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)
This gave me PTSD to my time working in tech in San Francisco. To me, some of the larger problems with the tech world that don’t get highlighted so often is how much people are completely making up what they do. I had zero experience in my industry, none. I sweet talked my way into my role and had a friend at the company put in a good word for me. A couple kudos later and I find myself managing, then running my own department. So many of the employees in many of the more ambiguous non-learned-skillset required jobs like sales, customer service, HR just found there ways into a niche and learn along the way. Unlike say a software engineer who went to school to learn how to code, I did not go to school to learn how to get screamed at on the phone and troubleshoot their tech issues. Brittany here probably didn’t go to school to learn how to close deals. The people that designed her programs probably didn’t set her up for success enough, and clearly, the mismanaging of new hires vs the bottom line was their fault, not hers. That said, to any young folks getting into the game, I’d say be wary of doing what she did here by recording this interaction and posting it. I know the gratification probably feels right and just in the moment, but she could have made her life a lot worse than a lost job with potential lawsuits. As mentioned above, a job is just a job and unfortunately we are all just a number to the company. You can and will get another job. Always cover your ass though.
Nah, the only thing she did wrong was being a new hire. They were just firing all of the new people.
Her recording it was maybe a little unprofessional but they should’ve just said “hey we’re getting rid of a bunch of people and your number came up, sorry.” but I guess then they’d have to pay out. It’s pretty shitty to blame the employees performance, most people would just roll over when told they weren’t measuring up.
But I can see someone finding this video later and not wanting to hire her because of it.
Record everything. Business isn’t professional by any means. Why do you think some backward states make recording illegal…?
Edit: Disregard below, she lives in SC. Single party consent.
Since CloudFlare is SF based, I’m assuming she lives in California, which has two-party consent for digital communications, which makes recording that call illegal. By sharing this online, I believe she could face the following:
Criminal Penalties: Under the California Penal Code 632, illegal recording of confidential communications is a “wobbler” offense, meaning it can be charged as either a misdemeanor or a felony, based on the specifics of the case and the discretion of the prosecutor. If charged as a misdemeanor, the maximum penalties include imprisonment in the county jail for up to one year or a fine of up to $2,500. If charged as a felony, it’s punishable by 2–3 years in prison and a fine of up to $2,500. For repeat offenders, the fine can increase to $10,000.
Civil Liabilities: In addition to criminal penalties, the violator may also face civil liabilities. The California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) grants a private right of action to any victim of a violation, with steep damages. Damages under the CIPA can be substantial, with treble damages available and a minimum damage award of $5,000 per violation. This means that the person or persons whose conversation was recorded without consent can sue for damages.
Public Posting Aggravation: Posting the recording online could potentially aggravate the situation. This action could lead to additional charges related to the unauthorized distribution of the recorded content, especially if it involves sensitive or private information.
😬
A job is just a job
… except its also your livelihood and health insurance, whahaha. Man, you sound like you adopted management perfectly, with the same disregard for your fellow human. Why don’t you give your job to the next passerby and give them the same chances you had back in the day? It’s just a job man.
If anyone ever thinks differently, this video should convince you.
If you work for a corporation, you are not a person with a name, you are a number. And that number is the amount of money given to you as pay and benefits.And when the corporation no longer likes your number, you can be unceremoniously shown the door, regardless of your past performance.
Unless you’re apart of a strong union. Then they think twice before firing you.
Really need to create an “analyst union” that title seems like a white collar coverall term to just pay people less.
They likely fall under already exiting tech related unions.
The Teamsters Union even has a tech worker umbreall now.
I wonder what issues a software engineers union is fighting for.
Many of the same issues other unions fight for I assume. Fair treatment and collective bargaining at the base.
Unless you live in one of the many countries that have good employment laws.
bruh the girl didn’t close the deals it 🦆 happens it suxxxxxxxs. i usually close the deal tho
Did you watch the video? With her training ramp she effectively had December to sell. I’m not sure about the Cloudflare sales cycle, but I’d guess most deals aren’t going to happen in a month.
