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Cloudflare CEO responds to viral termination video

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Re: Cloudflare CEO responds to viral termination video

#61

Post by V-eHGsd_ »

itake wrote: post #59
V-eHGsd_ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

from the video, I got the impression that cloudflare has a pretty standard 3 month ramp up period which, for her, ended right about thanksgiving. so it's not 5 months with no sales, it's a little over a month. and that month has two (three) major holidays that knock out ~2 weeks. so 5 months is suddenly more like ~3 weeks. and, if every 1:1 with a manager has been glowing and then you get fired 'for performance', the…

I'm curious why she knew to record this video if she thought she was performing well.

the first 30 seconds of the video says

> my coworkers have been getting random 15-min cal invites all day

> my work bff got a meeting 30 mins before I did and she got laid off

Re: Cloudflare CEO responds to viral termination video

#62

Post by ParetoOptimal »

epolanski wrote: post #56
justinclift wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... you don't need 1v1s with your manager to find this. While that's true, it does sound like her direct manager was outright misleading her. Telling someone they're doing well when they're very much not (to the point their job is at risk) isn't constructive, and doesn't help anyone. Well, not unless the manager was purposely sabotaging the employee for some reason. It's more likely the manager is just an idiot tho…

Okay, but we're also taking her account on that at straight value. I've had multiple coworkers or subordinates living in their own world and not understanding crystal clear feedback.

It's easy to believe a manager didn't give criticism because it makes their job easier until the time they have to rip the bandaid off, then they can wash their hands of the issue.

Re: Cloudflare CEO responds to viral termination video

#63

Post by ParetoOptimal »

CharlesW wrote: post #46
camgunz wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tweet says they fired ~40 people for performance, not because of bad fit, which the video seems to corroborate.

Performance in the role they were hired for , which is person/role fit. The response spotlights that the person might be "really, really great" somewhere else, possibly in some other role. This is one of the reasons @eastdakota's response is really well done — he doesn't say a single bad thing about the person who (unprofessionally) shared video of the event, but instead owns that the company doesn't/can't hire perfe…

> he doesn't say a single bad thing about the person who (unprofessionally) shared video of the event

Accountability isn't unprofessional, though companies would like to convince employees that is the case.

Re: Cloudflare CEO responds to viral termination video

#64

Post by johnsand11 »

ergocoder wrote: post #44
infamia wrote: post #42

The first time I read Prince's response, I felt it was OK-ish with some problems. However after a second reading, I have decided that it's terrible. 1. He starts by trying to minimize the issue instead of apologizing talking about how small the number of employees they fired relative to their total department size. I want to know how many people were fired vs. retained over the past 60 days. 2. Prince then goes compl…

My perspective on this kind of things is that there's no win from responding to it. People were being fired. They will be angry. There is no response that would make it better (of course, unless you give them more money).

True, few are thrilled at getting fired. But if you are told you're being let go due to performance they should be able to say how they determined your poor performance. Not being able to give metrics or manager feedback makes it seem like that's not the true reason. If you want to make fired people even more upset, lying to them is a good way to do it.

Re: Cloudflare CEO responds to viral termination video

#65

Post by monocularvision »

hysan wrote: post #57
bogomipz wrote: post #49

Can Cloudflare not afford a communications director that could have maybe edited this for the CEO before he put this tone-deaf screed out on the internet? >"We fired ~40 sales people out of over 1,500 in our go to market org. That’s a normal quarter." If firing 40 people every quarter is normal for you then your company culture is fucked. >"Sadly, we don’t hire perfectly. We try to fire perfectly." Oof. It's bizarre…

Random aside, but when Chris Paul first joined the Suns, he was actually a good fit in my opinion and as evidenced by their success. It was his age and injuries that eventually made him a bad fit (roster age, timelines, etc). I found that random comparison pretty bad.

Ha! Glad I wasn’t the only one bothered by this.

Re: Cloudflare CEO responds to viral termination video

#66

Post by choppaface »

ergocoder wrote: post #44
infamia wrote: post #42

The first time I read Prince's response, I felt it was OK-ish with some problems. However after a second reading, I have decided that it's terrible. 1. He starts by trying to minimize the issue instead of apologizing talking about how small the number of employees they fired relative to their total department size. I want to know how many people were fired vs. retained over the past 60 days. 2. Prince then goes compl…

My perspective on this kind of things is that there's no win from responding to it. People were being fired. They will be angry. There is no response that would make it better (of course, unless you give them more money).

Give them more money. Exactly. Airbnb did 6-month severance, etc. Raise the bar in how you treat employees whether you keep them or not.

Re: Cloudflare CEO responds to viral termination video

#67

Post by windows98devops »

epolanski wrote: post #56
justinclift wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... you don't need 1v1s with your manager to find this. While that's true, it does sound like her direct manager was outright misleading her. Telling someone they're doing well when they're very much not (to the point their job is at risk) isn't constructive, and doesn't help anyone. Well, not unless the manager was purposely sabotaging the employee for some reason. It's more likely the manager is just an idiot tho…

Okay, but we're also taking her account on that at straight value. I've had multiple coworkers or subordinates living in their own world and not understanding crystal clear feedback.

Her account can be taken at straight value only because this company failed the firing so badly.

This should be able to be easily answered.

E.g.

"Your performance review on November 17th we discussed concern that you weren't closing any sales."

"Your peers close 20 tickets per week, you close 12."

"You made mistakes on X, Y, and Z deals costing us clients."

"A sales associate normally closes 3 deals in the first month after their 3-month onboarding."

Basically, anything concrete at all. Either tell someone they're laid off (cost savings) or if you're going to cite a cause then you should back that cause up. You can't claim at-will-employement-fired-for-no-reason when you half-ass it and state a reason with no data or facts or any management chain present to speak to the reality of the situation.

Re: Cloudflare CEO responds to viral termination video

#68

Post by justinclift »

epolanski wrote: post #56
justinclift wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... you don't need 1v1s with your manager to find this. While that's true, it does sound like her direct manager was outright misleading her. Telling someone they're doing well when they're very much not (to the point their job is at risk) isn't constructive, and doesn't help anyone. Well, not unless the manager was purposely sabotaging the employee for some reason. It's more likely the manager is just an idiot tho…

Okay, but we're also taking her account on that at straight value. I've had multiple coworkers or subordinates living in their own world and not understanding crystal clear feedback.

Yeah, that's a good point. That could be the situation as well. :)

Re: Cloudflare CEO responds to viral termination video

#69

Post by ergocoder »

johnsand11 wrote: post #64
ergocoder wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My perspective on this kind of things is that there's no win from responding to it. People were being fired. They will be angry. There is no response that would make it better (of course, unless you give them more money).

True, few are thrilled at getting fired. But if you are told you're being let go due to performance they should be able to say how they determined your poor performance. Not being able to give metrics or manager feedback makes it seem like that's not the true reason. If you want to make fired people even more upset, lying to them is a good way to do it.

In this case, she made no sales at all in her first 5 months. At best, her performance cannot be determined. We could argue there was no data, but you could also argue you wouldn't keep sales with no data around.
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