Live record of being fired from Cloudflare during a redundancy plan [video]

https://twitter.com/svpino/status/1745971021654503778

by greatgib • 3 years ago

83 48 3 years ago

twitter.com

cranberryturkey• 3 years ago

i had 4 people send me this video yesterday.

ShadowBanThis012• 3 years ago

So what?

stavros2• 3 years ago

So this is a great example of how to do layoffs wrong. Just tell your employees you can't afford them any more because leadership fucked up, don't lie to them that their one week of work hasn't been good enough.

What purpose does that serve?

LeeroyWasHere• 3 years ago

They'd have to admit they're incompetent at hiring / running their departments, easier to blame and make someone feel bad.

DANmode• 3 years ago

What purpose does that serve?

Limiting financial/legal liabilities - so I hear.

joezydeco• 3 years ago

Unless California has different laws than other work-for-hire states, you don't need to say anything. Your services are no longer required, here's your exit package, have a good day.

The idea that this needs to be a conversation is odd, and many will say opens you up to legal scrutiny. As this case shows.

reaperman5• 3 years ago

Completely agree.

ShadowBanThis012• 3 years ago

Yes, they are assholes. But what are we to do with it? This video, unfortunately, does not represent anything particularly out of the ordinary, and shouldn't be taken as "how to handle it" either.

She repeatedly volunteers that she hasn't made any sales, and merely disgorges a wholly subjective review of what she has accomplished... which appears to be nothing. The things she should have hammered them on are

1. No written warnings about performance. Is there a single documented incidence of performance falling short? Likewise, does she have any written accolades from her supervisor? Not that this really matters anyway, especially since she's in the standard 90-day probationary period (which she calls a "ramp-up").

2. The point about her supervisor wussing out and not giving the news himself or herself is valid, but even worse is that these two other people showed up to the meeting UNPREPARED. If they were simply laying her off, fine. No details needed. But since they claimed it was for performance, they invited scrutiny and the demand for specifics... which they didn't bring to the meeting. THEY should be fired for poor performance and embarrassing their firm. If I show up to a meeting in which I'm supposed to give a presentation about something and I shrug and say, "Oh, yeah I don't have any details on that so maybe you should ask later but don't expect an answer," I expect to be fired.

But she strayed from those points and mostly just protested at length that she did "really great."

I guess if the point was to reveal that Cloudflare is run by unprofessional assholes, then I withdraw my question. Otherwise I don't see what the call to action is here, and the promotion of it with breathless headlines like, "RARE footage of a firing!" is dumb.

somedude895• 3 years ago

Yeah this is bs. Two complete strangers telling you you're getting fired and they don't know any of the background on why her specifically. I assume the decisions on individuals were made higher up and maybe they just let the newest employees go. But then I don't get why they don't just say that. Or why they don't tell her manager and have him tell her. Really shitty process.

penjelly3• 3 years ago

what if her entire dept and manager were let go? who should do the interview then?

jlokier• 3 years ago

If the entire dept was let go, then they were lying when they told her she was being let go because of her own performance metrics.

sct202• 3 years ago

The 2 HR strangers doing the firing screams layoff. If it were really performance every company I've been in has the direct manager go thru documentation as they're firing.

reaperman5• 3 years ago

Why do they tell her it's for performance reasons when they could just say it's a layoff due to market conditions? That seems to be the crux of the issue here.

The rest of their communication was horrid as well.

nindalf• 3 years ago

The obligations of the company are different if it’s for performance reasons. If it’s a layoff it’s a lot more. It also sends a negative signal about the company to customers and investors.

The CEO commenting elsewhere implied they have a stack rank system where they let go of lower performers regularly.

ndiddy• 3 years ago

It also sends a negative signal about the company to customers and investors.

It seems like that's changed over the past few years. Whenever I see a company doing layoffs now, their stock price always gets a nice boost.

reaperman5• 3 years ago

implied they have a stack rank system where they let go of lower performers regularly.

It's just absurd that the person would get zero feedback about their low rank performance before being summarily let go.

rblatz• 3 years ago

Terminating for non performance reasons can impact H1B employees, including renewals or new hires.

There are also other reasons, but if at all possible a company would want to make any termination for performance if it has any case at all for it.

throwaway2990• 3 years ago

4 months and produced nothing. She was low hanging fruit in a cost cutting exercise.

