I don't want to be judgmental of Brittany because it's a sucky call to have to take. But my recommendation in this situation is to say "I disagree with that assessment of my performance, but I understand you are terminating my employment. What details do we need to handle with any severance, and where do I send my laptop." And then, as is tradition, go get day drunk.
Those both seem very worthwhile.
companies explicitly construct situations like this such that the person being screwed doesn't have access to anyone making a decision, just other peons implementing them.
I feel like companies should just be more upfront about things like "hey, we over hired. This sucks. But you're fired. Here's a generous severance."
Layoffs are “supposed to be” non-performance based. “Our widget didn’t sell so we’re laying off the widget makers”. That’s the generally accepted idea.
In the US you totally can sue if they fire you for a protected reason (“we noticed you were missing meetings on maternity leave, men would never do that”). Some people would sue over anything I’m sure.
If you’re a salesperson and you didn’t sell anything for 5 months, that’s performance based and it’s “reasonable” to fire them. They’d probably not sue. You can tell someone they were a poor performer without legal repercussions, assuming you’re not being shady. Typically HR and legal put together some sort of evidence just in case.
It’s just mean, but maybe fair, to lay off the entire sales team and call each person and tell them they were a bad performer. Bad look to do it after the Cloudflare CEO went around a press tour last year bragging about how they won’t do layoffs and now’s the time to invest in talent.
On the other hand, mass firings could be much easier. There might be some rules you have to follow about who to let go first. And you might need to stop hiring for a certain amount of months. But at least you could empathise the economic situation and provide empathy when firing.
Cloudflare took a stupid, unnecessary risk here by trying to put this on performance when they haven't documented it.
People sacrifice a lot of personal time to ramp up in a job. This is why she is emotional. Then she was told she was doing well..by her manager. Now her investment is bogus and it sounds like she will not be compensated at all for it? I mean you're advocating she asks for compensation, when they tell her no? Then what?
Not sure who you are but you're delusional if you think this is ok.
"Go get drunk?", ok
I'm saying there's nothing to be gained to prolonging the talk with two drones from HR. Maybe I'm missing something. What's your best case scenario for how the call goes? What is the biggest potential upside?
It's a bummer, but this is how this has been done for decades (generations?) and everybody knows it's how it's done, and that has in no way made companies "think twice" about business leaders assigning fairly low level employees or consultants to do these meetings just like this.
There was a whole gag about exactly this in one of the last few episodes of Succession just recently. There have been popular movies about this ("Up in the Air", with George Clooney, is about this, if memory serves). It's not, like, a secret that this is how it works.
It sucks, but no, this video going "viral" is not going to change anything.
Hire her as your saleswoman then.
And mind everything you do/say or you'll end up bashed in front of all the internet.
I mean this in the nicest way possible, but this made me LOL.
You don't have the details and she had 0 sales.
You're basing yourself on a TikTok video, with someone who knew it was being recorded and acted accordingly.
Eg. Cloudflare 's products are very technical and perhaps she has too little general IT knowledge to be able to close a deal ( she mentioned to have 3 chances and closed 0 )
Serious question: what should have been said on this call to do that? There was a lot of "I'm sorry you feel that way" seeming to come from the HR representative, but it seemed to miss the mark.
As far as I'm aware, evidence of good performance could be used to strengthen their case to collect unemployment (if Cloudflare tries to fight Brittany's unemployment claim); it could also be used as evidence in a discrimination lawsuit. But given that Brittany said that many other team members also got invited to 15 minute calls with HR, there's good evidence that CF didn't discriminate, but it's also evidence that this could've been a mass, quiet layoff.
Although it sounds like the simple fact that her clients backed out at the last minute could be enough evidence for poor performance, even if the sales were entirely managed properly before that point.
Certainly not without more details.
Good sales is far more complicated than closing deals. It's like in poker: you'd much rather fold a good hand (unclose a good deal) than shove all in and then lose to an even better hand (close the deal and then discover the customer was a bad fit, which has negative second- and third-order consequences.)
Cloudflare did a layoff in sales that impacted ~ 100 underperforming people in May last year. It was discussed on investor day by their CEO ( https://softwarestackinvesting.com/cloudflare-net-q2-2023-ea... -> section profitability ).
They actually hired 100 other people to get average sales people around the same time, instead of underperformers. The expectation was that those new hires ( ~ May 2023 ) would see results that year => december 2023.
