Changes at Basecamp
Can there ever be a non-work related conversation between employees that is not a &quot;societal and political discussion&quot;? In the past week I have spoken to coworkers about high housing costs (bunch of us are testing the market right now), property taxes, EV rebates, weed legalization, homeless&#x2F;drug use problem on the streets. All of this is apparently a fireable offense at Basecamp?<p>People are going to say &quot;obviously stuff like this is okay&quot;, but to me that&#x27;s even worse. The company can and will apply arbitrary rules to whatever <i>they</i> think is unacceptable political speech.<p>And if they do strictly enforce that employees must only ever communicate about work (and the weather or whatever), then that sounds like a very depressing and dystopian workplace.<p>Is it really that hard to hire adults who can have reasonable adult conversations (with sometimes differing opinions) without it being a &quot;major distraction&quot;? And is the best response to this really to bow down to the loudest voices on either side and shut down conversation for the 99% who are just...normal?