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Cloudflare lays off new hires

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Re: Cloudflare lays off new hires

#241

Post by infamia »

itsdrewmiller wrote: post #239
infamia wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They did. They said it was for performance reasons and offered to book a longer, second call to talk about it. Who shows up to fire someone without any specifics at all? That is utterly incompetent and completely unprofessional, even for a very large company. Who shows up this unprepared and 100% scripted? HR knows good and well that after being terminated that almost no one will want or will have time for such a f…

The bigger the company the less likely anyone will attempt to give you specific information about why you are being terminated during the termination meeting - I think your expectations of how things should work don't match the reality of how they do work. Competent organizations will have given longer term employee more prior feedback about their performance issues, but in this case the employee was likely still in…

> The bigger the company the less likely anyone will attempt to give you specific information about why you are being terminated during the termination meeting - I think your expectations of how things should work don't match the reality of how they do work.

I don't doubt that has been your experience, but that's a terribly low bar that only some companies fail to clear. I've worked for several very large organizations, and had the exact opposite experience. They were all way more thoughtful and compassionate during terminations than what we saw from Cloudflare (who is supposedly a modern and innovative company). Being too forthcoming is a risk, but as we've seen by this video and lots of other situations, going to the extreme of being an impersonal robot is a reputational risk. Any decent HR Department would be able to handle this situation with more grace, and general reasons why it didn't work out without introducing risk to the company. Cloudflare was so risk averse during this process, they damaged Cloudflare's reputation. This is doubly troublesome since Cloudflare positions themselves as an exceptional and innovative company. They should be a lot better than this, and the CEO has said as much. [1]

> Even then you'd expect them to get SOME feedback about not hitting their numbers, but we only have one side of the story here - she may have gotten feedback and ignored it.

Thanks for mentioning that. It's a definite possibility! However, based on the employee being generally aware of at least one of her deficiencies (not closing a sale), the operational incompetence of Cloudflare in this instance, and particularly the manager not being present, I genuinely wonder if it is reasonable to give Cloudflare the benefit of the doubt? It is possible she ignored warning signs, and I'm open to new information. That said, I haven't seen anything to make me feel like the person being terminated is the problem.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38969065

Re: Cloudflare lays off new hires

#242

Post by yencabulator »

maximilianroos wrote: post #173
aestetix wrote: post #84

I don't understand why Cloudflare can't just be honest and say the reason she got laid off, instead of making up some garbage about her performance. That was her main complaint, and I side with her completely. She was not asking to keep her job, or asking unreasonable questions. If they just explained that it was because the company overhired, or because they needed to reduce costs to keep the company afloat, that wo…

"In past years your performance would have been sufficient to give this more time. But conditions have changed and we're letting X% go today. So we need to make very imperfect judgements for those who are new, unfortunately including you. This isn't a definitive verdict on your abilities — instead it's the best we can do with the limited data we have." ...would have gone a long way here. It makes sense it's a surpris…

No firing manager in a large corporation is going to say a word more than what the HR training told them to say, to minimize liability.

Re: Cloudflare lays off new hires

#243

Post by bb88 »

occamsrazorwit wrote: post #236
cstrahan wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before I respond to your comment: I was laid off two days ago (not at CloudFlare), and while I'll greatly miss what I was working on and everyone I was working with, and I also don't like the stress of not having an income, the news was broken to me with sincerity and tact, very much unlike how CloudFlare handled the termination in this video. > She cut them off after 21 seconds and then went into a heated complaint,…

> She established that her supervisor's feedback for her was that she had done "a great job". If that was not the case, the people letting her go would have asserted that this claim is false. FWIW, the HR people did assert this claim was false but said they weren't able to go into specifics. That's the central issue that makes this somewhat murky. If companies prioritized employee wellbeing, then they'd release this…

> Also, managers do have a say in layoffs.

Not always.

The manager might completely disagree on the termination.

The manager might be being punished for not terminating underperformers so higher ups stepped in.

I guess my point is don't underestimate the amount of dysfunction in management.

