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Cloudflare Termination Video: A Master Class in How Not to Terminate Someone

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Re: Cloudflare Termination Video: A Master Class in How Not to Terminate Someone

#61

Post by csdreamer7 »

kkielhofner wrote: post #51
fvrghl wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, that does not happen. The expectation is someone only gets terminated in the first year if they are terrible. Unless it’s a tiny startup, such a stint would raise concerns.

There's actually a debate in the biz/MBA world on "hire slow, fire fast"[0]. I believe Reed Hastings at Netflix has advocated in the past for a hybrid approach "hire fast, fire fast" - interviews can be nearly useless and unfair. See people who are excellent employees but poor "test takers" vs people who are actually terrible and incompetent but can crush an interview. In my experience you just don't know what's goin…

You know, I was expected to hate that part from Reed Hastings when I first started reading it, but he is right. Interviews are nearly useless and unfair. Giving people a chance to learn technical and professional skills when you are starting out, even if you terminated later, is important.

Re: Cloudflare Termination Video: A Master Class in How Not to Terminate Someone

#62

Post by Solvency »

Here's a related question: will this video ultimately help or hinder her career? I've always feared that other companies will look at this sort of thing, regardless of who is "in the right", and want to distance themselves from a potential rabble rouser who might bring some future emergent attention to them as well.

Re: Cloudflare Termination Video: A Master Class in How Not to Terminate Someone

#63

Post by hyperdimension »

throwup238 wrote: post #58
ceuk wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I made a very vague comment about it being more tricky to get rid of employees in the UK. If you think it's not actually that hard as "it takes a bit more legal work", great.. but we still seem to generally agree. It's a bit patronising to imply I know nothing about UK employment law because we have a small difference of opinion around how robust we would say the protections are. It was a minor anecdotal comment b…

> Seems like maybe you just wanted to use my comment as a segway into your point about the erosion of employee protections, which you're entitled to do of course. That’s like a quarter of the comments on HN at this point (minus the employee protections bit, usually it’s something much more insipid). It’s pretty much impossible not to trigger some one. Everyone’s got their pet issues and culture wars these days.

Well, that's...fine, I guess, right? I mean that's how conversations work in real life, right? Just as long as the parent commenter doesn't interpret it as a direct attack or a direct argument. It just takes the conversation down a different path.

I'll agree with the word choice of 'insipid' however...

Re: Cloudflare Termination Video: A Master Class in How Not to Terminate Someone

#64

Post by stavros »

ceuk wrote: post #8

In the UK (and most other places with fairly strong employee protections I imagine) it becomes pretty difficult to get rid of employees once they've been around for a while. Often involving a lengthy "managing out" process. Given this, it's common for a 3-6 month "probation period" when starting a new role in which you can be dismissed fairly arbitrarily. This makes sense given the commitment taking on an employee re…

> As a result, it's very common for people to lose their jobs within a few months of starting.

The rest of your post seems to contradict this, or at least it's a bit inconsistent. You can lose your job during or at the end of the probation period, because the probation period didn't work out, but it's very uncommon to be laid off shortly after you've passed your probation period.

I guess you mean that this is the US, so this was a kind of "probation period" for her, but in that case it should have been made very clear that she was failing.

If you lay an employee off and it's a surprise to them, you've fucked up.

Re: Cloudflare Termination Video: A Master Class in How Not to Terminate Someone

#65

Post by mixdup »

JazCE wrote: post #26
ceuk wrote: post #8

In the UK (and most other places with fairly strong employee protections I imagine) it becomes pretty difficult to get rid of employees once they've been around for a while. Often involving a lengthy "managing out" process. Given this, it's common for a 3-6 month "probation period" when starting a new role in which you can be dismissed fairly arbitrarily. This makes sense given the commitment taking on an employee re…

> In the UK (and most other places with fairly strong employee protections I imagine) People keep saying this, but I'm not at all convinced anyone commenting really understands UK employment law. It's really only after 2 years of working for the same company that you get any decent employment protection. It takes a bit more legal work, but if within the first 2 years they don't want you, they can get rid of you. If y…

>If you don't want these rug pulls and employment laws to keep getting watered down, instead of asking about 4 day work weeks, start voting for candidates and parties that have better employment laws at the top of their policies.

I think in the US employers would be more amenable to a four day work week than making it harder to fire people arbitrarily

Re: Cloudflare Termination Video: A Master Class in How Not to Terminate Someone

#67

Post by justanorherhack »

AmVess wrote: post #16
dp-hackernews wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In her own words, and seems like its the way the company works, she had a 3 month ramp - which I presume is along the lines of training, mentoring, pairing, learning the ropes by example etc - and then let lose to get stuck in, which as she says has been only one month that overlaped a holiday period. It sure seems like Cloudflare are just culling staff to me, or her manager has no managerial abilities and doesn't kn…

She was in sales and sold nothing. 3 months is a long time to be unproductive. 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.

She was on a ramp. New sales don't sell first quarter. She isn't selling lemonade, she is selling deals worth 10s of thousands.

Re: Cloudflare Termination Video: A Master Class in How Not to Terminate Someone

#68

Post by SkipperCat »

greatgib wrote: post #40

This video also give us an example of a trend of recent years that is really awful: In very short cycles, going on a hire spree and then redundancies plans without real consequences for the management or companies. Basically it costs them almost nothing to mess with people's lives. For example, when doing unreasonable mass hiring, the market goes up, because it is a sign of growth. Then, when firing people in mass, t…

In big tech, people are commodities, not human beings with lives. Its not just shown in the hire/fire cycle you mention, but also in how many companies let the most vile content thrive on their platforms, with no consideration about the harm it creates. All of this to make a buck or keep the stock prices up.

Re: Cloudflare Termination Video: A Master Class in How Not to Terminate Someone

#69

Post by fallingknife »

superjan wrote: post #49
JazCE wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with judging any of this is the same as knowing your history lessons and sources. 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.

Why is Brittney’s video not a reliable impartial account? Also note that nothing she says about her performance and feedback is in any way disputed during the call. They had nothing to say to the contrary.

HR is not going to argue on a call like that, so the viewer will always see a one sided account. The decision has been made, and not by them. They likely do not even know or have access to that information and are given a list and told "fire these people today." She could have come to work drunk, and you would still not hear about it on a call like that. I don't like it either, but it is the way things go at big corps.

Re: Cloudflare Termination Video: A Master Class in How Not to Terminate Someone

#70

Post by SkipperCat »

Solvency wrote: post #62

Here's a related question: will this video ultimately help or hinder her career? I've always feared that other companies will look at this sort of thing, regardless of who is "in the right", and want to distance themselves from a potential rabble rouser who might bring some future emergent attention to them as well.

It will do both. Some companies wont touch her but some will be attracted to her newly minted internet clout.
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