Especially December. Between, say, Nov 15th and Jan 15th, things slow way down in corporate, unless you’re in an industry where things are backwards.
no i was hammered i support your side
It’s hard to close the deal when you’re hammered.
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HR is IT for people. Do you think the IT guy cares about all the laptops in the company? No, it’s a resource he manages. Do you think HR cares about all the people in the company. No it’s a resource they manage. Companies try so hard to make HR look like high school guidance counselors instead of the ruthless hatchet men they are.
It guy here, I care more about the computers and tech than HR cares about people. Fuck HR
Oh you the new computer guy? Hey can you help me with the printer?
Have you turned it off and on again?
I did but there is a power outage
Reestablish power to your office then try again
At least 3 times?
I see and what’s your error message precisely
ticket auto closes due to age User receives an email, thank you for your time. Please contact us again if you have any other questions
I know I feel empathy towards computers that are broken that I can’t help anymore
When they won’t even boot into a Linux USB drive, make funeral preparations. Pack the dead body in a box and ship it to the hazmat recycling facility in the sky.
I know right? Old piece of hardware getting retired? It gets new life if I have something for it to do. I’m looking at my Brother HL-5170DN from 2006 that got tossed because the 2nd tray kept jamming. Guess who doesn’t need a 2nd tray and loves this printer?
My first home server was a decommissioned small business server. Was a file server for a long time until the hard drives started to go.
Yall IT guys are daisys thinking HR wouldn’t stop at owning slaves and put retired employees to work at home
Yuuuuuuuuuup. I always try to repurpose first instead of tossing. Even tossing for tech is a donation first if I can.
Only thing I don’t love is a case I’ve had forever is an old enough ATX design that I can’t easily fit all the new things in it. I’d love to repurpose it for a desktop for her but I don’t think I’m going to love building things in it if I do.
I care about the laptops. I care about them a lot. People return them in a shit state, I clean them up take care of them and then advocate to donate them to schools in the area.
HR are just that, hatchet men.
IT guy here… Uh, no. I resent that you would group us with HR.
At my work I keep advocating to give our underperforming hardware (aka old hardware) a second life by opening up sales for them instead of destroying them (except hard drives of course).
When my laptop was acting up and was kind of crappy… I replace the thermal paste and replaced the old failing hard drive with a new SSD. At laptop is now 14 years old (Intel i5-540).
thanks for replacing the thermal paste, I’m POSTing now, but i’m still having trouble with (issue i’ve been told to open a ticket for but am refusing to do). can you fix that please
scribbles or notepad furiously
Lobotomize… Ex… Co-workers…
Attaboy
Yep HR actually stands for Human Risks.
I went through a lay off being a manager once. It’s not fun at all. We had the list and the metrics. But we were already pretty small and we really didn’t want to lose anyone on the list except for a couple people.
So we basically gamed financial. Offered anyone that wanted it part time. Fired the few people people that were clearly not interested in working anyways. We did something else that I can’t remember, and we ended up being able to fucking keep everyone. It was amazing.Not even two months later we had to ramp up for the holidays, so everyone that willingly cut their hours went right back to full time. And we were offering OT too.
Year later the company pulled out of the state. But until that time we kept everyone.
Is this response AI generated or something? How did you keep everyone if you fired people?
Fired undesirable – Kept everyone desirable
Reading comprehension. Look into it.
Thank you for sticking up for your employees. Had a similar thing happen where I was part time for a few months until things picked up. While it was difficult I appreciated that I had an income for then. And he gave me a stellar reference for if my finances got too tight and I needed to start searching.
This is why managers need to be included in firing decisions. The fact that Brittany here wasn’t able to have that dignity enrages me.
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
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Wow I applied to Cloudflare a few months ago, glad I got rejected because I was just laid off late last year.
This really fucked up thing this layoff streak is to send a message to investors that they are cutting back, mass laying off sales people is not a good sign for your business model.
