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It sure seems like Cloudflare are just culling staff to me, or her manager has no managerial abilities and doesn't know how to give genuinely useful feedback.
If it was her performance that was in question, there would be a trail, maybe even a car crash worth of evidence to back up that claim.
I don't think she will have issues finding work, unless having high standards, conducting yourself in a professional manner, and fighting for yourself and for your peers are considered a bad things.
I think Richard Branson (Virgin) once said, "Treat your staff how you would like them to treat your best customer." - unfortunatrly that doesn't appear to be the mantra at Cloudflare.
People complain about corporations sending out emails to notify people they have been fired or laid off. This person posting a hit video is a prime example why companies make things as brief as possible with no interaction available.
It’s also not expected to make any real enterprise sales during Q4 or the beginning of Q1 - those are usually dead times of year.
Unless your sales org is a puppy mill/boiler room… which many are.
Also, in this case they cut a huge amount of the sales org, this seems more like a “shit we over hired and need to lay people off without it being a layoff, let’s use performance…” shenanigans.
I've worked at a few enterprise software companies in the US, and Q4 is always the busiest time for sales. Having a deal roll into Q1 is very undesirable, so sales people do what they can do close before the end of the year. Q1 is incredibly quiet.
On the Engineering side, yes - Q4 and Q1 are super quiet as sales is driving the economic machine in Q4, and everyone's doing planning in Q1.
Yes, but not if you're still ramping. The sales cycle for Cloudflare is probably 6-24 months. Unless you've stepped in on a deal that's basically about to close, you're not going to be closing just because it's Q4.
That she goes on to try and rub their noses in her shortcomings tells me all I need to know who was at fault here.
Q4 is a dead time of year? I swear some of you have never had jobs.
It's funny that you say this then go on to accuse others of never having had jobs.
I've worked around enterprise sales for years and it's entirely possible for reps to go 3 quarters without closing business if they're in a strategic patch or they're trying to build a new vertical/geo. Sales cycles run anywhere from 6-24 months of you're selling enterprise software of any substance or scale, and unless you're getting hot deals from the last person, you're going to be starting most of those at 0. That's why we have ramps.
That said, there are definitely metrics you can look at to see if someone is on the right path at the 3/6 month mark. It's just not necessarily closed business.
The deal sizes are usually much higher; consequently, you need more people with authority to be in agreement that the purchase is worth it.
To do that, you need to make relationships, navigate corporate hierarchies, get on calendars, etc. All of that takes time.
It is possible that this person wasn't doing any of that, hence the termination. This is very unlikely if this was a bulk termination. Doubly so given that she was hired so close to the holidays.
I mean yes.. but depending on company policy on training/Co thats expected...
All we've really got to go on is Brittney Peaches account and Matthew Princes account and neither are going to be reliable sources. We'll never know if what Brittney Peach said is reliable and we'll never know if what Matthew Prince says is true.
We also see from Matthew Prince's reply to the video that he is also an unreliable participant as he is suggesting that a manager would always be involved in redundancies, and we can see from the video that was not the case.
Not only that, she comes off as authentic and sold her side of the story very well with that video. She speaks clearly and cogently, even while emotions are clearly bubbling. I think that video shows her skills as a salesperson in action.
Good leaders hire people who keep them in check. Poor leaders hire people they can walk over.
She is making them pay a much greater cost than her severance in PR and that benefits me because I am more likely to be in her position than I am to be in the CEO's position.
I straight up won't work for CloudFlare now after seeing this and the CEOs feeble response. CloudFlare is now in the category of "corporate" in my head.
I would rather live in a country made of people like her than a country made of people who don't fight back when they feel wronged.
Corporate America is able to be a steaming pile of garbage because most people think like you and not her, so there are no consequences for HR assholes being HR assholes, and since there are no consequences, the dehumanizing behavior keeps on going. She provided consequences. Now those HR workers are going to have to sit in meetings and develop more empathetic policies or come up with a sales pitch on why that video is wrong themselves. The CEO is probably going to have to talk to shareholders about it.
Next time they might look at the potential set of consequences (or another company might) and say it's not worth it.
The least we owe her is solidarity.
I'm definitely not defending Cloudflare on this but that's much easier to do when you're the only party knowing the interaction is going to TikTok.
She comes across well, thinks on her feet and is assertive without being even remotely unreasonable.
"Thinking that as a salesman you have to sell things is an archaic take on sales."
Nope! Often there's money left over for whatever reason, and in many places if you don't use it this year, you'll lose it next year. Nothing like walking out of a decrepit meeting room in November and then back into the same meeting room in late January but now it's kitted out with 3x50" TV's and a studio quality camera.
> yourself and your potential customers taking vacation time
Only if all the important initiatives have been finalised before the end of the year! The buyers have targets they're supposed to be hitting also, and often one of those is "purchased a new CRM/ERP/WTF for implementation in FYx+1".
BUT, having worked in tech for well over a decade now, you should absolutely 100% not believe any feedback that's given to you. She's in sales. She should understand that there's exactly 1 metric that matters, closing deals. I'm not saying it's her fault she got fired, but this should really be a lesson for everyone watching this video. Do not believe what they tell you.
So let's say a manager tells their sales rep to focus on understanding well what the customer needs, before closing the deal. Sales rep doesn't give credit to the manager and rushes for a close. Customer turns out to be a bad fit for company's products and services. Now, the company has a liability.