Probably the new sales hires were also being graded and those layed off were underperforming versus their peers.
The only thing I'm wondering, is that the performance review was fair for newer hires, but that's speculation. There are a lot of other ways to know if someone is underperforming ( eg. Feedback from 1 of the 3 sales she didn't close, too little general IT knowledge since all of Cloudflare products are very technical, ...)
And if you're in sales, there's only 1 metric that counts...She mentioned to have 0 sales...
Either a misconception or just misspeaking, but legally they can tell the employee everything. The employer doesn't want to tell the employee, simply to CYA.
HR only talked for 21 seconds before she said "I'm going to stop you right there" and started talking over them.
She goes on to admit she closed zero sales, even past her ramp-up period.
It's unfortunate, but if they sorted people by sales performance she's at the bottom of the list (by definition)
I think a lot of people in this comment section are responding to the emotional nature of the TikTok and ignoring the fact that she had zero sales during a downsizing.
Could you please provide a source for that? That can be an important distinction for an employee. For example, when answering the question "Why did you leave your previous job?" It's important for the now ex-employee to have accurat information.
Here, a worker is clearly being wronged and some random HR goons want the whole thing to proceed as a normal, matter-of-fact 15-minute meeting. They’re going to email severance and equipment return info anyway. Take advantage of these opportunities to make them miserably uncomfortable. In Britt’s case, they never even knew her, so it’s not like she’s going to reach out to them for a recommendation.
Older generations wonder why younger generations are "quiet quitting" and using all this anti-capitalist rhetoric when in the same breath they're sending HR goons (great term for it) to do their dirty work.
Layoffs are unfortunately, sometimes, necessary. But when they happen, it's important that the right people are chosen, for the right reasons (whether that's performance based, voluntary, protecting certain groups, ensuring fairness, etc). That requires collective bargaining by representatives who are able to assess and change the criteria, and who are able to negotiate for better outcomes for those impacted.
They would be among the first to go under union rules, too.
Unions are often worse at prioritizing things like tenure over performance, if anything. But even under those rules she was one of the most junior people.
There is basically no situation where a union would have prioritized this any differently.
They had no signed contracts, but with onboarding, the ramp up, and holidays, it sounds like this was explicitly not an issue for their manager.
You're right that tenure is a common way of deciding who is going, but if HR had come in and said "we're really sorry but we're letting go the most recent joiners, no reflection on you other than your start date, you'll get a good reference based on your ramp up performance", that would have gone over much better.
People don't like things that don't make sense. In my experience, between individual advice and collective bargaining, unions do make things make more sense in this way.
You didn't listen to what they said:
* One month at speed * Three months of ramp
Generally, ramp time in roles like this persons would involve tailing and listening to active areas, training for the specifics of the product that you're selling, etc.
We then hit December, wherein
* Nobody makes big spend choices in December. It's a dead month for sales unless you're in Retail selling toys and gadgets. Sales closing in December are fucking golden geese. * They had one possible account land pull out at the last moment. Why? Unsure. * Assuming this person is telling the truth, their management indicated they were a high performer overall.
Just like very few companies hire in December, very few companies make big spending choices at the end of the calendar year.
Unions can do things like
* Argue that the state of the dismissal is contrived ("you didn't sell anything in the week nobody buys things") * Create mandatory minimum times of employment (e.g. "you can't lay off someone who has only recently joined" or "you can't lay off someone who moved > 100mi for the job until they have had at least one primary performance review")
Unions fight the nebulous "performance metrics" that HR is citing here.
A union would have had significantly more notice because they're in tune with the company and prioritize the workers. Extra notice means greater better planning.
• Third quarter revenue totaled $335.6 million, representing an increase of 32% year-over-year
Do we need to feel sorry for cloudflare or something?
She says on the call, or her feedback has been positive, so why should she expect a negative outcome like this?
As a junior, she should be given the appropriate and valid feedback so she can learn and improve for her future. Not this dystopian, cold bullshit. Do you have any idea what this kind of thing does to a junior employees confidence? Wow.
We should never stand for it.
Ok.
> it's important that the right people are chosen [for layoffs], for the right reasons
Um . . . unions?
> requires collective bargaining by representatives who are able to assess and change the criteria [for which people are being fired!]
Unions?
> are able to negotiate for better outcomes for those impacted
Unions only do that?
I would hope that unions are more than just ways to protect management when they make firing choices.
