Live record of being fired from Cloudflare during a redundancy plan [video]
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"That is just the usual ~40 persons we fire a normal month in the sale org" (And I don't speak the one we usually fire in other departments).
"3 months including onboarding is enough to judge people performance". We don't care about holidays despite common sense...
When I worked at a large, multi-national telecom, I started in desktop support (waaaaay back in the day!). I remember being surprised about the layout of the 10,000 person organization, in general. You had staff, supervisors, managers, directors and vice presidents with some of those roles missing/swapped. Usually its "one or the other, supervisor vs manager" depending on if it was a higher-paid salary (or hourly) position or "the folks who answered the line when you dialed 411".
For nearly every organization in the company, turnover was nothing that would raise an eyebrow. The structure was pretty boring, too -- A single VP, maybe two directors, the rest managers/staff.
And then there was sales ...
In Desktop Support, we spent a lot of time in the various local sales offices. We were either picking up or dropping off a computer over there about 5 times as much despite the office holding 100 employees. Almost everyone had an office. All office locations had the same dress policy, but everyone in the Sales department was 1980s IBM dress policy[0]. And almost everyone in the building was a Vice President.
Being a frequent fixture in the office, I got to know a few of the managers and it was explained: the job has high performance quotas which, if met, will make a 6-figure salary very easily (in 2001) but which, if not, you'll be gone -- quickly[1]. There was something of a 400% turn-over (I can't remember if that was per quarter or per year, but I think it was the former). Much like the response from "Matthew Prince", though, the manager I talked to and the two sales-people that were hanging out all agreed "that's just how it works -- you don't have a consistent paycheck month-to-month, anyway, but the money is very good and the turnover means jobs are abundant." It's not a life I would choose, personally, nor am I in agreement with that way of doing things, but that was my take-away.
[0] Which wasn't all that surprising; the office had customers come through.
[1] The devil's in the details; certain sales jobs had long-tenured people and a long-term high-performer isn't let go after a bad month ... usually, anyway.
as long as you have a buffer to lean against (savings, investments, family) it seems like a good bet, but the kinds of psychology necessary to succeed in your new low-risk / high-reward cohort tends to require distorting reality a little more than i'd like for technical fields
maybe in my next career, i'd love to try selling art, or luxury cars, or something else that naturally has no datasheet that someone can counter me with
Just adding to the broken record at this point: That’s fine in theory…but then why did this employee not receive any feedback ever letting her know her performance was lagging?
The rest of their communication was horrid as well.
The CEO commenting elsewhere implied they have a stack rank system where they let go of lower performers regularly.
It seems like that's changed over the past few years. Whenever I see a company doing layoffs now, their stock price always gets a nice boost.
It's just absurd that the person would get zero feedback about their low rank performance before being summarily let go.
There are also other reasons, but if at all possible a company would want to make any termination for performance if it has any case at all for it.
I disagree this is (definitely) a layoff. She makes a good case for not having any sales yet, but we simply don’t have any facts. Do other AEs hired at the same time have sales? Did she have leads that should have closed?
Cloudflare did her wrong, no doubt. At the very least, Cloudflare should give her feedback on why she was let go.
But my advice to her is to expect more of the same nonsense if she continues to be an AE.
More unsolicited advice… when I argue with someone, I have to pause and determine, “what are they actually capable of doing in this situation?” Those HR people couldn’t answer any of her questions. So you can either (A) ask for something that is possible, (B) make them as miserable as you, (C) finish the conversation.
I agree with you. But with just 10 minutes of preparation she at least partially knew that her audience was wider than just the participants.
I ask because I generally try to have any correspondence in a professional setting in writing. One never knows if that at some point could be useful from a legal standpoint.
For example, if I asked my manager for a vacation and they gave me permission verbally, I would ask for them to confirm it in writing (in an email).
But what would be the best way to do this for video calls and meetings like this?
There is a reason tech companies go into so much effort with PIP.
She did an awesome job here.
There is no requirement for this.
What purpose does that serve?
Limiting financial/legal liabilities - so I hear.
The idea that this needs to be a conversation is odd, and many will say opens you up to legal scrutiny. As this case shows.
She repeatedly volunteers that she hasn't made any sales, and merely disgorges a wholly subjective review of what she has accomplished... which appears to be nothing. The things she should have hammered them on are
1. No written warnings about performance. Is there a single documented incidence of performance falling short? Likewise, does she have any written accolades from her supervisor? Not that this really matters anyway, especially since she's in the standard 90-day probationary period (which she calls a "ramp-up").
2. The point about her supervisor wussing out and not giving the news himself or herself is valid, but even worse is that these two other people showed up to the meeting UNPREPARED. If they were simply laying her off, fine. No details needed. But since they claimed it was for performance, they invited scrutiny and the demand for specifics... which they didn't bring to the meeting. THEY should be fired for poor performance and embarrassing their firm. If I show up to a meeting in which I'm supposed to give a presentation about something and I shrug and say, "Oh, yeah I don't have any details on that so maybe you should ask later but don't expect an answer," I expect to be fired.
But she strayed from those points and mostly just protested at length that she did "really great."
I guess if the point was to reveal that Cloudflare is run by unprofessional assholes, then I withdraw my question. Otherwise I don't see what the call to action is here, and the promotion of it with breathless headlines like, "RARE footage of a firing!" is dumb.
She's two months past that.
Time to move on.
Also, if it's performance related there should be some kind of paper trail, discussions with her manager, emails, something. Her boss would've had a talk with her and maybe put on a pip. There would be evidence. Her manager should be the one relaying the news. Why two HR goons who can't say anything except "your fault" if they have evidence of performance problems.
Smells a lot like execs and management over hired (as has happened over and over and over again through recent history) realized they fucked up and decided to cut people. But, they don't wanna call it a lay off cause that spooks investors, and then they have to give all kinds of extra assurances to the person laid off. So they send out pairs of HR goons trained to say as little as possible except "your fault" to do the firing instead of the managers who caused the problem in the first place, they "save face", and most importantly (to them) save money.
I don't know about you but i wouldn't count a single month out of training during holiday season as a true test of performance. If it was bad, put on a PIP and fire next month once you can cite actual evidence. And for gods sake, make the person who hired her have to fire her. Give her some god damn dignity and teach those sociopaths some actual respect and care for their own hiring process so this doesn't happen constantly, forever.