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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

#171

Post by bsder »

latchkey wrote: post #167
bsder wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

She wasn't a good fit for CF, so maybe she would be a good fit at your company instead? "We fired ~40 sales people out of over 1,500 in our go to market org. That’s a normal quarter. When we’re doing performance management right, we can often tell within 3 months or less of a sales hire, even during the holidays, whether they’re going to be successful or not. Sadly, we don’t hire perfectly. We try to fire perfectly.…

> When we’re doing performance management right, we can often tell within 3 months or less of a sales hire, even during the holidays, whether they’re going to be successful or not.

1) This is complete hogwash and absolutely cements that I want nothing to do with Cloudflare.

I've worked in enterprise sales. I've also worked with sales as engineering support. I've also been the senior technical rep that sales had to sell to, too.

3 months on a newbie barely gets you up to the point that you can probably go into a client and shadow a senior and talk about a couple Powerpoint slides without completely embarassing yourself. That's it. It certainly doesn't get you the ability to handle an account or do a close.

Some of our later best salespeople looked completely useless at 3 months.

2) This is the kind of shitty "we're sorry you're offended" apology that dribbles out of every shitty CEO's mouth.

The fact that Cloudflare is STILL trying to stick with "fired for cause" after being put on blast is a gigantic red klaxon.

How many people did they treat like this before they finally got their chain yanked over it? What's the punishment for the people who did this? And how do they plan to make this right?

I don't see any of that, thanks. Hopefully some of the Cloudflare competitors are ready to make hay over this.

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

#172

Post by latchkey »

bsder wrote: post #171
latchkey wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She wasn't a good fit for CF, so maybe she would be a good fit at your company instead? "We fired ~40 sales people out of over 1,500 in our go to market org. That’s a normal quarter. When we’re doing performance management right, we can often tell within 3 months or less of a sales hire, even during the holidays, whether they’re going to be successful or not. Sadly, we don’t hire perfectly. We try to fire perfectly.…

> When we’re doing performance management right, we can often tell within 3 months or less of a sales hire, even during the holidays, whether they’re going to be successful or not. 1) This is complete hogwash and absolutely cements that I want nothing to do with Cloudflare. I've worked in enterprise sales. I've also worked with sales as engineering support. I've also been the senior technical rep that sales had to se…

I don't know about your specific quoted nit. I had a period in my life where I went on 100+ first dates, in a very short amount of time. I got to the point where I could tell within a few minutes if this person and I would click or not. I always finished the date though, so I also got a chance to make a bunch of friends too, which was awesome. Had I just got up and walked away, that wouldn't have been the kind and humane thing. That is where CloudFlare messed up and he admits it.

I imagine with 1500 employees + ~160 a year, over the course of several years, you get a good feeling for which ones are going to make it. CloudFlare is a relatively technical product, I'm sure they are looking for the type of sales people who are going to more than come up to speed in those 3 months. Probably someone who already has had highly technical sales jobs. Maybe she slipped through their own hiring process. That is on CF, but I wouldn't hold them to the fire for that.

I worked in the IT department for a large porn company. It was literally part of the interview process that you would be exposed to porn in the workplace. We would filter people based on their reaction to that... most of the time, it was people who were actually too excited by the prospect. The point being that is that we made the working environment clear from the start, even though it was obvious.

After a long enough period of time of being in business, CF probably has a great collection of sales people. I've dealt with some of them myself and been extremely impressed. If I were them, wouldn't want to dilute the pool. But, for someone to go into an environment like that not knowing that was the case, and then being surprised at the end... something is wrong with that, which again, he admits to above. Either that, or we have to question her motivations. Given the obvious high bar that CloudFlare exhibits in their sales teams, I'd say both are on the table for consideration.

At the end of the day, we won't ever know all of the details in this story, which makes me less motivated to take either side. It is really just a story to make you emotional and get clicks, than it is about right or wrong.

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

#173

Post by bzbz »

pythonaut_16 wrote: post #120
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "W-we actually didn't fire that many people." > "I-it could be that she didn't actually listen to the feedback, guys. What if she had bad feedback?!" (Implying, without evidence, that the employee is at fault. The most tone-deaf part of his response.) > "Maybe she'd be a star on another team!" (Pointless sports analogy. Another tone-deaf moment.) > "W-we'll do better next time." An embarrassing display.

Editorializing this with an implied stutter really detracts from the points you're trying to make.

Exactly, this form of internet bullying always detracts from the point its author is trying to make.

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

#174

Post by buffington »

try_the_bass wrote: post #146
Spivak wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some will cuss you out in a nice way for you making them do their job close to closing hours. If you do this you're a jerk. They've already started the process of cleaning the kitchen because they want to leave at close like you want to leave at 5. Do you start something new at 4:45 or do you pack up? If you do this and really believe it's "making people do their jobs" you've graduated to asshole and they're treati…

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…

I think it's a valuable skill to develop a sensitivity towards how workers are treated by their employers and how your own actions, however small to you, can have a big impact on them.

We all know by now that low paying jobs don't just pay poorly, but take everything they can from their employees. Closing at 5PM means clocking out, then locking the door at 5PM. If a customer came in at 4:45PM and you had to stop cleanup, start cooking, then cleanup again after 5PM that's a shame. Maybe you need to be better at your job. And you're a part time employee, so you don't qualify for overtime. Do better next time.

Service workers are treated like garbage, by their employers and by customers.