Management exists for a reason. There cannot be “exactly 1 metric” in any job, unless it's paper clip maximization.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/what-to-do-w...
> Brittney P. should be worried about her future job prospects. This video is now viral. I would think twice about hiring her.
If you would avoid hiring a person because they might expose your shitty practices, that says more about your practices than about the person.
Based on that video alone and the skill she used in communicating with HR, she's a brillant sales person. No doubt about it.
Most employee NDAs will include a non disparage clause in the agreement. Its standard.
This is Why we have glassdoor forums. So you can disparage anonymously.
Or maybe she didnt sign the NDA and if so disparage away just dont expect other emoloyers to come running to you.
So yes, it depends on who's judging, but it certainly can be, disparagement.
[1] https://ogletree.com/insights-resources/blog-posts/negotiati...
I don't think that merely posting a video, where Clourflare's employees and policies acted stupidly and callously of their own accord, qualifies as a "statement" for the purposes of law.
If I posted a video of the CEO of united, in a drag, at a public event, and I was subject to a non disparage contract with United, im not so sure I would be fine even though all I did is post an act, with no commentary, that was public.
IANAL so I suppose it would be up for a judge to determine my intent. If the stock price drops and the CEO gets fired, do I walk away scot free?
She seems passionate and strong. I like her fight and pushback.
This video reminds me of the cop who was suspended for continually posting TikTok videos of herself dancing while in uniform even after being warned multiple times to stop[0]. Her reaction was to keep doing it.
Regardless of who is right in this situation (neither side in my mind) this "blew up" and as you say there isn't a manager or org that isn't paying close attention to this. She's going to have serious challenges in getting her next role. Whether fair or not she's radioactive at this point. If nothing else if Britney P is in a two/all party recording consent state this is technically illegal. Not saying that's right but it is the law...
I'd go as far as to say I'd never hire her. Work is challenging enough without knowing a person you're working with could be manipulating/trapping you for their social media account(s) and actually has in the past. Right/wrong is often grey and a matter of perspective. One person's freedom fighter is another person's terrorist.
To the people who are saying you would hire her and view this as admirable - fair enough but situations can be very subtle and you wouldn't feel the same way if she caught you on a bad/off day and setup a situation where you could very easily be portrayed as the "bad guy" and "put you on blast".
It's just not worth the risk.
Explanations for this in my mind:
1) Social media addiction is a real thing. According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine the definition of addiction is "People with addiction use substances or engage in behaviors that become compulsive and often continue despite harmful consequences."
2) Looking for any situation to serve as a springboard for a new "career" as a social media "personality".
3) Doing ANYTHING for fame or attention.
4) The only good explanation - wanting to bring attention to an unjust situation. My cynical and dim view of social media, "influencers", etc makes me think this is the most remote explanation. Even if this is the case situations where only one party knows they're on a stage gives them a massive advantage in these kinds of interactions and if you watch the video it's obvious from the start this was a trap. The Cloudflare employee on the other end of the line is completely incompetent and ironically should be fired for their performance for how they did overall but also for not recognizing this is clearly the case. As the linked article says right up front:
"This is a prime example of why you should always assume your employees are recording your conversations."
Great, what a wonderful environment we've created for ourselves.
It's one thing to record, it's another thing entirely to record and post to social media. If Britney P was solely collecting evidence/documentation she could have recorded the video and kept it to herself but no, straight to TikTok.
Slight tangent - also see the situation where a "prank" social media person was shot during one of their pranks[2]. The whole social media prank thing is completely disgusting to me and the fact a jury acquitted the shooter leads me to believe that taking advantage of ordinary people with these parasitic, dangerous, and obnoxious "pranks" (harassment) is disgusting to most people who aren't desperate social media addicts.
The social media person's response to this situation was unbelievable, with them saying "We’re gonna continue the videos. It is what it is". I believe they're also on record saying how great the entire thing was because it only lead to more attention and views... See 1-3 - you very well could have died and you might next time yet you lean in harder. Yeah, I'd say that meets the definition of addiction. It's no different than OD'ing on fentanyl and continuing to use.
What people will do for the clicks/followers/likes is incredible.
[0] - https://www.clickorlando.com/news/investigators/2021/05/31/o...
[1] - https://www.asam.org/quality-care/definition-of-addiction
[2] - https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/jury-divided-over-w...
I can't imagine any reasonable organization looking at this and thinking it's positive. I see an irresponsible, attention seeking social media addict with serious boundary issues - violating everything from more-or-less professional standards (again gray, perspective), to her employment agreement, to the law for clicks/likes and/or "dunking on"/"owning"/"calling out" her employer.
As I keep saying this is all very gray and a matter of perspective. Anyone in a hiring position has to look at this and think "when are we going to do something she arbitrarily takes issue with and puts US on blast with an illegally recorded conversation, stolen documents, etc"?
It's like cheating on your wife, marrying your mistress, and then her being surprised when you cheat on her. If she did it to a previous employer she'd do it to you.
It's not going to help her much if everyone rallying behind her are /r/antiwork type people.
I truly do believe that if/when people like this finally get their way and have nothing left to rail against, they'll simply look inward to their own group for something to take issue with, and around they go.
Honestly ask yourself, would some of the more vocal activists truly be happy if their mission was suddenly accomplished? Or would they discover that their existence now feels empty, and that their entire modus operandi actually revolved around eliciting strong emotions from others?