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Cloudflare employee posts layoff call with HR and goes viral [video]
- climatekid 3y ago[flagged]
- cranberryturkey 3y agohow many?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jes5199 3y agocloudflare comes off as absolutely cowardly in this: they don’t even have the person’s manager on the call, they claim it’s a personal performance issue but when pressed it’s actually the whole department getting canned. It’s a bad look
- Johnny555 3y agoYeah, that was a terrible way to do it -- don't tell someone their personal performance is why they got fired, when in reality it's the company's performance. 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.
- thrtythreeforty 3y agoYep, this is a very bad look and if it goes seriously viral, is a PR disaster for hiring going forward. At least for me, it only takes a few of these stories to destroy the perception that a place is a good place to work (and that it isn't run by HR).
- neom 3y agoIt's been at the top of r/sales for almost 2 days now and the comments section is just savage. Real shame, I like cloudflare a lot and it makes me sad to see stuff like this.
- xtracto 3y agoRight, and management (the lady's boss) has the perfect pretext for firing her himself : "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.
- purpleidea 3y agoThis kind of behaviour from HR should be illegal. Be honest and upfront, we're all humans here.
- bboygravity 3y agoIt actually would be illegal in most of the EU (at the very least in The Netherlands) AFAIK. This is some "only in the US" level stuff (in the context of "The West").
- 35lerher 3y ago[dead]
- worldsoup 3y agowhat specifically would be breaking EU/Dutch law here?
- jbverschoor 3y agoNone, as she was fired in the standard 1-2 month trial period
- oblio 3y agoIt's January and she said she was hired in August. How's them math skillz doin'?
- jbverschoor 3y agoI didn’t see/hear that part. I heard December. Maybe she was hired before December but wasn’t active yet You’re right. She starts with that
- CornishPasty 3y agoShe says that she was doing a 3 month "ramp" - which I can assume is the induction period. She'd only got out of the ramp and started "proper" at the beginning of December, which is what (I think) you heard
- 35lerher 3y ago[dead]
- paiute 3y agoWell, this is interesting. But mostly because cloudflare is doing layoffs, but it sounds like they are trying to fire people instead. Not sure why
- brycelarkin 3y agoIs “firing” 50 people different from “laying off” 50 people?
- I_am_uncreative 3y agoYes, you don't get severance if you're fired, in some cases.
- ipaddr 3y agoYou do unless you did something illegal or ethically wrong. Not meeting some company goal or expectation isn't enough. Killing a system with a rookie command isn't enough. Being an asshole isn't enough.
- 22c 3y agoIn some circumstances there absolutely is a difference in the amount of money you will be entitled to in the case of being fired vs. being made redundant. It can be on the order of several months of pay. You will also see employers simply make the working conditions incredibly miserable for their employees on the hope that they'll quit instead of the business needing to make them redundant.
- HDThoreaun 3y agoAbsolutely not true. Cloudflare did this because they didnt want to pay severance or even unemployment to Brittany.
- evantbyrne 3y agoLegally, they are supposed to treat mass firings differently than just individual firings. WARN act would require advanced notice for firing of 50 or more persons from a location. The location of travel/remote employees would be their nearest office.
- block_dagger 3y agoA similar situation happened to me after 7.5 years at a company where I had been given consistently good feedback and promotions. I was fed the lie that my position was being eliminated when there were active public postings for the same position (Staff Engineer). My access to corporate systems was cut off at 8am with no warning or explanatio. I got a similar cold call from an HR person I had met once by chance. No involvement of my manager or director, who both reached out apologetically on linkedin after the fact. Not being able to say goodbye to my coworkers I had known for years was emotionally traumatic. Such is corporate life.
- kumarvvr 3y agoSuch need not be corporate life. 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.
- steve1977 3y ago> Not being able to say goodbye to my coworkers I had known for years was emotionally traumatic. Since something similar happened to me (decades ago), I basically don’t socialize with coworkers anymore, i.e. there is no emotional investment.