No one is making excuses for poor communication either. Don't you think that the kid mopping the floor would like to explicitly articulate in every way he knows how that it's only a real asshole who comes in asking for a french dip 5 minutes before closing? Or should he maybe a make a sign to put on the door underneath the business hours describing how, though he can't make you, it'd make his life a lot better if you didn't order food during the last half our of the day? How long would he have a job?

The thing about "cultural norms" (why not "norms?") is that expecting everyone to understand them is precisely what makes them "norms" in the first place.

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

#175

Post by paul7986 »

buffington wrote: post #174
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…

I think it's a valuable skill to develop a sensitivity towards how workers are treated by their employers and how your own actions, however small to you, can have a big impact on them. We all know by now that low paying jobs don't just pay poorly, but take everything they can from their employees. Closing at 5PM means clocking out, then locking the door at 5PM. If a customer came in at 4:45PM and you had to stop clea…

It's simple lock their doors at 845pm that says it all and I'm fine with it because it's confusing otherwise! I also had similar issue at Wendy's 30 minutes before closing time.

Overall and again I'm confused as to When is the appropriate time to go and get food from a place when their hours say 10am to 10pm?

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

#176

Post by albert_e »

machomaster wrote: post #163
albert_e wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I am not sure what else he could have said to claim this may not be as bad as it looks to save face; or to remind people that the video is but one slice of all facts and any black-and-white judgement one may make solely from it may be imperfect or unfair to parties involved. He did accept blame that they did not get this one right and that it was painful to watch. What else does public with near zero stake in the…

How about apologizing. How about taking responsibility. How about not making excuses. How about saying what practical steps are going to be done. Heck, how about telling that he personally reviewed her case and that her direct manager called her with details.

Apologizing to whom?

What if he did all that and more but we the public doesn't need to know?

Or they have some idea what needs to be fixed but it can neither be done within one week nor summarized in one paragraph.

This is just 15 minutes of diversion in our lives -- we don't care either way.

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

#177

Post by pg_1234 »

FreakLegion wrote: post #170
sangnoir wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, she didn't follow the rules. Whether one views that as inherently problematic broadly follows the value-system I outlined earlier. I think her breaking (the letter of) the rules is amply justified in this case - others clearly disagree. AFAICT, she didn't violate the spirit if the rules - no confidential. information was revealed.

People's names, roles in the company, and voices were revealed. If you Google "rosie cloudflare hr", the top result is a LinkedIn profile for Rosemary J. Fantozzi, who works in GTM HR. That profile is now hidden or deleted, and it's not hard to figure out why. I have no regard at all for corporate rules, but I do for privacy and privacy laws. Brittany may have broken the law by making the recording (Georgia is a one-…

If the recording was made in a one-party state it doesn't matter where the other parties were.

You'd only be bound by other laws if the recording was done at the location governed by those laws.

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

#178

Post by d1sxeyes »

paul7986 wrote: post #175
buffington wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a valuable skill to develop a sensitivity towards how workers are treated by their employers and how your own actions, however small to you, can have a big impact on them. We all know by now that low paying jobs don't just pay poorly, but take everything they can from their employees. Closing at 5PM means clocking out, then locking the door at 5PM. If a customer came in at 4:45PM and you had to stop clea…

It's simple lock their doors at 845pm that says it all and I'm fine with it because it's confusing otherwise! I also had similar issue at Wendy's 30 minutes before closing time. Overall and again I'm confused as to When is the appropriate time to go and get food from a place when their hours say 10am to 10pm?

I would personally say to expect the kitchen to start finishing around 9:15pm. Unless it’s a super high traffic place or a place where they do online orders as well, I would avoid going as much as possible after 9:15pm, and I would not even bother after about 9:40pm

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

#179

Post by atomicone »

NoImmatureAdHom wrote: post #114

The language really gets me. Maybe (happily) I've been out of corporate America for too long to get it... "... part ways with you..." --> "We've decided to fire you." "...Rosie might be better to explain the process of who's giving this information ..." --> "Rosie can talk about why it's us vs. your manager." "...this is a collective calibration for Cloudflare..." --> what the fuck? "...if you can respect that . We c…

truly rolled over laughing at "collective calibration". kudos to you for going over their BS speak line by line and laying it bare. At the risk of generalization, HR at most companies in the US are truly tone deaf these days.

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

#180

Post by paul7986 »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #178
paul7986 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's simple lock their doors at 845pm that says it all and I'm fine with it because it's confusing otherwise! I also had similar issue at Wendy's 30 minutes before closing time. Overall and again I'm confused as to When is the appropriate time to go and get food from a place when their hours say 10am to 10pm?

I would personally say to expect the kitchen to start finishing around 9:15pm. Unless it’s a super high traffic place or a place where they do online orders as well, I would avoid going as much as possible after 9:15pm, and I would not even bother after about 9:40pm

Then why even say your open 10 to 10 when you are only serving til 930pm (allow 30 minutes for worker clean up)? Just close at 930 and they are paid til 10pm.

Anything else makes zero logical sense when a business explicitly states business hours are 10am to 10pm. Throughout my posts here I've noted 15 minutes before closing I'm empathetic to and even explicitly asked the worker at the sub shop is it too late which should could've said I've cleaned up could you come tomorrow. Yet 30 minutes ..isn't cause then what's next 45 minutes.. 60 minutes..whenever they feel like it and business hours that are posted have no meaning!

This was never a thing before Covid ..15 minutes possibly but 30 minutes never and that's the gist of my argument! People are lazier and value their time more then their employers and or their employers no longer pay them beyond closing hours (something changed)! As well could be a mix of both.

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