Unions are not supposed to be a management condom for when management f's the employees. Do people pay dues just so they "do it with a rubber?"
A union doesn't stop layoffs it just costs everyone more. Your best representative in a layoff is a lawyer and a place with better employment notice pay.
GP said they can negotiate who gets laid off and what happens to those who do.
Unions can be an entirely appropriate and reasonable party.
As a well paid software engineer who wants to work with high performing colleagues, nothing my union has said has suggested they aren't supportive of this. They are about holding companies to account, not entrenching poor performers or normalising salaries around some middle ground.
Bear in mind also that there has been a near century long war of propaganda against the idea of unions. There's a lot of negative connotation built up in media, discourse, expectations, etc.
Factory unions protect the collective uniformly because each person is interchangeable. This is a “raise the minimum” type environment. They make it hard to fire because they need to hold the line.
Some unions are structured to support highly skilled and differentiated labor. Like in Hollywood. They protect workers like camera-men but still allow skilled actors to be well paid and properly audition for roles.
Unions are not the answer.
Though maybe her manager is getting canned too and either didn't want to make those calls or they didn't want him on those calls.
"look, it's a layoff and my bosses', bosses' boss decided that they were using the closed deals metric to rank people and cut the bottom . Ibdont have a say in who I staying and who is leasing, but ill help you in everything I can"
Managers: grow the balls to fire your employees. Theres always a reason. And talking with your people may make you maintain a good relationship with them.
Were I to pull up this company's wiki page while talking with a recruiter, this video is like, on a first date, someone being rude to the waiter, while they smile at you. Strong signal about what they truly are.
In this case, a stereotypical big corporate-bureaucratic drone company that absolutely doesn't care, and will toss you aside in an instant, in a Kafkaesque manner, while blaming you. With the effect of beating you up and stressing you more, on your way out -- disrupting your job-hunting, possibly unemployment insurance, and health.
https://twitter.com/TheTranscript_/status/165269146916406886...
For the sake of argument, let's say that blaming sales numbers on the salespeople was correct, and that culling was the right response. Then maybe the recent hire person in the video was included inadvertently, or indifferently.
But I wouldn't take it as a given that the salespeople were the root problem. (Someone hired those people, mandated the framework in which they operate, designed the products for which they have to find buyers, etc.). And the tone with which a company is discarding its people tells you how they think about their people.
Also, most of it wouldn't be useful to anyone but me.
Maybe doing personal wiki/notes like this is best thought of as an exercise for the person doing it. Rather than thinking of the artifact of that exercise as "content".
If there is anything I have learned is that Corporate bend over backwards to project a face of "family" and "values" and "ethics".
What really matters is money and saving ones own skin.
A corporate job is transactional. Pure and simple. But, when it is transactional, the outlines must be in start contrast. Many a time, people stay late and spend more time than designated working hours. The company justifies this in a million ways. But when it comes to layoffs, yeah. We know it.
Eventually I was promoted to a more-technical role, but was required to "train my replacement before leaving the department" [this took MONTHs!]. Meanwhile, the facilities manager decided to schedule me for all the confined spaces work, without OSHA-approved monitors ["due to staffing shortcuts"].
Under loud & written protest, I refused such dangerous placements [2]. This ultimately led not to my promotion/transfer, but being constructively terminated. The suddenness and disrespect was as obvious as when they "fired" the janitor [1]... one second I'm filling out TPS Reports, the next second I'm seeing that my access has been restricted.
[1] They just disabled his entrybadge, without even telling him beforehand (he showed up "to work" and wasn't allowed on-site!).
[2] During the OSHA investigation, company claimed "he volunteers to do everything, often without approval".
Person in the video worked for a company for 5 months as a sales-person and closed 0 sales.
You are not the same.
Since something similar happened to me (decades ago), I basically don’t socialize with coworkers anymore, i.e. there is no emotional investment.
To be clear, I don’t see this as a fault of the messengers. I see this as a reflection of the company leadership and/or culture. I’ve experienced multiple layoffs in my life (on both sides). Surprisingly, only one went poorly and was a clear reflection of leadership’s historical behavior. So I’m leaning towards believing that this is on Cloudflare’s leadership.
She wasn't surprised that she was called and knew she'd have to be defensive about the situation. You could chalk it up to bad luck, or CloudFlare not wanting to take a chance with her when they were already going through the trouble of getting rid of longer-term low performers.
