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Comment by el_benhameen | Hacker News Reader

In the case of the video, the implication is that she was told she’s being fired for performance, which seems unreasonable as she appears to have just finished training. I think the days of HR giving references with any information are long gone, but I still wouldn’t want to chance having something in my “file” about being let go for performance if that wasn’t the real reason. That and it’s just common decency to not blame someone for their firing when they don’t deserve the blame, regardless of how it’ll play on some message board somewhere.

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> having something in my “file” about being

I would check your assumption here. What is this "my file" you imagine exists. What is it? Who is the custodian? Is there just one copy, if not, how are they kept in sync, etc.?

Presumably HR would keep some record of you after you're fired?

It’s in quotes because it’s not a literal file, per se. But HR will keep records of termination reasons.

So, if a prospective employer contacts Cloudflare and asks why she was terminated and Cloudflare says “performance” when that’s not actually the case, it’s detrimental to the potential employer’s perception of her.

Never heard that a company tell the reason got dismissed. they will confirm they worked there. saying performance or similar things can cause legal issues. At least in Europe. in some countries even code sentences are not allowed.

Usually companies now ask the question "would this candidate be eligible for rehire in the future". If someone is fired for performance or other cause, the answer is more likely to be "no".

This works around potential libel issues associated with giving specific reasons.

It affects her response when her next interviewer asks her why she left her last job.

It's important to note that it seems like she's made zero sales in 4.5 months when there is a 90-day onramp period. At the very least that sounds like a good basis for reviewing her performance and depending on the org might even be enough by itself for termination.

> In the case of the video, the implication is that she was told she’s being fired for performance, which seems unreasonable as she appears to have just finished training.

She says she was hired 4.5 months ago and that her ramp-up quota period was 3 months long. That's not quite "just finished training".

In sales, once your ramp up period is over you're expected to be held to the same performance standards as everyone else. Ramp up periods do provide some cover for not hitting quota, but not closing a single deal during the ramp-up period and in the months following (albeit over holidays, which is tough) is not a good sign.

It could be pure bad luck, but the reality is that having zero closed sales and being past your ramp-up period is going to put you at the top of the layoff list.

> She says she was hired 4.5 months ago and

She also says that every 1:1 she's had with her manager has been positive.

I would expect in a circumstance where an employee is actually underperforming that they would not have been told otherwise during their regular performance meetings.

> That's not quite "just finished training".

In some places i've worked it most certainly would be, others not so much. I don't know if we have that level of information in this case however.

My background has been in hosting/cloud and I've run and worked within sales teams and its generally been:

Selling $5 dollar a month shared hosting accounts and 50 dollar dedies? Yeah, you should probably have something by the end of your first month after ramp.

Selling 50k+ a month cloud infrastructure and engineering services solutions? You get at LEAST one dud quarter to find your feet after ramp, if due to nothing else other than its a significantly longer lifecycle.

The time window also spanned two major US holidays. There’s always a sales slump in November-December, so that should have been accounted for.

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