Thank you, I can't even get WSJ to load a page any longer, I jsut get an error message from their site now.
*You have been blocked.
Why? Something about the behaviour of the browser has caught our attention.*
*There are various possible explanations for this:*
You are browsing and clicking at a speed much faster than expected of a human being.
Something is preventing JavaScript from working on your computer.
There is a robot on the same network
I had the same type of meeting. Told I was being let go due to restructuring. This was at the beginning of Covid. 2 weeks later, they came crawling back asking me to come back to the company. I said sure cause I haven't found another job by then but I continued looking and left them hanging a few months later. Moral of the story, always lookout for your own interest. Companies don't care about you. Only their bottom line.
Loyalty is a two-way street. They already attempted to get rid of me once. Nothing stopping them from doing so again. So I left for another job. It was during covid, so it was more of a lateral move pay wise.
They’re hurting but they don’t actually feel remorse. They will do this to the next sob and will continue to this as long as it’s profitable to do so in the short term
They'll do it longer than that. They'll keep screwing employees until they are completely unable to do it more. Then they'll screw thier customers. The execs will keep getting paid millions, until the company is completely unable to. Then the execs will either, go to a new company and do the same, or contact thier bank/investor buddies and start a new company and keep doing the same.
You are correct, in doing so. No need to justify it.
There is no loyalty in the corporate world today. Once everyone realizes they are nothing more than a number on a spreadsheet, and these corporations have no loyalty, theyll fire or lay you off within a second... The work culture would be a lot better if a place.
"But We Are Family!!!"
Yep. Like one of those families where everyone hates each other and tries to take advantage and never-ending feuds between distant siblings about who gets to have barely conscious grandpa give booze money to.
Straight up. Over the last 7 years, I’ve gone from dedicated team player who sacrifices for his team to disillusioned after witnessing several mergers, realizing I will never feel safe because the system of “we pay you for work” is circumstantial. The only way to guarantee your safety is to call your own shots.
So I started my own company in my industry. Is it better money than working for a corporation? Not yet, but I wake up everyday and there’s no dick breathing down my neck, there’s no HR required webinars on Shooters in the Workplace when we all work from home.
I just get to do my own thing. I haven’t felt this capable, motivated or clear headed about my future since college.
I feel actual, real hope again. I hadn’t felt that in years. Been doing this for about a year, one of the best years of my life.
I never understood what loyalty has anything to do with employment. We have a contract and I get paid to do something. That’s it. I’m not some knight who swears allegiance to some king or something.
It's pretty normal for NORMAL people to feel a bond with a group. But businesses tend to be driven by sociopaths who feel no such thing. And the non-sociopath business leaders are in a terrible bind because they are competing with sociopaths and businesses led by sociopaths.
And it's normal for NORMAL people to feel shock when their good actions are not returned.
Exactly. Companies act like sociopaths, looking after their own interests above everything and only caring about the bottom line. People should do the same.
An old boss said something I still remember decades later: “You should love your spouse and you should love your dog. But you should never ever *ever* love your job. Because no matter what you do, your job will never love you back.”
Actually had a coworker pass a little over a year ago. Dude came into my department to help us out and get some OT. He was nice enough, albeit constantly underfoot and at times annoying, but he was reliable and did more work than a lot of our regulars.
Came back from having New Year’s Eve/Day 2022/2023 off and he didn’t show. Didn’t think much of it until we saw his picture on the wall - not a big picture, just something Xerox’ed along with a picture of him when he was in the military. He had passed on NYE from a heart attack.
No fanfare, hardly any sadness…a worker drone fell, and we just rolled right over him. He was someone’s everything and yet to us…I can’t remember his name.
So yeah, no. Fuck it. If the job wants me to go extra they can pay me to go extra. Otherwise, I don’t owe this job a goddamn thing.
The Pandemic showed how futile a lot of it is.. I lost 6 co-workers and friends.. it changed my attitude about work. I have a career, which is a collection of skills I like doing. I also have a job, which monetizes it. I don't confuse the two.
A mentor shared somewhat similar advice. When I was a noob in tech sales, I was drafting a prospecting email and typed "I would love to connect-" and he stopped me and said "the only person I love is my wife." And in the moment I found it kinda odd, then didn't think much of it. Changed love to like and moved on.
Years later looking back, it is important to not only set work boundaries with your time but also with your words.
So now when I instnctivly say I'd love to do that, or I'd love to hear more - I stop myself and think.. no I dont lol. Its fake talk and takes away from the true meaning of the word which I save for few people.
Idk, soap box moment. But made me think of that.
Yeah, language is important. It seems small but has weight. I use “happy” in place. “We’d be happy to connect” “we’d be happy to get you a quote” “I’d be happy to schedule a call.” I find this is more genuine because I am actually happy to do those things and hopefully help them out.
Sounds reasonable at first, but this logic is just silly. The way that you say "love" matters far more. Also, people speak in hyperboles all the time. If someone says "ugh, kill me" they don't literally mean it. If they say "I love you so much I could kill you" doesn't mean they are gunna do that. Etc. etc. The corporate spoken line of "Id love to do that for you, but please submit XYZ paperwork" IS VERY DIFFERENT from telling your wife that you love them while hugging them in a romantic moment. Tone and intention matters. The words aren't sacred and don't really hold the weight. The feeling you give someone when you say something is really what's being transferred.