- polotics 3y agoThis is clearly what brainless managers would want... In reality if you're hoping to create something innovative and different as a team, guess what: you will need to have emotions, likes and dislikes, reach into your intuition. So the status quo is everyone loses.
- mancerayder 3y agoI'm confused by both of your replies. Of the very few colleagues I consider friends, we interact outside of work and more importantly exchange texts. In fact most of my friends are from previous jobs. If you had no private contact info to use after a layoff, I would think you're either very shy or these people are forgettable.
- leeeeeep101 3y ago[dead]
- leanan 3y ago[dead]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- tomlockwood 3y agoShame on Cloudflare. We need strong unions and legal worker protections now more than ever.
- shmde 3y agotiktok.com is banned in my country. Any other way to watch it ?
- IvyMike 3y agoIt's also here: https://twitter.com/WhatLayoff/status/1745429342551777406 https://twitter.com/WhatLayoff/status/1745429342551777406
- archon1410 3y agoNitter: https://nitter.net/WhatLayoff/status/1745429342551777406 https://nitter.net/WhatLayoff/status/1745429342551777406
- gumballindie 3y agoWow. This person is amazing! I like how she stood her ground despite these two people accusing _her_ of not performing well, when in fact the company was letting people go after hiring en masse without a plan. Just wow. Also, cloudflare, bro, get rid of those two people and whoever decided to use them as tools in gaslighting employees. Edit: If i had a daughter i’d want her to be like this person.
- system2 3y agoI do not know any company that would hire this person after this viral social media video. Employers do not like aggressive candidates who record and share on social media when they are angry.
- PascLeRasc 3y agoCorrect, it's important to be meek and roll over to make it in sales.
- ChatGTP 3y agoWhat a strange fucking world we're building. 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.
- aurareturn 3y agoShe could have been doing a good job but others are doing a better job?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- danpalmer 3y agoThis is why we need unions. 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.
- Aurornis 3y agoThe person in this TikTok admits to having closed zero sales. They're also one of the most junior people on the team (4.5 months). 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.
- danpalmer 3y agoOutcome, perhaps. But a union would have likely a) given a better timeline than a 15 min call with notice sent informally around colleagues, and b) a concrete mechanism for prioritising roles for elimination that should feel fair in some way, rather than an opaque "bad performance" reason that does not correlate with the employee's experience. 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.
- Aurornis 3y ago> and b) a concrete mechanism for prioritising roles for elimination that should feel fair in some way, rather than an opaque "bad performance" reason that does not correlate with the employee's experience. The employee admits having closed zero sales. It doesn't get much more objective than that. They're also relatively new to the company. Unions tend to prioritize tenure over performance anyway, so their relative newness might have put them at an even higher disadvantage under a union. > 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. I don't believe this at all. If this had been a TikTok where HR said "We're letting you go because you started recently" everyone would be outraged about them firing people for arbitrary, non-performance reasons.
- IvyMike 3y agoI get why Brittany's mad: Cloudflare appears to be handling this about as bad as possible. But those two HR randos aren't gonna have anything worthwhile to say, either. 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.
- throwxdf 3y agoOn top lossing your job, get drunk and loose your kidneys too. :(
- ehPReth 3y agothat doesn't happen from getting drunk once or twice?
- aaomidi 3y agoThis is amazing video for making a legal case against Cloudflare. Cloudflare took a stupid, unnecessary risk here by trying to put this on performance when they haven't documented it.
- whalesalad 3y agoWhat case? At will employment is a thing. You can terminate people with absolutely no reason if you want, most of the time.
- virtuous_sloth 3y agoAmerica is a pretend country with pretend rights.
- bsder 3y agoIn California, you sometimes have to announce layoffs. This strengthens a class action lawsuit that this is a layoff and not a termination for performance. There will be penalties associated with that. You can simply say "We are terminating your employment." However, that generally means that you cannot demand back relocation, bonuses, stocks, etc. and you're going to have to cough up equivalent severance to everybody else--otherwise you're staring at a discrimination lawsuit.