Also recording it, posting it unredacted, and acting like you've been greatly aggrieved when you've only been there 3 months is idiotic and not good business savvy.
A stronger employee would've said: "I disagree with your assessment and would've hoped that CloudFlare was able to provide clearer communication, and I believe you're in the wrong, but I understand you wish to part ways and I personally wish you the best in your firing meetings."
Frankly she sounds like a pain in the ass and doesn't understand the cold reality of the business-employee relationship.
It's almost as if she's pissed at the prospect of doing other pain in the ass things, like looking for a new job. People being a PITA when getting surprise fired is such a weird thing, right ?
> doesn't understand the cold reality of the business-employee relationship.
Looks like Cloudflare's HR will now understand the hot reality of having their firing meetings scrutinized on social media.
Not only did she post it on social media, but it revealed that she made no sales (her fault or not).
But I guess this is Gen Z for you.
Besides, it takes serious guts to do what she did. If CF were honest with her from the get go the video may not even exist. She will be able to find another job but the PR hit and lack of trust in this company will be more difficult to repair I suppose.
But on prospective employers, perhaps she doesn't need future employers who'd be pissed at their shitty HR drones getting exposed on social media ? She might not need to go work at a Fortune 500 company lawyered to the teeth, and could find a nice place that is willing to commit to higher standard of communication with their employees ?
I had a coworker go shout insanities at the CEO at a meeting after the company pushed a few of his buttons, it was totally unprofessional and a hot headed move, but I'd still see him as a good hire in a different setting. People can have flaws and bitch too much publicly and still be valuable workers in the right contexts.
And yes, Brittany is going to be internet famous for a day. But a lot of people going to watch this video and recognize her on the next loop of interviews. Just not the best solution for this situation.
It is just sad to see. And I am sorry for anyone who is going through those hard times.
They are, but we could say similar things about cartels, drug smugglers etc.To you they're just criminals, to them, they're trying to survive and just doing their jobs. It doesn't mean it's a noble thing to be doing for a job.
I found the exchange very much "outsourced". The not manager were trying to convey the message. They have no skin except delivering the message in their best manor. They likely were given a script. They didn't make the decisions and were hired to be the buffer for emotions that would naturally develop.
I'm thinking the best way is to quick rip the bandaid. "Your position has been eliminated. Your severance is four months. Your check will be direct deposited today"
So yes, the job of HR is to hire and fire people. And of course doing some human resources things, but in reality protect the company.
And please don't compare HR to cartels, cheez. What the actual F? In the current state of everything, I more mad at the software engineers and not at anybody else in this world. The amount of crappy software, services and products available right now is absolutely gigantic, most of us work for corporations that don't value personal lives and privacy and ready to sell your data to anybody.
Please don't put yourself above the people who worked in HR.
It is like being mad at the nurse/doctor at the hospital, that can tell you that she cannot do something for free, just because it is policy of the hospital. Sure, if she refuses to cure a dying man - that is one thing. But in this case they just let go a few people from the company, not like they throw them under the bus.
Like her, I was doing awesome up until suddenly, I had no job. Fortunately I was given okay severance. I hope she lands okay.
This a strong signal for me to never work with Cloudflare. I doubt that matters to them, but hopefully this PR convinces someone who matters there to reconsider their handling of these situations.
Companies do not give a fuck about you. Companies do not appreciate any sacrifice you make for them, so make none. Never do more but just what they pay you for. You owe them 40 hours and they only owe you a paycheck. You're employment is temporary. HR is there to protect the company from you. Save your money, Network and have a plan b.
You are selling your service to the company, so it's a win-win on both ends. You deliver a service and get paid for it. If you can't deliver, or they don't need your service, or can't pay for it, there is no win-win anymore.
I'm a freelancer, but even when I was employed I looked at it like this. It's the best way to neither live in fantasy land where "your" company is your family, nor have a negative view on companies.
Firing means that the person is removed from the position.
I got him a job at our company, he got very good feedback from his manager for 3 months, and then, suddenly, they fired him because he was not fulfilling the expectation, even tho he had been praised for exceeding them some weeks ago.
Of course he took it personally, because they were saying that HE is not good enough.
One week later they announced massive layoffs and then we understood that it was because of this upcoming layoffs that he got fired, which is very unfair, because they blamed him (and made him feel guilty) when the company already knew the _real_ reason to fire him.
They don't need to hug her or be touchy feely. Just be PROFESSIONAL. Tech companies instead try this creepy middle ground (uncanny valley) of quasi-niceness instead of giving it to her straight. Now it's blown up in their face.