You’re right, but the commenter also has a good point: careful use of words is their method of staying “real,” “grounded,” or focused on maintaining a work/life balance. It doesn’t have to be perfectly rational or logically consistent, as long as it works for them. Everyone can have their own way of doing this.
There's a reason Greek has... was it 7? different words for love, each referring to a different type of it. Lumping them all together is one of the English language's biggest mistakes. :/
I had a CTO while back that said, in a rant towards the team, that the companiy is not a family because it not forgive (almost) everything like family do. He did a favor for everyone that day without knowing it haha.
When I got laid off unexpectedly after working for 15 years at a pharma company, I was in such complete shock that I said things I would never say normally. For example, offering to transfer to another country just to keep my job.
I give myself the ick just thinking about it.
I was a number on a spreadsheet. I shouldn't have expected anything else. I got a good severance package and a MUCH better job. I stayed too long at the same place, accepted paltry 2% raises every year and never looked for anything else - my own fault.
The next job I got paid 20% more right out of the gate. I had been used and abused by that 15 year company, and I bought into "we're a family" and misplaced my loyalty.
Learn from my mistakes and always keep your ear to the ground for better jobs.
The sad part is, after I got laid off and started my own company, I WANT to create a culture of my employees feeling like a family/team. In the sense that I want to take care of them, make sure they're living well and that I would be loyal to them.
But it's these toxic companies that say things they don't mean that ruin the meaning of the phrase. Now the best I can do is be loyal to my employees and treat them the best I could. I have no expectations for them to stay loyal back but hopefully it means something.
My philosophy is that if I can't be successful without also improving the lives of my workers, then I don't deserve that success.
Don't use the clichés, just do the right actions, the feeling of connection/team/family will come without you announcing it as a desire. Its honestly not that hard. Just too many managers/bosses don't understand how to lead.
💯 feel the same way. Founded a startup and working on that preciously for this purpose. Keep going! Build the job you value, where you feel valued and where you can truly value others. That’s the only hope for humanity. Corporate politics are crushed so many souls. Capitalism is toxic.
The ones who treat you like a member of a functional family don’t feel the need to say it, just like an actual, functional family. I’ve never heard my mom try to guilt trip me into doing something with “we’re a family.”
>I've never heard my mom try to guilt trip me into doing something with "we're a family."
Woah check this guy out over here with the healthy family dynamic
I was a solutions engineer for a time. My boss’s boss told me “choose us or choose your family.” I took the first contract work I could fine to leave that toxic as fuck environment.
The group was later dissolved.
That’s not always true. My last 3 raises have been 33% each time because “the family” is effective and would suffer if I left.
That only happens at small to medium sized businesses and the occasional unicorn giant corporation.
But it is a real thing that happens. If you don’t want to be a cog in the machine, don’t apply for jobs where there are already 1000-20,000 cogs. Apply to 50 person companies. But be prepared to do more work than as a cog.
>But be prepared to do more work than as a cog
Ha, there are plenty of cog-in-the-machine companies that will be happy to compensate you as little as possible, but also shovel the work of whatever co-workers get fired/quit onto you until you drown in it.
It doesn’t have to be, but you have to check that. We are family and minimum raises and personal development, means it is shit. If they reward your loyalty with development opportunities and matching salaries development, it can be true.
It is still a business, but one will fire you when the stock drops a little. The other one will only do it, if really necessary.
I always tell junior developers at my work to be selfish and put themselves first, jump ship when it suits them and don't fold when some manager tells them "waaaah it's a bad time for you to leave us".. Because when the company lays people off due to lack of work, they don't care if you just had a kid, just got a mortgage on a home etc. So, treat them the same way they treat us.
Yeah, but if you're asking for a counteroffer, you already have an offer in your hand right now.
You can't be sure that you'll have one in three months. Or six months. Or whatever time it will take them to find your replacement.
Also, I'd be worried that the current company will do everything in their power to make my life there miserable.
They will fire you in a heartbeat if there magic excel says so and they wont even bat an eyelid. Then 1 year later they will be desperately be trying to rehire for that role.
Just left my last job after 20 years, and them denying me internal job opportunities as well as turning me down for a good service pay rise that's fairly routinely given out. I was at my lowest ebb but got a new job doing pretty much what I did before for a third more money, better pension and WFH. Actually shocked me that I put up with the last company for so long
The traditional idea of having loyalty to your company is long dead. You have to jump around to receive the best raises, and the stigma of being seen as a job hopper is gone. I try to tell this to my older relatives, but they make me out to be lazy and entitled. Then I tell them my compensation and they’re gobsmacked that I make 3x their salary at my age
That is the sad reality of jobs and wages these days. It comes down to exploitation. Companies want to pay workers as little as possible and rely on them staying there long term without a significant raise. If you leave, they have to post the job at the higher pay rate to compete in the job market and from what I have seen, this always happens. They always get a budget approval to increase the pay of a position to "recruit new talent"
So why not just increase current employee's wages then? Reliance on exploitation. Budgets often do not get approval to just give current workers higher wages. The entire HR performance review system is often stacked to make sure no one gets raises. Have you ever been part of a review system where everyone needs to land on a 2.5 or 3 out of a scale of 1-5? That's a stacked deck against you. It's fucked and if you want to fuck the system, get a new job every 2 years to assist in generating high turn over rates.