- thepasswordis 3y agoI get why she's upset, but what is the point of arguing with these people? They're just the messengers.
- thrtythreeforty 3y agoShe's not arguing to change the outcome, she's arguing to call out the hypocrisy/bullshit. In some sense it's pointless, yes; in some other sense, you deserve an argument if you don't deal straightly with the person you're laying off.
- thepasswordis 3y agoShe's asking for an explanation that they can't give her, and also trying to use some bizarre appeal to emotion by mentioning "trauma" and how much this will upset her life.
- thrtythreeforty 3y ago> She's asking for an explanation that they can't give her True - and instead of admitting that, they hemhaw about how her performance was bad. Agree the appeal to emotion isn't really helping, but on balance it's Cloudflare that looks bad here.
- jbverschoor 3y agoIt was her performance, but she didn’t agree
- oblio 3y agoThey literally reply that it was a higher level thing that had to do with her team. So a layoff. The initial text seemed like filler.
- jbverschoor 3y agoWell, a layoff has a different impact than being fired. They talk about the performance of her and her peers. In any case, it’s not even a conversation. It’s a notice
- KyleSanderson 3y agoPrevious https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38961859 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38961859
- jbverschoor 3y agoDoesn’t look like a layoff, but more like she was fired. Depending on the law that is either allowed or not.
- steve_adams_86 3y agoHere in Canada you require a cause (under most contracts) and this would be a disaster for the company if the employee took legal action. I guess in some states you can fire people without cause?
- neom 3y agoEvery state except Montana is At-Will. You can for the most part be fired for anything at any time except the usual discrimination topics.
- ipaddr 3y agoNot true at all. You can be fired anytime for any reason. You just are required to pay notice/severance. Unless you are unionized or part of a protected class.
- steve_adams_86 3y agoRight, I think I read into this that she was being let go with no compensation, but I’m realizing now that I have no idea. I hope she got some kind of severance.
- paul7986 3y agoIt's illegal to record others without their consent! Thats the law. Definitely sucks being laid off but doing such and then posting it online showing your face not very smart!
- jbverschoor 3y agoNope it’s not. It’s illegal to record a conversation where no participant is aware of the recording. She is aware, so it’s all fine
- paul7986 3y agolol and Umm have you ever been on a zoom call before ..ones that's being recorded. Before you join you must give your ok that you are going to be recorded. Everyone has to do the same who joins. You probably haven't been on a business zoom call yet!
- jbverschoor 3y agoFederal law (18 U.S.C. § 2511) requires one-party consent, which means you can record a phone call or conversation so long as you are a party to the conversation. The Federal Wiretap Act This law prohibits the secret recording of an oral, telephonic, or electronic communication that other parties to the communication reasonably expect to be private. However, if at least one party to the conversation consents to the recording, the recording is lawful. Want more slaps? Enjoy your malware rootkit zoom calls which had nothing to do with “the law”
- paul7986-2 3y agoNo slaps for learning as I see in this thread we both are and more importantly the correct answer is very nuanced. Unless someone does a deep Legal dive and we have all the facts neither of us can say who's right or wrong. Overall doesn't matter as it's an interesting discussion. As well I live in and do business in two out of the 11 US states where all parties must consent so I was speaking from experience and that Zoom button is official.. Dutchman ;)
- NicoJuicy 3y agoGood luck finding a new job. 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...
- ericzawo 3y agoAbsolutely terrible way to handle it Cloudflare. Their CEO is quite adept at social. IF they're smart, they'll advise him to directly address this, apologize for the way it was handled. Nevermind her recording of it, probably not the best move, but neither is being fired on the grounds of performance, only to later (seconds) come out that is not at all the reason. Any reasonable person and future potential CLoudflare employee would be pissed too.