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This is why severance gets offered. It’s a contract that you agree to and henceforth you can’t really fight. And employees would frankly rather take the pay than immediately lose income and then start investing time in a lawsuit against a much better resourced organization, which could take years and may not result in anything. Most companies know how to navigate the laws. Few ordinary people know how to sue over them and win.
Generally, the WARN Act covers employers with 100 or more employees, not counting those who have worked fewer than six months in the last twelve-month work period.
She mentioned in the call that she started working in like August.
Cloudflare has 100 employees not counting her.
Ahh my mistake. I misread that as the employees who have not been there for that long would be exempt from this protection.
It specifies which employers are cover with the WARN act, not employees. It either covers whole company (all employees in company) or no one at company at all.
nice
So glad she eventually got to the “how the fuck are you so clueless about this, you’re the ones firing ME” part.
Ok, I understand the point of recording this but…she is very young, and likely this is her first time being laid off. I know, it’s shocking. Except for me, who had to console the person that came to get me to be laid off who was much more upset than I was, but I digress.
Here’s the thing. You’re being laid off. There is nothing you can say or do to change that. The people doing the firing were likely brought in specifically for that job, and they know nothing more than what management has told them. Your manager had absolutely no say in the matter, this decision was made 3 levels higher than them. Your manager likely didn’t even know until about an hour before you are let go. I know you’re upset, I know you’re frustrated, I know you’re likely not thinking straight. But it’s happening, whether you like it or not. You can ask why you’re being let go, but they can’t tell you what they don’t know. And even worse, they’ve had this exact same conversation at least 50 times that day. The first instinct is to make it awkward and difficult for them, but this is their job and they are use to it.
Confirm your information. Make sure you can follow up on next steps and get your employment insurance claim started immediately. If you can, make sure you can still contact your actual manager for a reference afterwards. Usually you can find out more about what really happened at the same time. Just get as much information as you can about what they will provide you for the aftermath. Then once you get off the call…scream. Cry. Jump up and down with joy, if that’s how you feel. Just let it out. You’re going to be feeling a lot of emotion, so just let it out. Go home, explain what happened to your family of you have one. Let them scream and cry if they have to. And then try to sleep.
The next morning will feel weird not having to get up to go to work. Enjoy it. Take the first week to yourself. Get your employment insurance claim going and all the paperwork for that. But take time to decompress so you can be ready for the next move. Work on some of those home projects you’ve been putting off because you were too busy with your job. Take time to spend with family. Just don’t worry about finding a job yet. The emotions from the last job will still be raw, so you don’t want to bring that to an interview. Let yourself adjust to the new routine before you dive headfirst into a job search. When you’re ready to start your job search, you don’t want those emotions clouding your judgement and avoiding jobs that you think are too close to your old job. A little distance will help to put things into perspective.
And remember, it’s not the end of the world. You’ll find another job. You just need to be open to the possibilities. But you can’t do that of you’re still pissed off to the eyeballs. Take the time to let it go and truly move on.
I don’t think you understand the problem. The issue is that some of these people might actually believe they did something wrong, or didn’t measure up. That is the problem. They should just be honest.
There’s no law against laying people off because you hired too many people and need to downsize. They are using performance as a reason because they think (and in many cases, they’ll be right) it will subdue the person being laid off from a position of anger or resent, to a position where they’re upset with themselves for not measuring up.
It’s a really bad way to do this, for the person being laid off.
So, yes. Asking about the fictional performance metrics to at least make them feel a little uncomfortable too is completely fine in my opinion.
All of your advice is sound enough, but the point of this video was more to demonstrate that Cloudflare (and absolutely other companies) are specifically avoiding “layoff” language in favor of firings based on “performance” to avoid paying these people even the paltry amount in unemployment they would receive. It’s not just that they’re being laid off.
The excuse might be “performance”, but they are being fired without cause officially. They can still apply for employment insurance. This is just standard procedure. Being fired with cause opens them up to lawsuits, so most companies avoid that whenever possible. Especially when they are firing multiple people like this.