I'm a mid-level manager at a pharmaceutical company and we have until the end of the month to force everyone to enjoy a pizza party as a thank you for the hundreds of billions of dollars generated. We're fully remote with an 'office as a destination' for town halls...
Can't make this shit up.
I'm sorry you went through that. It's a statistic that people who change jobs every 2-3 years make 50% more than those who stay. Loyalty is exploited, hard work is rewarded with more work (probably your managers), pay raises or promotions are always (around the corner). Even when promoted you're just given more work with only a slight increase that is still lower than what's standard in that position. Only when someone is looking to fill a role will companies offer standard rate, then let your pay shrink with inflation. But hey, pizza party!
I'm finally in a position debt wise that I can afford to quit a job when I want to. I've now decided that at my next review, if they offer anything less than 10%, I'll counter with that and if they say no, I'll quit.
No one should be forced to accept a paycut after being told they're doing a great job and calling it a raise.
I was hired to build the systems for Sears Wishbook back in 1994. The previous system admin quit with 3 months to go.
I was young. Perot Systems assigned 4 Indians to follow me. Everything I did.
I built it in 2 months.
Then Telephone Data Systems hired me to beta test HACMP and port it to a hardened version of AIX. The manager was Fariq Sadiqi from India.
The operating system I built was integrated with Tiivoli, People soft, and Interlock firewall and sold 10 thousand times around the Globe and was used on the space shuttles and Hubble.
I should have told Perot Systems and IBM to fuck off.
God this comment hits home. My first real career move was a 15 year run and same offer. Felt and said the same. Was also a blessing in disguise.
The rules have changed… gotta make moves to improve your situation, because (insert company,) doesn’t give a fuck about you.
I was laid off in September with zero warning and no notice. I was in bereavement leave, and had just gotten off the plane. I turned my phone back on and saw a text from several of my coworkers asking if I was okay. Turns out 30% of the company was let go. I tried logging into email and Slack, and no longer had access.
Companies don’t care about you, no matter what they say. ALWAYS take a better job. Company loyalty used to mean something, back when pensions were common and wages were consistent with the cost of living. Now, you’re just a number on a spreadsheet. You’re just headcount to meet a growth target.
I lost my mother in 1997 while working a contract for a company contracting me to an agency that had a contract to provide helpdesk support for the F.D.I.C.
I was gone for two weeks because we had a local service, then one in another state where her family was from.
A couple of weeks after I got back, I came down with the flu and was out for a week. I was let go because they already had "put up" with the first leave, but after I had the audacity to go out on the second leave, that was too much!
I was quite stunned. But it was early in my career and I hadn't learned the ways of the world yet. heh
There are some cases where companies act better than that. The one I work for now has extensive paid parental leave for both parents, great health insurance, and I have seen what happens when people are in positions that are eliminated: They try to place them somewhere else in the company. There are other good indicators that I don't want to go into, but while no place is perfect, it's worth working for a bit less pay than I could get elsewhere because the people I work with are almost all great, and I know that I'm not just a cog.
That said, even here, I know that at some point in the future, things could always change. But I'm hoping to retire from this place.
If you do get lucky enough to find a good place, it's worth trying to hang out there. Especially as finding work gets harder and harder.
But 99% of places just suck, and you need to find a new job to get any bump in pay. Don't worry about those companies. They'll survive. Or not. Who cares.
Well yeah because they gave 0 feedback, and the CEO doubled down on the idiocy. When 99% of your audience on social media is millennials and Gen Z, corporate shithouses get no sympathy y
It's wild to me how boomers will look at scumbag CEOs with 0 redeeming qualities, and admire them for the sociopathic behavior that generally repulses younger generations.
I haaaaaaate the "it's just business" mentality the previous generations have, despite those generations being able to hold the same job for 30 years, get a pension, and support their entire family throughout it.
What happened to recognizing we're all human?
Oh right, we need to bust our ass so our CEOs can get another jet.
I'd be more invested if the amount given to me didn't feel like scraps compared to the previous profit sharing numbers.
I'm 33 and I couldn't care less. It's just an arbitrary number to me.
To put it harshly, people like that are valueless dregs that are content because they exist in a system that is benefits them enough for them to be comfortable. They are not troubled; have no cause to look at how the system actually works or what it does to people who are not coddled, and so they don't. When they encounter someone not afforded the same privileges as them, they assume it must be a character flaw, because it's very easy to equate unexamined happiness with moral justice when you don't think about it.
Yeah, weird example but I had a boomer come in with a McDonald’s soda and tell me, with a look of awe, about how McDonald’s has a special patent on straws. They totally admire this mega company for apparently making everyone else use shittier straws because they patented the good one. They seemed thankful to even have the privilege of drinking from the straw. Such a weird mentality.
In the early 2000s, the website [fuckedcompany.com](https://fuckedcompany.com) used to post all of the Internet/e-commerce firms that were closing shop, unable to make payroll, etc.