- anon_cow1111 3y agoI swear I've seen one of the cloudflare CXO level employees show up during a previous divisive HN article, I wouldn't be surprised if someone shows up here.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- xtracto 3y ago"I'm sorry we were caught"
- rawland 3y agoWitnessed stuff like this many times. HR exists to protect company interests. Kudos to Brittany (OP). Her countenance and braveness will most likely reward her in the long run.
- Rebuff5007 3y agoTangentially -- pretty weird world we live in where a video of someone going through a huge personal moment in their life lives two clicks way from them dancing to JACKBOYS with their cousin... https://www.tiktok.com/@brittanypeachhh/video/6837586256692595973 https://www.tiktok.com/@brittanypeachhh/video/68375862566925...
- neilv 3y agoI have personal wiki pages for companies, where I record things like interesting HN posts about them, notes about their products, and a log of recruiting interactions. All on one page. 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.
- ryanisnan 3y agoThoughts about publishing it? Anonymously via GH?
- neilv 3y agoNope, the personal notes are necessarily personal. For example, confidential communications with recruiters. If I had to distinguish personal from public somehow in this, it would be more work, and decrease the utility to me. 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".
- makeworld 3y agoI respect this a lot.
- guax 3y agoThis is a very good idea, starting a file on cloudflare right now.
- Dah00n 3y agoGreat idea! You should add this too then: https://twitter.com/TheTranscript_/status/1652691469164068869 https://twitter.com/TheTranscript_/status/165269146916406886...
- anon_cow1111 3y agoUm, is it appropriate to request a link to this video that isn't hosted on Tiktok? (I must be becoming crotchety old man or something because even typing that name fills me with disgust. I still find it amazing that it has any more legitimacy than a random scam or phishing site)
- computershit 3y agoNah, I'm with you. Maybe don't post direct links to psyops platforms, regardless how many users it has.
- stemlord 3y agoEven aside from the shadiness of it, it's just becoming a progressively terrible predatory user experience that's crippled for non-account holders, like Instagram.
- Lornedon 3y agoyt-dlp also works with TikTok links.
- peplee 3y agoHere’s some fun context from one of their earnings calls from last year. Basically, management at cloudflare are blaming sales for many of their current issues. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sahilmansuri_lets-talk-about-cloudflare-ceo-matthew-prince-activity-7058807220393631744-ISdl https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sahilmansuri_lets-talk-about-...?
- fakedang 3y agoHonestly, I don't get why HR should be allowed to take such calls independently, or even be granted any independent function as such. Granted, most of my work experience was at (relatively) small companies (although one was a multi-billion dollar asset manager). HR is mostly a redundant department that folks from admin and legal can and should easily do. In fact, this was exactly the case at one of my internships in Japan at a billion dollar corpo. 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.
- neom 3y agoMy understanding is one of the folks on the call is the Global Head of GTM Business Partners. Not exactly junior.
- etchalon 3y agoGood for her. 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.
- olalonde 3y agoUploading a private conversation with HR to TikTok surely isn't going to help her job hunting. Prospective employers might view such behavior as a red flag... It might even be illegal given that the HR people are likely located in California, a "two-party consent" state.
- system2 3y ago[flagged]
- kirksidlo 3y agoCould we not do generation based discrimination here? It's so tired and useless.
- system2 3y agoThe video is on TikTok. It is useful to know this is done by Gen Z. While hiring it is important to remember that quitting/fired employees will do something similar. Gen Zs also act like the world owes them an apology for every small issue they encounter and act irrationally. Maybe a Gen Z reading these comments will think twice before posting something that can damage their future job hunting irreparably.
- blinding-streak 3y agoExactly. Highly entertaining and revealing for us to watch, but I don't think she did herself any favors moving forward.
- steve_adams_86 3y agoI’ve been here. It sucks. I had a similar, shorter conversation, but I was deflated by the corporate stink of half-answers and weasel words after every questions. 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.
