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Cloudflare Employee records her final meeting where HR tries to fire her

I can’t give more approval for this woman, she handled everything so well.

The backstory is that Cloudflare overhired and wanted to reduce headcount, rightsize, whatever terrible HR wording you choose. Instead of admitting that this was a layoff, which would grant her things like severance and unemployment - they tried to tell her that her performance was lacking.

And for most of us (myself included) we would angrily accept it and trash the company online. Not her, she goes directly against them. It of course doesn’t go anywhere because HR is a bunch of robots with no emotions that just parrot what papa company tells them to, but she still says what all of us wish we did.

(Warning, if you’ve ever been laid off this is a bit enraging and can bring up some feelings)

model_tar_gz ,

I have an interview scheduled with CloudFlare for later this week. Guess what topic is going to come up.

Looks like I’ll miss this bullet. I’m still pretty happy in my current role so I’ll only jump for something spectacular.

scrubbles OP ,
@scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech avatar

Between us, I think it’s still okay to vet them out, but yeah you have the benefit of knowing they need to sell the job to you. Are there layoffs happening, “I read articles where layoffs are still happening, why are you hiring?” and knowing that HR is going to be impersonal and callous when you’re dealing with them. All important factors.

And hey worst case, it’s good interview prep for yourself

model_tar_gz ,

Yeah, still attending the interview but don’t really think I’m going to go anywhere with it. As you said, it’s good game practice.

But really though. If CF is this brazen on letting go recalibrating firing the people closest to the money (sales) then how am I supposed to think they’re going to treat their engineering talent? R&D is typically the first to get the blunt end of the axe, not the last.

scrubbles OP ,
@scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech avatar

I’ve seen it hit both ways tbh, sometimes it’s engineering, sometimes it’s support. Depends on if the company views engineering as “they’ll save us money” or not.

But yeah, it’s a good chance to work out the first interview jitters, probably do some stupid technical questions on the whiteboard like “write out binary search perfectly in the whiteboard from memory”, and see how it goes.

scarabic ,

My one question going in was whether this was a Sales role. It’s hard to overstate how volatile a career in sales can be. You are your numbers and your income can swing around wildly. Maybe you can control your own performance but the viability of the products is out of your control and the targets set for you to be evaluated against are outside your control too. Companies use Sales to grow, not to subsist, so the second budgets are tight and a company shifts into survival mode, you’re the first to go. Culture is also volatile and high pressure, competitive, etc. I know a sales guy who closed a multi hundred thousand dollar enterprise software deal and was missing just one signature for weeks and could not reach the guy. He travelled internationally and camped out in the building lobby for multiple days until he saw him and ran up and got him to sign.

It’s hard. You can do really well but it’s hard. She’s pretty vulnerable not having actually closed anything, ever, yet. No one actually cares at the end of the quarter if you “have great meetings.”

Theharpyeagle ,

As she mentioned, she only had a month in the least busy time of year to make a sale. Had her manager said anything or any available metrics indicated that her performance was insufficient, that would be one thing. To blindside her with a meeting with absolutely 0 proof of poor performance is 100% shitty management. Yeah, sometimes shit happens and the company can’t keep staff, that’s just capitalism. But they do morally and legally owe her the things afforded to laid off staff (especially in the case of mass layoffs). Them trying to weasel out of it shows utter disrespect for their employees, and it should be called out.

scarabic ,

Yes many extenuating circumstances. Sadly she’s still open to attack since she hasn’t put any points on the board.

I understand you’re saying that this performance crap is made up so they can save money, and I agree.

But a sales position that has never closed a sale doesn’t make a good poster child for this cause of fighting back against bad performance ratings. Fact is she has not created value.

If her employment included a contract that guaranteed she could complete her ramp period, she’d have some footing.

Theharpyeagle ,

The point isn’t if she made a sale or not, it’s that she was never informed of any requirement of such and was given no indication that not making a sale in her first month would lead to termination. Where are the manager notes indicating she was performing poorly? Where are the metrics that she’s failing to meet? Where is the contract saying she must make a sale in the first month after the ramp period? If her performance was really the issue, this information would be readily available. The fact that it’s not, and that many others had been fired the same day with the same lack of warning, shows that this is a disingenuous deflection to avoid giving her was is owed.

scarabic ,

Where are the metrics that she’s failing to meet?

We can be confident that zero sales is not meeting any metric whatsoever. Of course her quota period and goals were all left out of this but salespeople don’t work without them. And the quota is never zero.

