, or homophobic, or otherwise a problem at work or in the society) is of course unacceptable.

Discussing is one thing, and advocating is another, and it should be obvious which is which but some people don't know and many don't care, in fact advocacy was their goal all along.

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Re:“About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts t... by irrational on Friday April 30, 2021 @06:09PM (#27000056)

I suppose it depends on what you consider public. I once worked on a team at a Fortune 500 company where the majority of team members were Catholic. They’d often bring up religious topics while chit chatting before meetings started. I’m not Catholic, but I didn’t care. It’s not like they were ever trying to convert me or anything. I treated it like they all belonged to the same book club.

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Re:“About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts t... by mixmastamyk on Friday April 30, 2021 @06:28PM (#27000285)

I think what folks mean by R&P is ugly R&P.

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