- jbverschoor 3y agoShe’s still on the page of people behind Cloudflare. https://www.cloudflare.com/nl-nl/people/ https://www.cloudflare.com/nl-nl/people/
- djmips 3y agoThat's odd.
- tempaccount420 3y agoAs a privacy-aware person, I would be very uncomfortable if my company put me on a page like that...
- mastermedo 3y agoAdditional context: https://twitter.com/TheTranscript_/status/1652691469164068869 https://twitter.com/TheTranscript_/status/165269146916406886...
- laserlight 3y agoWhen they're selling, it's because the product is good. When they are not, it's because sales people are underperforming. Yeah, great reasoning.
- 0xChain 3y agoSad. Well, I've lost a lot of admiration for Cloudflare. Shame.
- system2 3y agoJust because an employee who worked 4.5 months with zero sales gets laid off? This is the problem with social media, now people think whoever makes the most noise is right. I've seen people getting fired for far less and they didn't make a fuss about it anywhere.
- 0xChain 3y agoNo, for the way the anon HR folks and the company as a whole handled it.
- system2 3y agoIt is every company in the United States. They are not supposed to say anything to avoid getting sued. Watch similar videos. You will hear HR not giving any information because any word is a risk of getting sued.
- fullspectrumdev 3y agoNobody actually makes many (or any) enterprise sales in Q4, also in the video it’s made clear that the whole departments getting a culling. Which makes it a really botched layoff.
- ChumpGPT 3y agoI'm an old guy, advice for young people. 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.
- passwert 3y agoThis is quite bad advice, coming from an old guy.
- koonsolo 3y agoAnother old guy here. At it's core you are right, but it's also a very negative way to view the situation. Here is how I view it: 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.
- Lamad1234 3y ago[dead]
- Izkata 3y agoBeing antagonistic from the start, barely letting them say anything, isn't a good start. The further through the video the more I wonder if it was personality rather than performance or anything else. 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.
- seneca 3y agoThis is sad "outrage porn". Regardless of how you feel about Cloudflare or their HR, this was really unprofessional of her and I suspect she'll come to regret posting this publicly. Posting an emotional attack on HR may feel cathartic, but this isn't healthy for anyone involved, including the viewer.
- tky 3y agoI have to wonder why CF bothered to say it was performance related in the first place, even if it was. The decision to let her go was made long before that call, and no explanation is going to make it go any smoother. All they needed to say was that they were parting ways, get her email address, and offer the hollow sentiments standard for being the messenger of bad news. 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.
- thomasfromcdnjs 3y agoFrom reading other comments here, my opinion might be unpopular. 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)
- djmips 3y agoI understand your opinion. On the other hand, I don't think that a restaurant situation really compares to the feeling of getting laid off and it's more understandable to see the person being laid off being emotional. I don't think we invest that much in a meal. It's probably not uncommon for people being laid off to get upset and I feel like HR people are trained for this as you can tell by this clip.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- yarg 3y agoThere's no genuine empathy there, just corporate arse covering and bullshit.
- c0nducktr 3y agoThere was no empathy here, only generic HR platitudes. "Your opinion is valid", etc. That's not empathy.
- pluto_modadic 3y agoa waiter is a frontline employee, who has to do what "the man" wants, the crummy, unseen company, which can screw them over at any moment 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.
- ralmidani 3y ago“I can’t say anything to change the way you’re feeling” doesn’t sound like empathy to me.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- outcoldman 3y agoThe thing is... Those two people on the call, I mean... They are just doing their job as well. Don't understand what is the point to actually argue with them. Nothing they can do or change. 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.
- bamboozled 3y agoThey are just doing their job as well. 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.
- pizzafeelsright 3y agoNoble jobs are rare. Doing any job with honor is absolutely possible. 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"
- makeitdouble 3y agoIs there some legal obligation for this to be a call ? It looks like it could have been an email (that they'll have to send anyway)
- outcoldman 3y agoI believe it is unfair to treat people in HR like that. To think about it, they got their job the same way we did (say engineers, or in case of the person on the video sales). I am sure some of them also got fired. More than that people who worked in HR went through hell during COVID and hire freeze. 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.