The salesperson was never informed that making sales was part of the job? Come on. I think you’re trying a little too hard. No, they don’t have a contract stipulating she just make a sale in the first month, nor did they have a contract saying her employment was guaranteed through her ramp. It’s clear she had the opportunity to make sales. She says she got close with 3 but they all fell through. They’re dicks for calling this bad performance but sadly she has no leg to stand on either.

Theharpyeagle ,

Okay, but the point stands: if she was failing to meet whatever standards they say she was, why could they not provide those metrics during this meeting? If they can’t point to a contract, numbers, or previous feedback (official warnings, record of egregiously poor behavior, PIP, etc.) that indicates she was failing to perform her job duties, they have no grounds to fire her. If it was just her being fired then yeah, this would still be incredibly shitty behavior but, unfortunately, likely still legal under at-will employment laws. However, depending on how many firings “happen” to be occurring at the same time, CloudFlare could definitely have a WARN act violation on their hands. The WARN act specifically calls out this kind of thing:

For purposes of this section, in determining whether a plant closing or mass layoff has occurred or will occur, employment losses for 2 or more groups at a single site of employment, each of which is less than the minimum number of employees specified in section 2101(a)(2) or (3) of this title but which in the aggregate exceed that minimum number, and which occur within any 90-day period shall be considered to be a plant closing or mass layoff unless the employer demonstrates that the employment losses are the result of separate and distinct actions and causes and are not an attempt by the employer to evade the requirements of this chapter.

uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title29/…

gandalf_der_12te ,

Honestly the problem I see here is not the layoff, which was disguised as a “lack of performance”. Yes, it wasn’t done perfectly, but still, it’s no tragedy.

What is definitely the problem here is the absolute lack of a social security system in the US. That should be implemented.

DarthBueller ,

Don’t worry, so long as you say the magic word “intersectionality” it will be okay. It doesn’t matter if progressives spend all of our energy on shoehorning every issue into racism and identity so long as we say “it’s okay, bro - INTERSECTIONALITY.” See? Couldn’t you feel the magic happening?

Bernie_Sandals ,
@Bernie_Sandals@lemmy.world avatar

Say you have no understanding of Intersectional Theory without saying you have no understanding of Intersectional Theory.

DarthBueller ,

No, I’m saying that regardless of theory, popular understanding of intersectionality is actually quite the opposite, a way of siloing off issue areas and the losing issue is ALWAYS labor rights. I’m telling you that in practice, I’ve had SJ groups tell me that food deserts in my overwhelmingly white rural area are the result of racism. And that the vast majority of poor white people of course had their own intersectional issues, but we had to address the racism rather than think about it as an economic and labor issue that impacts everyone. Literally, insisting that they be as ineffective as possible by approaching it in a way that loses everyone except the farthest left.

aard ,
@aard@kyu.de avatar

Here in Europe the 4 months she was at would be somewhere mid to end of the trial period, during which you can be let go without having to provide a reason on relatively short notice. This is also pretty much the only chance you get to easily let go a specific individual - so if there are indications it’ll not work out doing just that is a good idea.

But having that done by arbitrary HR drones is just crazy, and obviously you’ll be entitled to unemployment benefits or other social benefits after that.

net00 ,

The worst thing is that there are many bootlickers out there. Worker rights are a joke and companies have infinite ways of fucking you over.

In this instance the HR snakes were caught with their pants down and looked like imbeciles.

But for example many people get placed on PiP with unrealistic goals, or harassed by management over petty mistakes. The only goal being saving the corporation some money by claiming low performance.

A lot of people out there need to get their head out of their asses if they think this is ok.

KillingTimeItself ,

this must be a result of the recent internet downtimes.

Good infrastructure bois, keep at it. Soon there will be nothing left.

Stanwich ,

Could she threaten to sue for slander. They are telling her that her performance was sub par. She can prove it wasn’t. I would cut them off after those comments are made and tell them a lawyer will contact them.

wolfpack86 ,

This is not slander. It would be slander/libel if they went out and proclaimed she sucked at her job with nothing tl back it up.

Stanwich ,

Good point. Slander would not be the correct term here.