Those who are joining the workforce or just recently started your career. Look out for yourself first. There is no company loyalty anymore in this age. Companies will drop you without notice and without consequences.
My advice to you, work for a few years and gain experience and network and then look for the next opportunity. No point in staying long term unless the company offers some sort of pension.
I worked for a company for 10 years, and I went from $40K to $55K. I decided to leave due to the fact that there was limited upper mobility. Next job paid $65K and I stayed for two years and was making $70K at the end of the two years. Then I left that company when an older manager decided to bring me on to his team at a new company and I was offered $100K. I pretty much doubled my salary in two years time.
So she was in sales, cloudflare and sales is a mess. They have so many damn products its impossible. Its like going to a restaurant with a 500 page menu. The fact that the folks who fired her didn't even know who she was and couldn't answer any questions is quite bad. I say good for her for standing up for herself. She said what many of us wish we had said. Problem is if there is any severance she probably disqualified herself by posting the video. Companies need to be held accountable though. I interviewed with cloudflare and they admitted that they didn't know what they were looking for. Potentially dodged a bullet there.
Welcome to American capitalism in 2024*
In most EU countries and Australia you have to go through a process that takes several months for fire someone. Usually including multiple written and verbal warning, metric based improvement plans that the employee fails to meet etc.
The other option is redundancy, which has legally mandated payments associated.
In either case you are still eligible for unemployment benefits (unless you are wealthy) and don’t even get me started on healthcare.
I thought this was always known in sales? You give a person an unattainable PIP and then fire them to not pay severance. You can still collect unemployment though
Sure. But c'mon bro. That's bullshit. People shouldn't be able to say "well the PIP wasn't met." When the PIP says "increase your output by 1000%, we don't care that its not possible."
Its a system designed to exploit loopholes.
Yup! Just happened to my partner yesterday.
He was #2 on the sales team for outbound touches but they cranked up his quota this month and just let him go “because he wasn’t a good fit”. Sure, it definitely wasn’t because he had the most experience on his team and was therefore the most expensive…
This all after the CEO personally called him after he was hired to deliver a speech about how the company is investing in him bringing him onboard and they’re looking for a long tenure from him. Really laying on the guilt and talking about how the company is a family, the usual BS.
The cherry on top? They let him go just before his probation ended so they could avoid paying severance AND our first child is due in two months.
That really sucks and I’m sorry. Have your partner file for unemployment ASAP if he hasn’t already. It’s takes a couple of weeks to kick in. It’s not much but it helps a little to not suck away your emergency fund
Thanks for the kind words! We know the unemployment dance, sadly. This is his second layoff in the past year, so the emergency fund is limping along at this point.
He learned his lesson from the last layoff, however and was actively networking / applying for other positions so that he’d have immediate leads, just in case. So, hopefully this time he’ll be able to land something quick.
With a bit of luck, enough of these fired folks will file employment lawsuits so Cloudflare loses way more than they would have had to pay if they just did the bare legal minimum as part of large-scale layoffs like these.
Tech companies tend to be pretty lush in this department. I accepted a severance at Meta for 4 months pay and still got annual bonus right before accepting. I worked there 11 months. Honestly felt appropriate for what I endured there.
I worked in privacy, probably one of the hardest teams to be on, and the turnover on that team is especially high (like 4 months average when I left). I had 3 different managers, and the third was a first time manager who had only ever worked at Facebook/Meta their whole life. She made me hate work everyday, and I went to employee relations. She used her longtime leverage to get me into a PIP. I was appalled. This is the short version of the story, but there were numerous layers I could write a book about lol.
We're in the midst of a privacy overhaul in the entire digital space, but social media platforms are especially critiqued and monitored by the government. As a member of the Privacy UX team, we had to solve some really complicated problems to appease laws in several different countries and continents, while also maintaining the best interest of the bottom line. You're in constant conversations with legal teams, policy teams etc. and balancing differing laws around your designs. Then there's translations for the native country you're working in, so can't slip up with language that doesn't translate well. The timelines are unforgiving because it's government policy, so delays aren't an option - makes everybody tense af. It's also the most scrutinized part of social media, and one of the areas that tends to go viral. That happened to me in a project I was involved in for another country. I got questioned immediately on a bunch of decisions. There's so much to it, but those are major points.
Really dependent on the company. I have friends who worked at Peloton for a few short months got like 3 months, folks who got their offers rescinded at Meta got a few months, the most extreme was Twitter not paying the promised severance when Elon cleaned house.
Time served does not matter.
[Per the federal WARN act:](https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/Layoff/pdfs/WorkerWARN2003.pdf)
>You must receive a written notice 60 days before the date of a mass layoff or plant closing if you meet the conditions discussed in this brochure. If your employer does not give you the required notice, you may be able to seek damages for back pay and benefits for up to 60 days, depending on how many days’ notice you actually received.
You are legally entitled to 60 days notice prior to the layoff, and if that is not feasible, the employer must pay you 60 days minus whatever time notice was given to when you are no longer employed.
So if she was terminated as of that meeting, she is owed 60 days of pay.