Time to move on.

wholinator2• 3 years ago

Spent three of those months in training, and the one month out of training was December, holiday season. I don't know about you but everywhere I've worked, most work grinds to a halt in December, for very good reasons.

Also, if it's performance related there should be some kind of paper trail, discussions with her manager, emails, something. Her boss would've had a talk with her and maybe put on a pip. There would be evidence. Her manager should be the one relaying the news. Why two HR goons who can't say anything except "your fault" if they have evidence of performance problems.

Smells a lot like execs and management over hired (as has happened over and over and over again through recent history) realized they fucked up and decided to cut people. But, they don't wanna call it a lay off cause that spooks investors, and then they have to give all kinds of extra assurances to the person laid off. So they send out pairs of HR goons trained to say as little as possible except "your fault" to do the firing instead of the managers who caused the problem in the first place, they "save face", and most importantly (to them) save money.

I don't know about you but i wouldn't count a single month out of training during holiday season as a true test of performance. If it was bad, put on a PIP and fire next month once you can cite actual evidence. And for gods sake, make the person who hired her have to fire her. Give her some god damn dignity and teach those sociopaths some actual respect and care for their own hiring process so this doesn't happen constantly, forever.

scherlock• 3 years ago

Yup, is they say you didn't meet metrics but can't articulate what those metrics are then they are incompetent and lying. Wouldn't surprise me if those two yoyos were contractors and not actual employees and just reading from a script.

ksec• 3 years ago

Dupe. Cloudflare employee posts layoff call with HR and goes viral [video] (tiktok.com)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38963678

i-sam• 3 years ago

This is a genuine question. Why would I risk joining big tech at this point ?

PedroBatista• 3 years ago

Money

nine_zeros• 3 years ago

Big tech should be viewed as hit and run. Not stable places to build a career. Just join, do your time and get out.

penjelly3• 3 years ago

the interview went off the rails because she insisted their answers werent valid. She was told she was fired for performance reasons (whether true in reality or not is questionable). i dont know if arguing with the exit interviewers has any point to it, shouldnt she just see an employment lawyer instead?

greatgib4• 3 years ago

I don't know the regulation is her specific location, but in some place, having them on record firing you without cause might be useful.

penjelly3• 3 years ago

agreed, but in pretty sure they have to serve you termination papers and you can just argue the reason stated there with your lawyer. i could be mistaken on this however.

greatgib4• 3 years ago

Here is a response from Matthew Prince, and it sucks in my opinion: https://twitter.com/eastdakota/status/1745697840180191501

"That is just the usual ~40 persons we fire a normal month in the sale org" (And I don't speak the one we usually fire in other departments).

"3 months including onboarding is enough to judge people performance". We don't care about holidays despite common sense...

mdip• 3 years ago

Sales organizations have always been mystifying to me.

When I worked at a large, multi-national telecom, I started in desktop support (waaaaay back in the day!). I remember being surprised about the layout of the 10,000 person organization, in general. You had staff, supervisors, managers, directors and vice presidents with some of those roles missing/swapped. Usually its "one or the other, supervisor vs manager" depending on if it was a higher-paid salary (or hourly) position or "the folks who answered the line when you dialed 411".

For nearly every organization in the company, turnover was nothing that would raise an eyebrow. The structure was pretty boring, too -- A single VP, maybe two directors, the rest managers/staff.

And then there was sales ...

In Desktop Support, we spent a lot of time in the various local sales offices. We were either picking up or dropping off a computer over there about 5 times as much despite the office holding 100 employees. Almost everyone had an office. All office locations had the same dress policy, but everyone in the Sales department was 1980s IBM dress policy[0]. And almost everyone in the building was a Vice President.

Being a frequent fixture in the office, I got to know a few of the managers and it was explained: the job has high performance quotas which, if met, will make a 6-figure salary very easily (in 2001) but which, if not, you'll be gone -- quickly[1]. There was something of a 400% turn-over (I can't remember if that was per quarter or per year, but I think it was the former). Much like the response from "Matthew Prince", though, the manager I talked to and the two sales-people that were hanging out all agreed "that's just how it works -- you don't have a consistent paycheck month-to-month, anyway, but the money is very good and the turnover means jobs are abundant." It's not a life I would choose, personally, nor am I in agreement with that way of doing things, but that was my take-away.

[0] Which wasn't all that surprising; the office had customers come through.