RubberElectrons ,
@RubberElectrons@lemmy.world avatar

I hope so, but is it a right to work state? Not a lawyer, but absolutely ask one. Recall that that costs money though, and she no longer has an income. It’s wildly disadvantaged against the workers here.

capital ,

She’s the one who made this public.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

The only time I got laid off was from a university where I worked. I read in the paper that morning that there were going to be layoffs and I came in and my boss was really apologetic and told me I was laid off. It actually went really well all things considered. I didn’t blame him and he was as nice as he could be about it, saying things like, “if you ever need a letter of recommendation, send me an email.”

scrubbles OP ,
@scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech avatar

Which is all it need d to be. Layoffs always suck, but your boss did it the right way

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Right. This HR video shows exactly the wrong way to do it. Sometimes layoffs are necessary, but you don’t have to be an asshole about it.

maniclucky ,

Wrong on a human level. On a corporate level, they didn’t admit it was a layoff and so she can’t sue them or get any benefits. Fucking sociopaths are punishing new employees for being hired after they botched the numbers.

intensely_human ,

And you don’t have to lie about it. The lies gain you a little wiggle room for a day or two. Then your reputation is lower and everything is harder. These ghouls don’t grok that the lies generate a type of pollution that is far heavier than whatever near term benefit you get from lying.

SendMePhotos ,

Right. You can piss on my face, but don’t tell me it’s raining.

intensely_human ,

See? That’s the thing these HR types didn’t get. Britney’s loss of a job is bad enough, but it’s so much worse when there are lies on top of it.

“Adding insult to injury” applies perfectly here.

J12 ,

I know they’re not trying to be but that HR speak is so fucking condescending. “I’m sorry for how you’re feeling.”

Pyroglyph ,
@Pyroglyph@lemmy.world avatar

Not to mention “I hear what you’re saying”. While objectively true, it doesn’t mean that they understand or give a shit in the slightest. I have a very argumentative family member that says that line ALL the time, and all they really want is to get you to shut up so they can say what they want to say.

scrubbles OP ,
@scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech avatar

The “non-apology”

Tier1BuildABear ,
@Tier1BuildABear@lemmy.world avatar

Right? Like apologize for laying me off because you overhired, at least then you’re just an honest idiot.

fne8w2ah ,

The tap must have dried up bad enough that every damn firm and their dog has to quickly trim away those “excess fat”.

intensely_human ,

You can see first the fear, then the thrill of battle in her eyes. Don’t take any guff from these swine, Brittany.

qbus ,

It sucks to get fired but it was 4 months not 4 years. You will be able to bounce back and pivot

Theharpyeagle ,

4 months or 40 years, no employer should treat you this way.

I’d also say it’s potentially worse to get fired this early on. You have to restart any waiting period for health insurance or 401k, deal with any potential life-changing accommodations you had to make to work there, and live off what little you could make between two periods of unemployment.

CobblerScholar ,

Only watched her initial verbal volley and fuck that is some strength. I heard the emotion right under the surface but it was emphatically not in her voice, I’d have been shitting myself if I were on the other end of those questions

kinther ,
@kinther@lemmy.world avatar

Yikes. This kind of thing is happening all over the industry as it pulls back from COVID over-hiring. layoffs.fyi

xenoclast ,

I hear that phrase a lot like it means something. What is “COVID over hiring”? What does that even really mean?

hexortor ,

Monetary policies and cheap loans from the government that stimulated the economy to counter the effects of the recurrent lockdowns. The opposite of what’s happening now (high interest rates to counter inflation).

cultsuperstar ,

They kept bringing up performance metrics. So are the metrics predetermined to always be against employees? Employees will never have a good performance regardless of all the positive feedback, just so the company can fire people when they want or need and say “well here’s your performance based on the metrics, you’re not working out so we gotta let you go”. That’s what it sounds like to me.

Twitches ,

Performance metrics are always set against the employee. The company always wants the option to fire so metrics are set higher than possible. So if you ever meet metrics your probably cheating and that’s fireable itself. It’s all rigged.

intensely_human ,

Damn, why can’t these corporate idiots recognize the value of morale? Like, there are reasons to tell the truth that go beyond naïveté. If you’re fair with your employees, they fucking love you, and do so much better.

It’s like mosquitos vs wolves, r-type vs k-type strategies. There’s a whole different universe of getting ahead that has to do with bringing value and playing fairly, and so much upper management just seems totally blind to it.

I think people without conscience don’t understand what morale is. I think they understand motivation, but not morale.

maniclucky ,

Because they only thing they value is money. Right now money, not future money. So long as the numbers go up, the sociopaths in the c suite couldn’t possibly give fewer shits.

intensely_human ,

Well, the value fear and desire. They just don’t comprehend morale because it’s outside of their emotional universe.

As in, they don’t understand it. They don’t realize there’s something missing from their model of how people operate.

techiegreg ,

As soon as you start measuring metrics, you can expect to see a lot of people playing to the metrics, regardless of what they are. No metrics can really cover everything the company actually needs to accomplish to succeed. The people who focus on getting the necessary shit done can often end up looking bad if the metrics are especially off.

intensely_human ,

It’s kinda like speed limits set so low they know nobody will comply. Then they can “generously” not pull us over most of the time, and whenever they want to, they’ve always got “speeding” as a reason.

