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Cloudflare lays off new hires

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Re: Cloudflare lays off new hires

#261

Post by wonnage »

Aurornis wrote: post #160
aestetix wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not entirely true. She did cut them off when they were giving out corporate speak. She asked for details, and they didn't have any details for her. I would have expected them to have a list of specific reasons, possibly prepared by her manager, and if she wanted to challenge them, then schedule a follow up meeting. But the "follow up meeting" is often just a way to make the complaint go away, rather than addre…

> She did cut them off when they were giving out corporate speak. She cut them off after 21 seconds and then went into a heated complaint, including calling what they're doing "bullshit" > She asked for details, and they didn't have any details for her. Once someone becomes this heated, the only real option is to reschedule a followup call after the person has had time to cool down. Nothing good would have come from…

You've made this same comment in multiple threads, genuinely curious why you feel so strongly about this. I can only imagine you're relatively new to the working world or have never been in a layoff situation.

Her reaction is perfectly normal and as a manager or HR rep you're basically there to be yelled at on behalf of the company, as the company is not actually a person and it's not satisfying to yell at the abstract concept of Cloudflare that just fired you.

Scheduling a followup call feels like an incredibly low-EQ move

Re: Cloudflare lays off new hires

#262

Post by fma »

tiew9Vii wrote: post #163
Aurornis wrote: post #151

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. Did you watch the video? She cuts them off several seconds into the call and doesn't let them even speak before she starts talking about her situation (hire date, no sales closed). They didn't even have a chance to say anything. Once someone reaches this level of intensity (cutting people off, not allowing t…

> Once someone reaches this level of intensity Not sure if I watched the same video shared here as you did. It obviously came as a surprise but she seemed calm given the circumstances and was asking straight direct reasonable questions given the circumstances with the people on the other end responded back with gobbledygook avoiding answering straight direct questions. In no way was she loud, abusive, threatening. At…

It wasn't a surprise. She knew it was coming because others on her team were let go (she says this). She would have had a calendar invite with 2 random HR attendees...she also had her video recording setup.

Totally not a surprise.

Re: Cloudflare lays off new hires

#263

Post by bitcharmer »

Aurornis wrote: post #151
aestetix wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's the case, then they should just say that.

They did. They said it was for performance reasons and offered to book a longer, second call to talk about it. Did you watch the video? She cuts them off several seconds into the call and doesn't let them even speak before she starts talking about her situation (hire date, no sales closed). They didn't even have a chance to say anything. Once someone reaches this level of intensity (cutting people off, not allowing t…

> I know this is a difficult topic for HN, but this video is a good example of a TikTok performance designed to maximize engagement and outrage.

You're either trolling or work in HR.

The process was completely dehumanised and they conducted mass layoffs under the guise of performance driven workforce correction to avoid paying severance. Let's call a spade a spade.

Re: Cloudflare lays off new hires

#264

Post by bitcharmer »

wonnage wrote: post #261
Aurornis wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She did cut them off when they were giving out corporate speak. She cut them off after 21 seconds and then went into a heated complaint, including calling what they're doing "bullshit" > She asked for details, and they didn't have any details for her. Once someone becomes this heated, the only real option is to reschedule a followup call after the person has had time to cool down. Nothing good would have come from…

You've made this same comment in multiple threads, genuinely curious why you feel so strongly about this. I can only imagine you're relatively new to the working world or have never been in a layoff situation. Her reaction is perfectly normal and as a manager or HR rep you're basically there to be yelled at on behalf of the company, as the company is not actually a person and it's not satisfying to yell at the abstra…

Yeah, GP's comments are completely bizarre. My guess either a troll or an HR drone.

Re: Cloudflare lays off new hires

#265

Post by cstrahan »

occamsrazorwit wrote: post #254
cstrahan wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before I respond to individual points made in your comment, I'd like to address the general notion that her termination was an honest firing and not a thinly veiled layoff. She said that multiple coworkers had been let go earlier that day. Also, this is happening just as news breaks about layoffs at CloudFlare. So I will invoke Occam's razor: which is more likely? - CloudFlare decided to layoff employees while also f…

That's a wall of text, but I think you're misreading the general context. > this is happening just as news breaks about layoffs at CloudFlare. Err, you have this backwards. The news broke that there weren't layoffs at CloudFlare (keep in mind, their spokesperson publicly stated this to the news, and there are legal consequences for lying about this). The CEO stated that > it is common knowledge that layoffs are usual…

> > it is common knowledge that layoffs are usually conducted as one massive group meeting with all parties at once

> This is common knowledge? I've literally never heard of a layoff conducted like this, only the reverse. The major tech layoffs this week (Google, Twitch, Unity, Discord) were conducted in the reverse fashion.

