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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

#151

Post by mhss »

jmull wrote: post #22

It’s awfully strange, in my experience, that her manager wouldn’t be there. Makes me wonder if he hadn’t been let go too?

As a manager, I've been told at some companies they don't need me there after providing all documentation (emails, 1:1 notes, missed expectations, etc). I think is an attempt to avoid getting into live arguments between the employee and the manager. They think is "easier" for the company (if clearly less human and personal) to have someone else deliver the message and try to move on, not get into answering too many questions, etc.

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

#152

Post by d3w4s9 »

Very strange. If it's a layoff, just say it's a layoff and follow the standard procedure. It's bad but nothing fundamentally wrong if it has to happen. If it's about performance, like the article says, the employee should be warned with metrics and other evidence. That's why companies like Amazon have procedures like pip to "ensure" a performance related firing has its basis (even though pip is often abused there, whatever, at least in theory that's something). I don't think this will go well

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

#153

Post by Teever »

FireBeyond wrote: post #145
Teever wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Refusing to move on from that isn't productive in a business setting, Maybe that would change if more people refused to move on?

Oh yes. "Who can out-stubborn the other party versus finding common ground" seems quite helpful...

Well it seems like she fucked over cloudflare more than they fucked her over, so in that sense it looks like she won this engagement.

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

#154

Post by fphhotchips »

op00to wrote: post #30
fullspectrumdev wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sales people generally (in sensible firms) aren’t expected to sell anything in their first quarter while they learn the ropes, the product, etc. 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 li…

> It’s also not expected to make any real enterprise sales during Q4 or the beginning of Q1 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 th…

> Q4 is always the busiest time for sales.

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.

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

#155

Post by fphhotchips »

AmVess wrote: post #85
fullspectrumdev wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sales people generally (in sensible firms) aren’t expected to sell anything in their first quarter while they learn the ropes, the product, etc. 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 li…

I worked in quite a few sensible firms. A salesperson not selling anything for 3 months was never heard of because they would have been fired long before that. A 3 month ramp doesn't mean produce zero results. In case anyone is wondering, results for a salesperson means selling things. 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…

> A salesperson not selling anything for 3 months was never heard of

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.

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

#156

Post by fphhotchips »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #80
afsag wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, still, she hasn't sold anything in four months. "Thinking that as a salesman you have to sell things is an archaic take on sales."

Is December normally a good month for sales? I'd imagine it'd be the worst- budgets exhausted at EOY, yourself and your potential customers taking vacation time, etc. plus I imagine there can be latency with boring logistics like getting paperwork signed.

> budgets exhausted at EOY

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".

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

#157

Post by gumballindie »

barbazoo wrote: post #89
JustLurking2022 wrote: post #78

Saw a variation of this during the recent bout of tech layoffs. Shortly before end of year eval time, a senior executive sent out emails questioning whether it was even possible for new hires to have made sufficient impact and suggesting they should consequently be given a poor rating as the default. It's amazing that leaders at these companies which, for years, acted as though they had all the answers and were more…

> as that can tank a person's entire career trajectory Plus the act of career suicide by publishing company meeting recordings on social media.

We need to stop blaming victims and instead stand up for them. If the person who published the video suffers in any way shape of form as a result then cloudflare needs to be held accountable. That company is already on my shitlist. Potentially as low as microsoft, or openai. And that’s quite an achievement.

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

#158

Post by bsder »

omnimus wrote: post #118
abadpoli wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s interesting how subjective this can apparently be. What I saw in the video was someone standing up for themselves and fighting against perceived wrongdoing in an articulate way. That’s exactly the type of person I want on my team. I’d hire them in a heartbeat. Recording and posting company videos is bad in the general sense, but not in this case. There’s nothing sensitive or confidential in the video tha…

You might want to hire this person but the question is if your boss would want them. There is a high chace they wouldn’t want to hire specifically this disobedient person.

Wrong. She's exactly who I'd want in sales.

Salespeople need to face overwhelming failure and keep going. They need to ignore social cues that would cause most people to back off. They need to be aggressive and challenging.

Getting rid of this salesperson seems like a big loss for Cloudflare.

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

#159

Post by bsder »

barbazoo wrote: post #89
JustLurking2022 wrote: post #78

Saw a variation of this during the recent bout of tech layoffs. Shortly before end of year eval time, a senior executive sent out emails questioning whether it was even possible for new hires to have made sufficient impact and suggesting they should consequently be given a poor rating as the default. It's amazing that leaders at these companies which, for years, acted as though they had all the answers and were more…

> as that can tank a person's entire career trajectory Plus the act of career suicide by publishing company meeting recordings on social media.

> Plus the act of career suicide by publishing company meeting recordings on social media.

I'm very much older than the TikTok generation and I APPLAUD this kind of thing.

Companies have been getting away with too much garbage for way too long by hiding it. Forcing every dumbass minion to realize that they may be on blast at any moment means that both the company and individuals have to start thinking about not being complete shits.

Either this is a layoff and they're doing something legally shady or this is a stack-ranking termination and we all know how to regard companies doing that.

No matter what the reason is: Cloudflare comes out of this looking completely terrible.

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

#160

Post by Spivak »

paul7986 wrote: post #150
try_the_bass wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counterpoint to this is: if the restaurant wants to stop serving food at 4:45 so the staff can leave at 5, they should close at 4:45 instead of 5. "Closing time" is external-facing, and customers shouldn't be expected to know that it actually means "4:45 so the staff can go home at 5". It's not a cultural thing, it's about clearly setting expectations. If you publicly state that closing time is 5, and you're not…

Well per their comment there is now such a cultural norm and it's ok to cuss out with your body language and attitude to treat customers as such. That worker does it to others per Facebook comments about that jersey mikes. 7 months later she is still there so just maybe this is the new norm ..not one that makes sense but Covid changed the game some to a lot.

No, the cultural norm is that it's respectful to the workers to not go to a sit down restaurant less than an hour before it closes or a fast casual place less than a half hour before it closes. That time is for the people currently eating in the restaurant to finish up while the staff clean the kitchen but before they're asked to leave.

So someone who comes in during that time and insists on ordering food means they have to clean then kitchen again and stay even longer after close. So while it's praiseworthy to keep your composure when you're not being shown respect I won't fault them for begrudgingly doing what they ask and conveying that.

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