Being fired without cause means an employee is being let go, but not because of any serious workplace misconduct. Conversely, being fired with cause means the employee committed a serious breach of conduct in their workplace, which led to their termination.
Citing performance is citing cause. You’re wrong and others are right in that citing performance is an attempt to demonstrate cause to avoid severance and/or unemployment. A “layoff” is without cause and entitles them to those benefits.
Again, it doesn’t matter what they tell you. It only matters what they report to the government. If it’s with cause and you have proof they are lying, you can sue for wrongful dismissal. But they won’t do that. They will report it as without cause, because that’s just easier. They don’t owe her severance because she was only there for 4 months, but she will qualify for at least some employment insurance.
You are wrong. Just stop.
Your opinion isn’t binding. Please show me the documented proof that she was fired with cause. This video is nothing but rage bait.
Alright, walk on then.
This is plain wrong dude, it’s with cause, it’s performance. They’ll try to get her to sign a paper saying so, she can refuse, but either way they “have a paper trail” and even you refusing can be made to sound like “see they were insubordinate”.
She can go get unemployment, the gov will check, and they will show their paper trail showing she doesn’t qualify.
Stop trying to say it won’t make a difference. It will make a huge difference.
Until we see that paperwork, it’s all speculation. Getting upset about it will change nothing.
Again, it doesn’t matter what they tell you.
Wrong again. It very much matters what they tell you because by law they’re not required to tell you anything. They can terminate employment for no reason. Giving a reason is citing cause.
The employer might not fight an unemployment claim but if, for example, they cited performance in the termination meeting and then the employee finds out the employer had made age discriminatory comments, kind of like you did, about them, there’s grounds for wrongful termination.
You seem intent on ignoring the fact that the conversation during a termination from the employee perspective is crucial because companies can, and do, lie to protect themselves.
There’s also special conditions and requirements that go along with a reduction in force (layoffs due to overstaffing) that companies try to sidestep by listing a different reason for the termination.
Pointing out the truth is not “age discrimination”. It’s obvious that she is very upset in the video, and that this is probably the first time she’s been in this situation. It’s also obvious that the manager and HR person have gone through this conversation many times already. There is nothing that they could say that would satisfy her. The HR person literally says that. They are giving her the response they were told to give her. Yes, its bullshit, but it doesn’t matter until it’s written down. This video isn’t the “gotcha” that she thinks it is. Without the video, it’s her word against written documentation. And of course the company is going to protect themselves, that’s why they won’t report it as with cause. All this video did was show her inexperience. Unfortunately we’ll never see the update where she tells us what they reported on the written documents.
The point is, laying all these people off with performance as reason protects Cloudflare in not having to pay extra (which would be legally needed if the employee was not at fault).
This is probably not any kind of proof she can use, but it does make people aware of how Cloudflare operates.
It’s understandable companies have to fire people and as an employee you’d probably do best to accept the harsh reality of a business. But if they really communicate fake causes with lay-offs (not only hurting the employee mentally, but also financially bypassing rightful compensation by law), this should be known by the public.
To be fair though, we cannot confirm her statements to be true either. But I think it’s an interesting share nonetheless.
Hmm, but the HR people said they didn’t have any documentation, and if she hasn’t had a bad performance review prior to this meeting then there isn’t a paper trail showing poor performance.
If they generate some documentation after this meeting that shows poor performance, wouldn’t that kind of be a smoking gun for a fraud case? Because it seems pretty clear that the intent is to defraud her of unemployment benefits by claiming that she was fired with cause.
Exemplary response!
Being a 9-5 sucks. Never be loyal to an employer especially millenials and coming generation. You have lost everything so do what you get paid for and leave. Don’t let them tell you how boomers and the generation before that did the job.
Content unavailable :(
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.
Yikes. This kind of thing is happening all over the industry as it pulls back from COVID over-hiring. https://layoffs.fyi