Everyone I know who has been laid off has been let go in a group meeting. This is also my firsthand experience, having been laid off almost exactly a year ago, and again last week. I’ve never heard of it being handled in any other way. Now I’m curious about the stats.

> Edit: TL;DR: Either it's a complex, multi-level conspiracy that's somewhat dysfunctional but not in a way that would lead to the conspiracy falling apart... or someone has a poor manager.

I admit I’m probably biased: I admire CloudFlare’s engineering acumen, so it’s easier to suspect malice than incompetence, especially when they outsource firing to HR. It very well may be that she had an extraordinarily bad manager, and that there are other rotten apples higher up the org chart and in HR that would approve of not having the manager there.

Re: Cloudflare lays off new hires

#266

Post by cstrahan »

satisfice wrote: post #256
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,…

So what? Grow up. It doesn’t matter if they were “copping out.” Although I didn’t hear them doing that. It just doesn’t matter. Arguing with HR gets you nowhere. It’s self-destructive drama for likes.

Where was she “arguing”? Did you misread her interaction as her trying to maintain her employment there?

If you genuinely believed that you were being let go for something that was completely fabricated, would you not confront them? Is there ever an appropriate time to speak up? For instance, if they also attributed the fruits of your labor to someone else, and then compared you to that other person to justify your termination, would you just remain silent?

I don’t see how having a backbone is self-destructive.

Re: Cloudflare lays off new hires

#267

Post by tiew9Vii »

fma wrote: post #262
tiew9Vii wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once someone reaches this level of intensity Not sure if I watched the same video shared here as you did. It obviously came as a surprise but she seemed calm given the circumstances and was asking straight direct reasonable questions given the circumstances with the people on the other end responded back with gobbledygook avoiding answering straight direct questions. In no way was she loud, abusive, threatening. At…

It wasn't a surprise. She knew it was coming because others on her team were let go (she says this). She would have had a calendar invite with 2 random HR attendees...she also had her video recording setup. Totally not a surprise.

Totally a surprise if you wake up and hear from a colleague they’ve been made redundant, minutes or hours later you get the same call when they day before everything was business as usual and the company is doing well.

A non surprise would be previous negative performance reviews, poor company performance, prior reorg announcements, announcing voluntary redundancies at a company meeting.

Re: Cloudflare lays off new hires

#268

Post by valval »

caeril wrote: post #226
BlackjackCF wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know how tech sales work so I’m speaking from an uneducated place here - but is 4.5 months enough time to close any sales? I imagine that at least a month of that 4.5 months is spent onboarding and shadowing someone else to see how the company handles sales. I also imagine that any tech sales right now are difficult to close given the shrinking customer base due to the number of startups that are folding. And…

For Cloudflare specifically, it makes sense. Why they even have a sales team is beyond me. Everything we need is available by dashboard and API. When we need to add a zone, or upgrade a zone, or buy more load balancers, or upgrade TLS on a zone, or literally anything that could be counted as a new "sale", we can do it ourselves. We ignore their "we noticed you may benefit from Enterprise, call us today!" spam, we nev…

It’s fairly obvious you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about when it comes to sales or business. Maybe offer your opinion with a bit less confidence.

Re: Cloudflare lays off new hires

#269

Post by valval »

Aurornis wrote: post #151
aestetix wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's the case, then they should just say that.

They did. They said it was for performance reasons and offered to book a longer, second call to talk about it. Did you watch the video? She cuts them off several seconds into the call and doesn't let them even speak before she starts talking about her situation (hire date, no sales closed). They didn't even have a chance to say anything. Once someone reaches this level of intensity (cutting people off, not allowing t…

After spending some time on HN, I’d be terribly surprised if the reaction wasn’t exactly like it is in these threads. If there’s one thing I’d bet big money on in the world, it’s the gullibility of HN users. Or Reddit users, since this is just a Reddit clone with the same user base (despite the rules pointing out that saying this is totally lame and not even true, dawg).

Re: Cloudflare lays off new hires

#270

Post by valval »

jkmcf wrote: post #259
Aurornis wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. In the video she says she was hired August 25th, or 4.5 months ago. She also says she hasn't "closed anything officially", or in other words zero sales. I understand this is an emotionally charged topic, but the unfortunate reality is that being past your ramp-up perio…

> In the video she says she was hired August 25th, or 4.5 months ago. She was on a 3mo training stint and only started truly "working" in December. Unsure if she was expected to make sales during training or not.

Frankly, none of this matters. Cloudflare decides what the adequate results would have been, not HN users.
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