Brittany Pietsch, Account Executive at Cloudflare, records her layoff experience | Hacker News Reader

Brittany Pietsch, Account Executive at Cloudflare, records her layoff experience

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69 pointslopkeny12ko25 comments

She asks an important question that I think it's fundamental for any employee of any company to understand the answer to: "Why are you doing this and not my manager?"

Firing people is emotional work, so it frequently gets outsourced to professional "firers" who are emotionally detached, know all the objections, can't be swayed by any argument, and who have no power to prevent the firing, even if they wanted to. The call in this video is a perfect example of this scenario, though she did a fantastic job of standing up for herself IMO and I feel for her.

I hate the "trauma" talk as much as the next guy, but I REALLY love how she just jumped in full force from the get-go and totally sidestepped their nonsense arguments.

It's seriously awesome that she taped the meeting and put it out there. I get having to fire people, but what I can't stand is them getting the finger pointed at them when it's not deserved.

Confused European here :)

Is there a reason they pretend she has been fired for bad performance, instead of just admitting management decided to fire X%?

What makes you think she has not been fired for performance? She has had 0 sales in 5 months according to her own video.

For those that may not have experience in enterprise facing sales (same topic, different submission):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38964345

Do you think it's impossible to fire a sales person for performance reasons in under 6 months then?

No I do not, however there's terminating employees based on data (0 sales in Q4) and terminating based on data with context. (0 sales in Q4 due to ...). The latter paints a complete picture and weighs all the variables. If it's actually on the employee for the underwhelming performance, then it's whatever the org allows to happen (axe vs performance improvement plan) and how humane they're willing to be about it.

In this scenario, I don't think anyone would predict getting axed for performance reasons if they appeared to be getting along with the team / manager and weren't receiving any red flag feedback.

In the context provided in the clip, it really comes off as using the "performance" as an easy excuse to let her go, without actually providing information to back it up.

I got the impression that she was a new hire (3 months minus holidays, but maybe I misheard?).

But it is clear from the video that this is a mass layoff, not firing an individual based on her performance. So my question is, why are they pretending this is about performance?

Does this make any difference for the severance package and unemployment?

You can fire many people based on performance.

Depending on who the sales targets are, that’s completely reasonable. Big deals take time to negotiate, approve and close.

The tech company I work at has an average sales pipeline of over 12 months.

Probably because of the WARN act. They seem to be claiming it’s for performance so they can avoid paying unemployment benefits as well. Absolute scummy behaviour. But I guess that is to be expected in the USA, where most tech employment is at-will and CEO's kowtow to the board and shareholders at the expense of employers.

My wife was once fired with the argument that she was performing poorly. She counter-argued and said she was the most productive employee they had, that their argument simply wasn't true, and that she understood if their cashflow was tight and that that was the real reason. She offered to flexibly go down in hours at the convenience of the employer. She didn't force them to admit the real reason, and when they got their cashflow back and offered to give her full hours, she politely declined.

>they can avoid paying unemployment benefits as well.

Not every US state allows this. Also, sometimes if a certain number of people are all fired at the same time due to "performance", they still have to pay unemployment.

The "internal metrics" they refer to is the vague excuse of "trust the science" that we've been hearing about for a long time. I guess it is a way of detaching the responsibility of firing someone from yourself.

This is moral fall of HR, The worst thing in a company is lying HR, who have no idea about the team, company, performance and etc.

I wouldn't even squarely place the blame on HR. HR is simply a (soulless) messenger. This is an executive level decision that likely has no basis in longterm strategy but rather financial pressures.

I saw it at the enterprise level during the last layoff hell when thousands were let go at my company. On the ground, there was almost little to no logic to the layoffs because the decisions were made by disconnected execs who sit in bullshit meetings all day.

In fact, it goes both ways. Even when teams are expanded out - a decision made in partnership some absurd headcount planning 3rd party consultants - it's almost as if they never talked to the team, but some exec who is 3-4 layers removed from the actual valuable individual contributors who understand the work, have frustrations and desires and should theoretically have a part in influencing planning decisions.

HR is in charge of minimizing risk to the company. One thing that is very risky is claiming performance reasons are a reason for firing when it’s really a layoff. Depending on where they are the state will not be happy that they are trying to game the unemployment system, and federally they may be in violation of the WARN act.

HR is the department responsible for knowing this and not allowing this sort of bs.

Having worked for years in the HR space and at the intersection of compliance, recruiting, legal, and business tech, it's not a complete argument to say that HR is to blame here. Executive leadership, shareholders (and likely consultants) are responsible for these "layoffs". They are the root cause. It most likely still holds true that their decision making is "bigger picture" nonsense based on budgets and short term gains. It also might hold true that they targeted the "low performers" even if that's an incredibly unfair judgment. Anyone who has worked with or knows Sales/AEs understand that 3 months over holidays is not a fair timeframe.

How HR decided to use the reason "low performance" doesn't look great at all, but from my collaboration with HR compliance folks in the past I don't think it's a violation because it's technically the "truth".

I have no doubt this came down from higher up. The reality is that telling someone that they are being fired for unspecified performance reasons when you could just as easily tell them that their position is being eliminated through no fault of their own is outright cruel. In their attempts to make it look like they aren’t doing layoffs they have made the whole internet aware that they are doing layoffs, and that they are treating their employees terribly.

And now they have created a bit of a pr snafu. How many talented people with good performance reviews at Cloudflare are now looking for the door.

Really impressed with her composure and resolve in a highly emotionally charged situation.

This is not on Cloudflare in particular. This is not even on the two clueless hatchet people sent to do the dirty work.

This is an indictment of the HR profession, its credentialing entities, and various state and federal labour laws which often create perverse incentives.

It is also an artifact (and indictment) of post S/Ox corporate culture where line managers have been removed from the "non-functional" administration of staff. and a cult of youth that has seen people with hard won managerial experience pushed out and replaced by younger employees who are too often -not- selected on the basis of management performance (since they have no track record) but rather for natural aggressiveness and disregard for others combined with an ability to hide that behind a bland non-threatening, socially acceptable, exterior. An ability that is in my personal opinion uncomfortably close to sociopathic behavior, but hey, that's just me and I am not a psychologist, right?

Anyone who thinks this is an isolated incident, or indicative of Cloudflare being in some way worse than any other similar company is profoundly mistaken.

This is an indictment on poor executive leadership, shareholders, headcount planning consultant hacks and internal comms. It's also an indictment on the law itself for allowing this style of layoffs, legal opinion and HR compliance risk assessment to fester at corporations in the US. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

brutal :(

Timely reminder that HR is not your friend.

fuck Cloudflare

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