This is some "only in the US" level stuff (in the context of "The West").
(Netherlands had a rule where you could have 3 fixed term contracts, up to 24 months total, before becoming a permanent employee)
so they could've hired her on a 6 months contract and simply not renew it :)
Edit: Also PR speak is one of the most unbecoming things I've heard in my life. I know there's HR people here in this thread, so to them: Try to at least act like your human.
Uh, you'll still get terminated if you skip the meeting. It's not like that's the One Big Loophole companies don't want you to know.
Most of the time it’s been harmless, but there have been a couple of instances early in my career where I really should have had a legal representative before agreeing to anything.
There isn't a "good" way to do layoffs, but "being laid off by someone you've never met before" is up there with the "bad" ways.
Also, there's absolutely no reason why, in the event of layoffs, you should EVER blame the employee or point to something they could have changed.
Layoffs happen because management fucked up. Own that and let the employee off the hook.
HR exists to protect company interests.
Once fired, go away with dignity and smile, while knowing that you had Plan B for the whole time. Many people compare relationship with company they work for with the relationship with their partner, but it's a totally different thing. Abundance mentality is crucial and always think about Plan B and build your career to be able to leave the company anytime.
Brittney posting video of herself getting fired while acting a bit desperate and frustrated won't help her in her future career (she also probably recorded them without them knowing).
Although the HN ranking algo is mysterious, this is different from how it typically works in my experience.
Depending on the law that is either allowed or not.
Also if her manager has been giving her good feedback, then this is just wrong. How would you supposed to know you're not meeting expectation if you're not getting appropriate feedback. If this is all true, and I there is no reason to believe it isn't, then these companies are just scum.
The US needs better workplace protection laws.
Take them to court.
Going viral against an employer, where she acknowledges to have 0 sales...
And pressing to give details multiple times, while they can just remind her about a, just scheduled, upcoming meeting. Since they don't have the details at hand ( probably related to internal policies from the legal department)
I do agree that they could provide more info though. But they repeated multiple times about a new meeting with more details...
She was the only one that knew it was being recorded and she acted accordingly...
M'am, you're on the sales team. It has everything to do with your performance.
And Cloudflare... fuck. I mean, they won't even own up to the real reason they want to shed headcount. Tried to pass it off as being the employee's fault. So damn shady.
I liked Cloudflare but y'know... any chance I get to use something else, I'm going to take it. Way to tank their reputation with a 5-minute video.
All they had to do was say, "Yeah, we over-hired. Thanks for playing."
Instead... man... 0 respect for Cloudflare watching this.
Put another way, IANAL, but isn't there a lot of grounds to sue here?
I have been in a position like her and I have been a founder since then.
Also our layoffs were done similarly, HR picked the people, we never found out the exact reasoning, and it was handled by our manager's manager instead of our direct manager.
HR has two jobs - managing the supply and outflow of talent, and preventing a bad look of the company while doing so. On both fronts, HR fails miserably, so imo they should be the ones to be axed first.
Edit: If i had a daughter i’d want her to be like this person.
On the flip side I worry for Britt that you can't record people in California without their consent and now she might get sued.
And sure it's a shitty situation but I'd be upset if my coworker published a call I had with them on social media, that's just as unprofessional.
It is always good to understand why you’re being let go, and humane companies will sometimes allow managers to communicate certain details so as to help but not get sued. These were not those people and you could tell by the corporate buzzspeak alone.
Thinking about this from the employer side, they set themselves up for an adversarial conversation that had no possible means of redemption.
I hope she finds work soon. While I don’t think posting a clandestinely recorded video to social media is the best idea, I now think more highly of her than I do of her former employer.
But I think she was extremely rude to those two people who were not required to be as empathetic as they were.
(I also don't like people who get angry at waiters for faults of the restaurant)
That's not empathy.
HR is "the man", coming to screw them, the reaper incarnate.
sometimes judges can be such dicks whispering under their breaths that it makes violent defendents leap onto the stand to try to assault their pompus jerk asses.
just because you're passing judgement doesn't mean you should be an overt arse about it.
That's highly contingent on jurisdiction. I don't know where she's recording this. I'm assuming that she's US-based, and even in the US, the laws vary by state.
There's no basis for believing that AI took her job beyond scaremongering
She is aware, so it’s all fine
Depends on the state.