A mis-calibrated rule that is never enforced, until it is for other reasons, is just arbitrary despotism pretending to be a system of rules.

linearchaos ,
@linearchaos@lemmy.world avatar

Even if the employer wasn’t a total piece of shit, metrics should be able to cover the gamut of performance outcomes.

It’s pretty easy to weaponize that though. The whole industry is already more than capable of producing tight deadlines for no particular reason.

Personally I prefer just a binary acceptable or unacceptable. Instead of handling merit-based increases, You do merit-based promotions. I always hated the here’s the unreachable goal to get your full raise crap.

Aceticon ,

I only saw the start and the emotional vibes are pretty bad, and not just for Brittany (though, of course, even in the beginning she’s clearly already hurting).

At least somebody actually directly got in contact with her, personally, rather than firing-by-email.

If there is a lesson I learned way back at the beginning of my career in Tech back in the mid 90s is that you shouldn’t really go for the whole loyalty to your employee when they’re anything but a little company were everybody works together, because they will screw you over if its in their best interest, sometimes casually so, and those making the decision will never be in calls such as this one and instead send some poor sods like the HR lady and that director guy to do the dirty work for them and fell the hurt from the person on the other side if they have any empathy (which most people do have, which is probably why both the HR Lady and the guy were uncomfortable from the start).

Also beware of the company trying to manipulate you as an employee to have your workplace be your entire social circle of friends and even like a second family: the whole point of that is to “retain” employees without having to actually pay what the market says they’re worth. This is actually a pretty old trick in Tech HR, dating back to the original Internet Boom.

The whole loyalty of the companies to employees thing died in the late 80s early 90s and you should be skeptical when it comes to what the company “does for you” and ponder on what’s in it for them: for example, “free pizza dinners” are not at all about being nice for you, they’re about you working long hours for free (which would cost them way more than that free pizza if they had to pay for them) to enhance that company’s profits.

It’s sad and it’s the World we live in: one were the real power of the land is Money and it’s mainly in the hands of Sociopaths.

UID_Zero ,
@UID_Zero@infosec.pub avatar

My first job out of college was for an global company. I was there just over one year when they announced they were outsourcing us. On the day of announcement, there were two meetings. One way getting hired by the outsourcer, the other was being let go at some point in the next year (after turnover). Since subset of the let go group was booted that day.

It was a great lesson to learn early in my career.

My loyalty to my employer extends to the 40 hours they pay me. I accept my on call week three times per year, because I’m in IT and that’s just how it goes. But past that, I don’t care. I do, however, appreciate and enjoy my coworkers. We are friends, and no one abuses that friendship. I would miss working with them if I left, but that’s not enough to keep me where I am. I’ve been looking, but not terribly seriously. For the most part I’m left to manage my stuff, and I don’t get too much hassle from above. There is, however, a ton of corporate BS these days.

Aceticon ,

I think what we do is called “professionalism” rather than “loyalty” - they pay us for our time and it’s a questions of professional pride and moral obligation that we are there doing the work for them, in a reasonable professional way to the best of our abilities, but no freebies.

They might decorate it with “we appreciate your work” hypocrisy and bullshit, but they treat it as a “supplier” business transaction hence I’ll treat it from my side as a business transaction too, which means what’s in the contract is what’s in the contract and if I find a better “client”, I’m off.

After less than a decade as an “employee” I actually became a freelancer and it has served me well and I never regretted it, even though I was in the middle of each of the industries worse hit by the last to major crashes, first Tech and after that Finance. Job security is an illusion, so you have to build your own security by making sure you’re well paid for your work and hence can fall back on your savings even when the whole Economy plunges and even the few genuinelly good companies to work for still end up firing most of their people.

zbyte64 ,
@zbyte64@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Since when does professionalism include lying about the person’s performance metrics as the reason for the layoff? She professionally asked for receipts, they had none. These people seems to think gaslighting is part of being professional.

Aceticon ,

I think you misunderstood my point if you think I’m defending the people who accepted to work in a job, HR, were they’re going to be firing people whilst trying to misportray it in such a way that the company saves money.

Also, Professionalism and Morals are mostly separate things (though it has been my experience that those who are ok with working a job were they’re screwing other are also ok with screwing those who pay for their work).

Sure, I can see how somebody in their first job might go into HR thinking its fine, but somebody with a couple of years doing the job either is a complete moron or has figured out what it really is all about, and that’s not about treating people well or even just fairly.

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