- judge2020 3y ago@Dang is there a reason this got buried?
- anon_cow1111 3y agoJust logged back in looking for this thread, 4 pages down now, -WOW-
- carabiner 3y agoAll they had to do was say: "You're being laid off. It's not due to your performance and it is due to economic conditions affecting cloudflare. We're sorry, here's how your benefits etc. will work out." That's it. 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.
- sporkland 3y agoIf they layoff it restricts them in a few ways: 1. Usually you have to pay severance. 2. They can't rehire into the roll for 6-months.
- c0nducktr 3y agoTakeaway seems to be if you receive an invite from a rando HR person, decline that meeting. 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.
- fullspectrumdev 3y agoThat’s been my policy for a few years - if HR drop a meeting in my calendar, no matter what it’s for, ignore it until I’ve spoken to my direct manager. 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.
- justin66 3y agoMaybe if you combine that approach with hiding under your desk when anyone walks by, it will be literally impossible to fire you.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- op00to 3y ago> Takeaway seems to be if you receive an invite from a rando HR person, decline that meeting. 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.
- b2bsaas00 3y agoThis why I do startup. Nobody could ever fire you, it’s always your fault and you have opportunity to react. I have been in a position like her and I have been a founder since then.
- danjac 3y agoOnly a very few people are in a position to found startups. For most of us we have to learn how to negotiate the workplace.
- fullspectrumdev 3y agoI think some people haven’t quite realised that the low interest rate days are gone.
- poisonborz 3y agoI guess you don't value non-working hours much.
- throwaw33333434 3y agoI know a few people that started a startup, reach a growth limit and it's just a regular business. They work 15h/week max.
- Timber-6539 3y agoWould rather get this type of a call from an AI bot than those two soulless creatures.
- wickedsickeune 3y agoI genuinely believe the experience would be better if Chat GPT was answering. At least if it said "I don't know why you got terminated" it would be absolutely honest.
- JakubDotPy 3y agoThe two randos were just given a list of names to fire for "performance reasons". They were probably also being evaluated by how many people per day they let go. Nobody, even those two, believes that she had a bad performance either. Sad situation to be in.
- romanovcode 3y ago> [03:20] Just because I haven't closed anything has nothing to do with my performance. M'am, you're on the sales team. It has everything to do with your performance.
- ochronus 3y agoOof. Somehow, I thought Cloudflare was a decent place to work at — well, I don't think that anymore. Even if it's 100% performance based or totally not so (layoffs), empathy is non-negotiable. You don't know what situation you're putting people in by laying them off. Sure, you can argue that “overpaid tech workers should have tons of savings so they should be fine” but it's not always the case. Not to mention the emotional side of things...
- tracker1 3y agoIt seems like they're trying to pass off the layoffs as with cause so they can avoid unemployment, severance and other legal requirements that will vary by state.
- lazylion2 3y ago5k likes on tiktok is nothing
- ralmidani 3y agoI resent the judgmental attitude being expressed in some of the top comments. In the US at least, we’ve been socialized into believing workers need to “watch their manners” while corporations can get away with murder. 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.
- TobyTheDog123 3y agoCould not agree more. 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.
- ralmidani 3y agoExactly, an extreme begets the opposite extreme.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- SandraBucky 3y agoWhy is this discussion not reaching the from front-page? Is it a taboo here to discuss about organizing/unionizing?
- rollulus 3y agoI find that suspicious too. I only found this post by using the search functionality. There are other cloudflare related posts as well not showing up, with 200+ pts as well. Although the HN ranking algo is mysterious, this is different from how it typically works in my experience.
- hysan 3y agoWhy did HR lead with it being performance based? It makes no sense given that this is very clearly part of a layoff. And especially so since they had no details. All they did was set themselves up for a very bad conversation with anyone who asked why. It comes off doubly worse because they kept repeating the same “we got nothing” reply because it removes all perceived empathy from the interaction. 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.