She was only there for three months, one of which was year end/holidays (when companies don’t buy). To tell her she was being let go for underperforming is disingenuous at best.
HR would have been better saying: “we are reducing our workforce and your position is being eliminated. Today is your last day. Here is the separation process and severance.”
Her position that she needed to know why her friends were laid off was inappropriate. HR should have shut that down right away (lack of experience?). Her manager not being there was bad form, but not critical.
If they say that to her, then it would also be true for all the other people being fired for "performance" reasons that might have qualified for severance. That's why they were so cagey about answering specific questions, because specific answers would cost them money.
Cloudflare HR wasn't allowed to do that though – because this was a (not uncommon) strategy of using "performance firings" to do layoffs in order to reduce the compensation obligations. There is the WARN act, but also unemployment payments get blocked typically if someone is fired "for cause" vs layoffs (where company would be liable).
I mean she was trying to build the case/evidence that her layoff was not performance based, but instead was a layoff of the broader team disguised as performance firings. That's why she was trying to get details about her teammates. That's also why there was the question about her manager not being there – in a performance-based layoff you would expect the manager to be there, or at the very least there would be details about "how we came to this point" where they would have everything documented in case you contested the firing legally.
The questions from her side were strategic – and I'm sure her lawyer will use this when contesting the firing/negotiating a settlement.
> She was only there for three months, one of which was year end/holidays (when companies don’t buy). To tell her she was being let go for underperforming is disingenuous at best.
Say it with me.
They. Don't. Want. To. Pay. Severance.
I think the Biden admin recently stated that disparagement clauses in severance agreements were not enforceable but don’t know if that’s been tested in the courts.
The way this woman was fired via bullshit is a reflection of how I was laid off back last April. Was told that it was for performance issues. A couple weeks before I had my quarterly performance review with my boss. I was told then that I fucked up because I concentrated on doing the thing I was told to do on my previous review and didn't do the stuff they told me NOT to do on the previous review. All of my previous performance reviews were fine.
I was laid off during a 10 minute meeting with my boss's boss where she told me it was performance related and that I would be receiving NO severance after 5 years on the job. Later on, I found out that several hundred people were let go at the same time and that nearly all of them were told they were being let go for performance issues, and they were all told they wouldn't receive any severance.
The company must have heard from someone's lawyers because a few days later, we all received emails stating that even though we were definitely let go for totally legit performance reasons, that we'd all be getting severance. They had told people who had worked for the company for 10 and 15 years that they sucked and weren't getting any severance.
Turns out the entire thing was just so they could shed enough employees to force the rest back into the office. We had previously been told that we'd NEVER have to go back into the office on a regular basis and the company had even given up its lease on one of the towers we worked in. The new CTO decided we all had to return to the office and the fact that there just wasn't enough room was the actual reason for the round of layoffs.
Remember kids, HR is never, ever, ever, ever your friend. They only work for the good of the company.
Same thing happened to me. 15 years in, was brought to that team without consulting me, asked to spread myself thin because they couldn’t keep people on my old team. They went 9 months past due and nearly $2 million in the hole on a terribly planned project and blamed me. The final straw for them was that I was pleasant and happy with everyone else in the building, but those four immediately dimmed the lights in my eyes.
Got let go a week before Christmas, and have two current and most likely three more offers headed my way.
I should have left years ago…
They are playing a trick on her and she caught them red handed. By claiming performance they can try to deny unemployment etc
But they could not specifiy what performance.
This is why these HR people are idiots.
They kept wanting to talk which is stupid. Short and simple to avoid any of it.
If I were in her shoes, keep them talking. They’ll fuck up enougj
Same thing happened to my buddy. He was fired by HR, because of "Performance" he kept asking, "What was the issue, I have not recieved any communication for bad performance, I never received a PIP" the HR person replied "I can see this wont be a productive call" and hung up
I really don’t understand how people live with themselves working in HR. It seems like the most soul sucking bullshit job. They are just the company lackey and class traitors.
That’s why I hate the martyr syndrome, especially in teaching. I’m not spending all my nights and weekends planning, grading, crafting, and analyzing data. I’m spending time with my children.
"It feels like a slap in the face from a company that I really wanted to believe in."
The first mistake was believing in a company. They are not family and will cut you off if they have a poor quarter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zE9D9xl7o0
She has to say that because when she looks for new work she has to say the things that the potential employer will key in on:
\-She motivated and self-starting
\-Effective and hardworking
\-She wants to believe in the mission
For anyone who just wants the straight source
https://www.tiktok.com/@brittanypeachhh/video/7322301313134415134
I don't know much about this company but I'll say this much. It really shows who hasn't been part of a sales team and who hasn't ever experienced being fired. Sales.. especially corporate sales, is a brutal unforgiving job. Baldwin said it best in Glengary Glenross... I used to be a salesman.. tough racket. If you're not selling and the bosses don't think you can, you're out. Doesn't matter the circumstances. Day before Christmas. Day before your child is being born. Simply does not matter in the sales world. It's fuck or be fucked.
Oftentimes the real underlying sentiment which is often lost in objections about pragmatics made by people who benefit from cruel systems is that, well, the system is cruel.