Re: Cloudflare lays off new hires

#244

Post by yencabulator »

aestetix wrote: post #123
pc86 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand why they can't at least give solid reasons Probably the liability around someone saying something not accurate, or something that could be construed as approaching, even indirectly, some protected class. They've already laid her off, she's not going to be singing their praises under any circumstances, anything they do at this point just increases their liability. In a perfect world I'd love for p…

It sounds like the issue here is actually lawsuit culture. It's scary how laws that were designed to improve the lives of the working class actually wound up making life a lot worse.

I think you misspelled "gain votes" there. Laws that were designed to gain votes.

Re: Cloudflare lays off new hires

#245

Post by yencabulator »

piva00 wrote: post #103
pc86 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does it matter? If they say they overhired, you have people in here asking why the CEO (or the board) doesn't get fired for that decision. If they say their investors are demanding better returns (e.g. higher stock price, higher profits, wahtever that means for the particular business) you have people in here saying it's greed. There is no answer Cloudflare could give her or anyone else that would make folks go…

> So why even bother giving one? Decency? Honesty?

What makes you think either of those mean anything to a corporation?

Legal counsel and HR will explicitly avoid stating such things.

Re: Cloudflare lays off new hires

#246

Post by pwb25 »

baumy wrote: post #183
aestetix wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few things. First, if they are doing layoffs, shouldn't they expect people to be pissed off, and be prepared to handle that? I don't think the call was heated at all, but maybe it's a cultural difference. It could be that American corporate drones in general are less tolerant of conflict. Second, why not include someone she knew on the call, instead of two people she had never met before? It's a total power move. I…

First - Cultural differences are almost certainly at play here if you're not American. My only exposure to non-American workplace culture is a single German friend, and familiarity with how Linus Torvalds operates. Suffice it to say, cutting across someone to say "bullshit" would be considered "heated" in most American tech workplaces, no matter how calm your tone of voice and body language is. I'm struggling to find…

i mean if you need "sensitivity training" or have a job that is called "HRBP" that proves the point of the guy you reply to? It's just a lot bullshit speak with no honesty in it

Re: Cloudflare lays off new hires

#247

Post by cortesoft »

yencabulator wrote: post #242
maximilianroos wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In past years your performance would have been sufficient to give this more time. But conditions have changed and we're letting X% go today. So we need to make very imperfect judgements for those who are new, unfortunately including you. This isn't a definitive verdict on your abilities — instead it's the best we can do with the limited data we have." ...would have gone a long way here. It makes sense it's a surpris…

No firing manager in a large corporation is going to say a word more than what the HR training told them to say, to minimize liability.

I don't think you can say that... I have been a firing manager too many times, and I have definitely said things HR didn't tell me to say.

Re: Cloudflare lays off new hires

#248

Post by yencabulator »

cortesoft wrote: post #247
yencabulator wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No firing manager in a large corporation is going to say a word more than what the HR training told them to say, to minimize liability.

I don't think you can say that... I have been a firing manager too many times, and I have definitely said things HR didn't tell me to say.

Sure, but then you've risked your own job. That's not the typical experience in a large corporation.

Re: Cloudflare lays off new hires

#249

Post by cortesoft »

two_in_one wrote: post #142
frfl wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the layoff threads from the last 24 hours a few common reasons are theorized - Investors pressuring for profits, cut costs (too many people hired during Covid, total salary bill too big to justify right now). One company does it, other companies may be pressured to drive up stock prices - Money is expensive, - Section 174 possibly, companies can't write off entire salaries for engineers as easily to offse…

> Companies following the lead of other companies (CEOs not thinking for themselves, just looking at what others are doing) Layoff usually negatively affects company's image. It makes sense to do it when everybody's attention is on someone else. Then it looks like nothing special.

Yep. If lots of companies are laying people off, you can pass it off as macroeconomic pressures instead of issues with your own company.

Re: Cloudflare lays off new hires

#250

Post by dgellow »

robjan wrote: post #185
dgellow wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn’t really pass the smell test. Countries with employment protections still have probation periods during which the company can fire you without hassle. For example in Germany 6 months is a common duration. https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/probezeit If you cannot evaluate an employee’s worth in 6 months that’s pretty problematic.

After 6 months the employee is then free to do the bare minimum.

You can still be fired, the company needs to justify it and in practice it isn’t that difficult to do. But employees can for sure always do the strict minimum, implying they do the their job correctly. I don’t really see the issue with that
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