- HDThoreaun 3y agoNo severance or unemployment if its performance based.
- colindean 3y agoThis is not universally true. In at least Pennsylvania, "poor performance" as the reason does not disqualify from unemployment.
- IAmNotACellist 3y agoOn paper, she probably scored very low on the performance metrics they referred to. As she said, she was in a 2-month ramp-up, and had one potential contract and it fell through (through no fault of her own, she says). She was reviewed at the same time as everyone else who had been there for years, and they determined (perhaps with flawed methodology and a bad time for review) that she wasn't going to be a high-performer. 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.
- 2-718-281-828 3y agoi don't see what's the big deal here and why she felt like having to put her entitled attitude on display. laying off is like breaking up. no matter how you do it it's always wrong. at least with laying off the process can be greased with a little money and a good reference. and i'm pretty sure she'll get both. instead she gets all railed up about it as if she just discovered that life is not fair. meaning: yes, fight for your right but don't get too hung up about the ethics and details like whether the boss is there or not because who cares?
- JaviFesser 3y agoI can relate this with a friend's experience. 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.
- mvac 3y agoDon't you think it's also a problem of the corporate-kindergarten culture, where everyone and everything is considered great, even though, as a salesperson, they haven't closed any deals in the last four months?
- mhss 3y agoWe don't have any context to assess that. Depending on the complexity of the product and target customer sales cycle it can be perfectly normal to not close a deal in your first 4 months (one of which is December).
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y agoFeels like watching the film "Office Space".
- frays 3y agoKudos to her for recording and sharing this video.
- Simulacra 3y agoLegalities aside, I think everyone should record interactions with their boss whenever possible. HR is there to protect the company not the employee, so the employee hast to do things to protect themselves.
- cdeutsch 3y agoThe way tech companies have been doing layoffs is appalling. This would be my 26th year in the industry if I had a job or could get another one. I have little desire to go back. I hope there's another big developer shortage someday but with developments in AI it seems unlikely.
- sporkland 3y agoI think Britt is in the right here calling out Cloudflare for doing a layoff dressed up as performance management. It's a super scummy move. 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.
- droptablemain 3y agoIt is an incredibly awkward feeling watching colleague after colleague just disappear from Slack all day. People start talking and getting stressed, waiting for a mysterious calendar invite.
- Quenz 3y agoCan a mod remove the tracking parameter in the link? https://www.tiktok.com/@brittanypeachhh/video/7322301313134415134 https://www.tiktok.com/@brittanypeachhh/video/73223013131344... works fine.
- jauhuncocrs 3y agoNever work so hard that you'd be that frustrated and almost crying once fired for no reason. Corporations are no friends. They'll let you down without any reason, you're just a number. Spend your energy on them accordingly. 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).
- barbazoo 3y agoI mean, yes it sucks to get laid off but also these people that are on the call aren't the ones that made the decision. 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.
- sleight42 3y agoIf people are being fired for performance, how is this legal if it's done with no warning? Put another way, IANAL, but isn't there a lot of grounds to sue here?
- dbg31415 3y agoJust drives home that HR people are soulless twats. 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.
- jviotti 3y agoThis is ridiculous. More people should be following Brittany's approach and record these things. These HR shit shows are only going to end when people make them public and hurt the image of these companies. You did great Brittany.
- Dah00n 3y agoI will never accept work for a company that hire people like those zombies. No, not for a better pay, either. Such a demeaning behaviour.
- JazCE 3y agoYou can also see a comment from Matthew Prince on this video: https://twitter.com/eastdakota/status/1745697840180191501?t=rqOo0U1KLIVMNLKcbeTKng https://twitter.com/eastdakota/status/1745697840180191501?t=...
- tevino 3y agoDon't humanize businesses https://tevinzhang.com/dont-humanize-businesses https://tevinzhang.com/dont-humanize-businesses