[1] The devil's in the details; certain sales jobs had long-tenured people and a long-term high-performer isn't let go after a bad month ... usually, anyway.

jareklupinski• 3 years ago

you don't have a consistent paycheck month-to-month, anyway, but the money is very good and the turnover means jobs are abundant

as long as you have a buffer to lean against (savings, investments, family) it seems like a good bet, but the kinds of psychology necessary to succeed in your new low-risk / high-reward cohort tends to require distorting reality a little more than i'd like for technical fields

maybe in my next career, i'd love to try selling art, or luxury cars, or something else that naturally has no datasheet that someone can counter me with

spacemadness• 3 years ago

He did state in an earnings call that he put most of the blame for falling revenue on the shoulders of the sales team, fired and replaced a bunch of people on the team, and made it clear they were putting more emphasis on sales performance. It seemed unprofessional to me to actually call out an org in an earnings call for underperformance, hence not taking personal responsibility as CEO.

reaperman5• 3 years ago

"3 months including onboarding is enough to judge people performance"

Just adding to the broken record at this point: That’s fine in theory…but then why did this employee not receive any feedback ever letting her know her performance was lagging?

lagniappe2• 3 years ago

This video shows a misunderstanding of the HR process and at-will employment. By the time you're called into the meeting your fate is sealed. Nobody will provide a specific reason for firing you in most states if they're wise because it opens the opportunity for litigation. In this case, she said herself she had 3 at-bats and 0 hits. Don't cry just be wiser in your next position. Your manager's opinion can't save you.

aaomidi2• 3 years ago

This is evidence for wrongful termination. If you’re saying your performance wasn’t there, you better have communicated that properly before hand.

There is a reason tech companies go into so much effort with PIP.

She did an awesome job here.

lagniappe2• 3 years ago

I challenge the assertion that this provides any evidence for wrongful termination. Her future at CF was decided before the call, the call itself was in CF's eyes only one of a series of business processes.

polski-g• 3 years ago

There are zero circumstances in which you posting your own video of being fired on the Internet could be considered "awesome". Any future employer is going to see this and move on to the next one.

tekla• 3 years ago

This is evidence for wrongful termination. If you’re saying your performance wasn’t there, you better have communicated that properly before hand.

There is no requirement for this.

sureglymop• 3 years ago

Legally speaking, what is the precedent for recording this interaction?

I ask because I generally try to have any correspondence in a professional setting in writing. One never knows if that at some point could be useful from a legal standpoint.

For example, if I asked my manager for a vacation and they gave me permission verbally, I would ask for them to confirm it in writing (in an email).

But what would be the best way to do this for video calls and meetings like this?

Cpoll• 3 years ago

IANAL. I think this varies by jurisdiction, usually about wiretapping laws. Some places are single-party consent (i.e. if you're a party in the meeting, you have the right to record), but others require all party consent (i.e. you must inform your manager you're recording).

flippy_flops• 3 years ago

If AE is your desired career path then buckle up… it’s a cut throat sh*t storm of putrid culture and gross mismanagement. Anything different is an exception.

I disagree this is (definitely) a layoff. She makes a good case for not having any sales yet, but we simply don’t have any facts. Do other AEs hired at the same time have sales? Did she have leads that should have closed?

Cloudflare did her wrong, no doubt. At the very least, Cloudflare should give her feedback on why she was let go.

But my advice to her is to expect more of the same nonsense if she continues to be an AE.

More unsolicited advice… when I argue with someone, I have to pause and determine, “what are they actually capable of doing in this situation?” Those HR people couldn’t answer any of her questions. So you can either (A) ask for something that is possible, (B) make them as miserable as you, (C) finish the conversation.

greatgib4• 3 years ago

Even if they are not in a position to change anything, it is still always good to make them feel uncomfortable so that the task is not too easy!

joshSzep• 3 years ago

That's pretty psychopathic in my opinion

reaperman5• 3 years ago

More unsolicited advice… when I argue with someone, I have to pause and determine, “what are they actually capable of doing in this situation?” Those HR people couldn’t answer any of her questions.

I agree with you. But with just 10 minutes of preparation she at least partially knew that her audience was wider than just the participants.

greatgib4• 3 years ago

I don't really understand why the submission was flagged in the end?

punyearthling• 3 years ago

Standing ovation to the employee. She handled herself really well and I don't think I'd be able to talk back like that

Live record of being fired from Cloudflare during a redundancy plan [video]

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