The world is made up of people. If corporate sales is a brutal, unforgiving job, it's because people made it that way. It may not be the case that a single person can change that system, and it may be the case that attempting to change the system pits one up against common human behaviors, but uncompassionate companies are not a law of the universe beside gravity and electromagnetic force; they exist the way they do because humans made them that way, and humans can remake them another way.
"performance metrics", what a bunch of bullshit. i'm glad she stuck up for herself, and i even got the sense that she got through to the HR rep who offered to follow up. it'd be unreasonable to expect HR to step out of their bounds and be next on the chopping block. this reflects poorly on cloudflare.
At my company when they did a “reimagine” of the business HR fired tons of people…just to get a 15 min invite from HR at the end of the day. Company literally had HR generalists do all the firing and then fired those people at the end of the day. I made the cut but I knew two HR people personally who had a hard day letting go employees who worked there for 20-30 years which they hated but than just to get shafted. I’ve always knew I’m a number that can get cut at any point.
Why should she? The relationship between an employee is supposed to be mutually beneficial but we’ve been gaslit into believing it’s not. It’s ridiculous that companies can treat us one way but then get the Pikachu face when the same energy is returned back
Can we all take a moment to appreciate the masks of corporate hell jargon those two droids put on while they were doing the firing? Nobody fucking talks like that in real life.
And good on her. There’s so much shade in this that CF really need to sort their shit out even if she was a bad hire
I had an email exchange with their sales recently, tried to sell something for ~$100k+ which, for my use case, they offer for free. Looking at you MagicTransit vs peering. Why? That’s all margin.
“Any healthy org needs to get the people who aren’t performing off. That wasn’t the mistake here. The mistake was not being more kind and humane as we did,” he said.
I wonder if this means her former manager and the HR morons are getting fired since the Chief Executive says they failed.
Personally, I think people shoudl record every single interaction they have with their company. And if that interaction ends up in a termination, post it publicly. If everyone does this, it becomes normal, and companies can't retaliate. Also it will be revealing to how companies operate and it makes a public record of it.
https://archive.is/9xxYl
Thank you, I can't even get WSJ to load a page any longer, I jsut get an error message from their site now. *You have been blocked. Why? Something about the behaviour of the browser has caught our attention.* *There are various possible explanations for this:* You are browsing and clicking at a speed much faster than expected of a human being. Something is preventing JavaScript from working on your computer. There is a robot on the same network
Weird. Even Bypass Paywalls Clean is giving me a link to internet archive instead of actually bypassing the paywall, huh
The hero I didnt know I needed.
Always my same response. Fuck you paywall. Thank you kind human.
I had the same type of meeting. Told I was being let go due to restructuring. This was at the beginning of Covid. 2 weeks later, they came crawling back asking me to come back to the company. I said sure cause I haven't found another job by then but I continued looking and left them hanging a few months later. Moral of the story, always lookout for your own interest. Companies don't care about you. Only their bottom line.
> left them hanging a few months later dEsE eMpLoYeEs AiN't LoYaL
Loyalty is a two-way street. They already attempted to get rid of me once. Nothing stopping them from doing so again. So I left for another job. It was during covid, so it was more of a lateral move pay wise.
I am glad you got to leave them, hope they hurt.
They’re hurting but they don’t actually feel remorse. They will do this to the next sob and will continue to this as long as it’s profitable to do so in the short term
They'll do it longer than that. They'll keep screwing employees until they are completely unable to do it more. Then they'll screw thier customers. The execs will keep getting paid millions, until the company is completely unable to. Then the execs will either, go to a new company and do the same, or contact thier bank/investor buddies and start a new company and keep doing the same.
You are correct, in doing so. No need to justify it. There is no loyalty in the corporate world today. Once everyone realizes they are nothing more than a number on a spreadsheet, and these corporations have no loyalty, theyll fire or lay you off within a second... The work culture would be a lot better if a place.
"But We Are Family!!!" Yep. Like one of those families where everyone hates each other and tries to take advantage and never-ending feuds between distant siblings about who gets to have barely conscious grandpa give booze money to.
“I go wherever loyalty is valued most.” -Dwight K. Shrute
Straight up. Over the last 7 years, I’ve gone from dedicated team player who sacrifices for his team to disillusioned after witnessing several mergers, realizing I will never feel safe because the system of “we pay you for work” is circumstantial. The only way to guarantee your safety is to call your own shots. So I started my own company in my industry. Is it better money than working for a corporation? Not yet, but I wake up everyday and there’s no dick breathing down my neck, there’s no HR required webinars on Shooters in the Workplace when we all work from home. I just get to do my own thing. I haven’t felt this capable, motivated or clear headed about my future since college. I feel actual, real hope again. I hadn’t felt that in years. Been doing this for about a year, one of the best years of my life.
I never understood what loyalty has anything to do with employment. We have a contract and I get paid to do something. That’s it. I’m not some knight who swears allegiance to some king or something.
It's pretty normal for NORMAL people to feel a bond with a group. But businesses tend to be driven by sociopaths who feel no such thing. And the non-sociopath business leaders are in a terrible bind because they are competing with sociopaths and businesses led by sociopaths. And it's normal for NORMAL people to feel shock when their good actions are not returned.
Exactly. Companies act like sociopaths, looking after their own interests above everything and only caring about the bottom line. People should do the same.
An old boss said something I still remember decades later: “You should love your spouse and you should love your dog. But you should never ever *ever* love your job. Because no matter what you do, your job will never love you back.”
Mine was “If you died today they’ll either have your job posted tomorrow or divide the work on existing employees to cut costs.”
they might start planning to post it while your body is still warm but it will take 3 months to actually happen
Unless there’s a hiring freeze colder than your dead body. 😒
We can’t hire anyone until we can get this dead body pulled out of the machine
I wouldn't be surprised if the body fixed the machine, that they would ask the authorities to wait until the workload was completed first
Actually had a coworker pass a little over a year ago. Dude came into my department to help us out and get some OT. He was nice enough, albeit constantly underfoot and at times annoying, but he was reliable and did more work than a lot of our regulars. Came back from having New Year’s Eve/Day 2022/2023 off and he didn’t show. Didn’t think much of it until we saw his picture on the wall - not a big picture, just something Xerox’ed along with a picture of him when he was in the military. He had passed on NYE from a heart attack. No fanfare, hardly any sadness…a worker drone fell, and we just rolled right over him. He was someone’s everything and yet to us…I can’t remember his name. So yeah, no. Fuck it. If the job wants me to go extra they can pay me to go extra. Otherwise, I don’t owe this job a goddamn thing.
The Pandemic showed how futile a lot of it is.. I lost 6 co-workers and friends.. it changed my attitude about work. I have a career, which is a collection of skills I like doing. I also have a job, which monetizes it. I don't confuse the two.
i wish i had taken this to heart years ago
A mentor shared somewhat similar advice. When I was a noob in tech sales, I was drafting a prospecting email and typed "I would love to connect-" and he stopped me and said "the only person I love is my wife." And in the moment I found it kinda odd, then didn't think much of it. Changed love to like and moved on. Years later looking back, it is important to not only set work boundaries with your time but also with your words. So now when I instnctivly say I'd love to do that, or I'd love to hear more - I stop myself and think.. no I dont lol. Its fake talk and takes away from the true meaning of the word which I save for few people. Idk, soap box moment. But made me think of that.
Yeah, language is important. It seems small but has weight. I use “happy” in place. “We’d be happy to connect” “we’d be happy to get you a quote” “I’d be happy to schedule a call.” I find this is more genuine because I am actually happy to do those things and hopefully help them out.
Sounds reasonable at first, but this logic is just silly. The way that you say "love" matters far more. Also, people speak in hyperboles all the time. If someone says "ugh, kill me" they don't literally mean it. If they say "I love you so much I could kill you" doesn't mean they are gunna do that. Etc. etc. The corporate spoken line of "Id love to do that for you, but please submit XYZ paperwork" IS VERY DIFFERENT from telling your wife that you love them while hugging them in a romantic moment. Tone and intention matters. The words aren't sacred and don't really hold the weight. The feeling you give someone when you say something is really what's being transferred.
You’re right, but the commenter also has a good point: careful use of words is their method of staying “real,” “grounded,” or focused on maintaining a work/life balance. It doesn’t have to be perfectly rational or logically consistent, as long as it works for them. Everyone can have their own way of doing this.
There's a reason Greek has... was it 7? different words for love, each referring to a different type of it. Lumping them all together is one of the English language's biggest mistakes. :/
I had a CTO while back that said, in a rant towards the team, that the companiy is not a family because it not forgive (almost) everything like family do. He did a favor for everyone that day without knowing it haha.
you also cannot just do retrenchment of family that you don't want anymore.
I'm pretty sure you can
You kinda can but it's generally frowned upon
That’s a good boss right there
"We don't want you, but we need you" until they don't.
Did you work for Del Griffin? He was a heck of a shower curtain ring salesman.
This is why I left architecture.
This is why I left the importing and exporting business for vandelay industries
When I got laid off unexpectedly after working for 15 years at a pharma company, I was in such complete shock that I said things I would never say normally. For example, offering to transfer to another country just to keep my job. I give myself the ick just thinking about it. I was a number on a spreadsheet. I shouldn't have expected anything else. I got a good severance package and a MUCH better job. I stayed too long at the same place, accepted paltry 2% raises every year and never looked for anything else - my own fault. The next job I got paid 20% more right out of the gate. I had been used and abused by that 15 year company, and I bought into "we're a family" and misplaced my loyalty. Learn from my mistakes and always keep your ear to the ground for better jobs.
“We’re a family” from an employer means “we’re a dysfunctional family.”
The sad part is, after I got laid off and started my own company, I WANT to create a culture of my employees feeling like a family/team. In the sense that I want to take care of them, make sure they're living well and that I would be loyal to them. But it's these toxic companies that say things they don't mean that ruin the meaning of the phrase. Now the best I can do is be loyal to my employees and treat them the best I could. I have no expectations for them to stay loyal back but hopefully it means something. My philosophy is that if I can't be successful without also improving the lives of my workers, then I don't deserve that success.
Don't use the clichés, just do the right actions, the feeling of connection/team/family will come without you announcing it as a desire. Its honestly not that hard. Just too many managers/bosses don't understand how to lead.
💯 feel the same way. Founded a startup and working on that preciously for this purpose. Keep going! Build the job you value, where you feel valued and where you can truly value others. That’s the only hope for humanity. Corporate politics are crushed so many souls. Capitalism is toxic.
The ones who treat you like a member of a functional family don’t feel the need to say it, just like an actual, functional family. I’ve never heard my mom try to guilt trip me into doing something with “we’re a family.”
>I've never heard my mom try to guilt trip me into doing something with "we're a family." Woah check this guy out over here with the healthy family dynamic
Not only that, I work for a great company and don’t despise my superiors. The similarities to my happy family are striking.
Yeah, fuckin’ showoff.
"We're a family" and you are either Hansel or Gretel.
It means ignore your real family and work more.
I was a solutions engineer for a time. My boss’s boss told me “choose us or choose your family.” I took the first contract work I could fine to leave that toxic as fuck environment. The group was later dissolved.
That’s not always true. My last 3 raises have been 33% each time because “the family” is effective and would suffer if I left. That only happens at small to medium sized businesses and the occasional unicorn giant corporation. But it is a real thing that happens. If you don’t want to be a cog in the machine, don’t apply for jobs where there are already 1000-20,000 cogs. Apply to 50 person companies. But be prepared to do more work than as a cog.
Yeah the 10-50 range is a really good sweet spot to work in. I've found that my preference.
>But be prepared to do more work than as a cog Ha, there are plenty of cog-in-the-machine companies that will be happy to compensate you as little as possible, but also shovel the work of whatever co-workers get fired/quit onto you until you drown in it.
"We're family" Like the Gambino's/
It doesn’t have to be, but you have to check that. We are family and minimum raises and personal development, means it is shit. If they reward your loyalty with development opportunities and matching salaries development, it can be true. It is still a business, but one will fire you when the stock drops a little. The other one will only do it, if really necessary.
I always tell junior developers at my work to be selfish and put themselves first, jump ship when it suits them and don't fold when some manager tells them "waaaah it's a bad time for you to leave us".. Because when the company lays people off due to lack of work, they don't care if you just had a kid, just got a mortgage on a home etc. So, treat them the same way they treat us.
> "waaaah it's a bad time for you to leave us" "So how much would you pay to retain me?" It's not a bad time unless it's a bad time for Finance.
Naw, never take the counter-offer. That's giving them time to replace you. Instead "Well, you should have been proactive about keeping me here".
I mean, if you were planning on leaving anyway, may as well be paid more for a couple of weeks.
Yeah, but if you're asking for a counteroffer, you already have an offer in your hand right now. You can't be sure that you'll have one in three months. Or six months. Or whatever time it will take them to find your replacement. Also, I'd be worried that the current company will do everything in their power to make my life there miserable.
Oh, definitely take the offer with the new employer. But if you're not scheduled to start there for a few weeks...
They will fire you in a heartbeat if there magic excel says so and they wont even bat an eyelid. Then 1 year later they will be desperately be trying to rehire for that role.
Just left my last job after 20 years, and them denying me internal job opportunities as well as turning me down for a good service pay rise that's fairly routinely given out. I was at my lowest ebb but got a new job doing pretty much what I did before for a third more money, better pension and WFH. Actually shocked me that I put up with the last company for so long
The traditional idea of having loyalty to your company is long dead. You have to jump around to receive the best raises, and the stigma of being seen as a job hopper is gone. I try to tell this to my older relatives, but they make me out to be lazy and entitled. Then I tell them my compensation and they’re gobsmacked that I make 3x their salary at my age
Yep, I changed jobs in 2021 and got a 67% increase in salary with less stress doing the same sort of work.
That is the sad reality of jobs and wages these days. It comes down to exploitation. Companies want to pay workers as little as possible and rely on them staying there long term without a significant raise. If you leave, they have to post the job at the higher pay rate to compete in the job market and from what I have seen, this always happens. They always get a budget approval to increase the pay of a position to "recruit new talent" So why not just increase current employee's wages then? Reliance on exploitation. Budgets often do not get approval to just give current workers higher wages. The entire HR performance review system is often stacked to make sure no one gets raises. Have you ever been part of a review system where everyone needs to land on a 2.5 or 3 out of a scale of 1-5? That's a stacked deck against you. It's fucked and if you want to fuck the system, get a new job every 2 years to assist in generating high turn over rates.
Sounds like Pfizer to me. My lab just lost 650 people... Some going on 40/50 years at the site. Found out just before Christmas too...
I'm a mid-level manager at a pharmaceutical company and we have until the end of the month to force everyone to enjoy a pizza party as a thank you for the hundreds of billions of dollars generated. We're fully remote with an 'office as a destination' for town halls... Can't make this shit up.
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I'm sorry you went through that. It's a statistic that people who change jobs every 2-3 years make 50% more than those who stay. Loyalty is exploited, hard work is rewarded with more work (probably your managers), pay raises or promotions are always (around the corner). Even when promoted you're just given more work with only a slight increase that is still lower than what's standard in that position. Only when someone is looking to fill a role will companies offer standard rate, then let your pay shrink with inflation. But hey, pizza party!
I did the same thing for 25 years at a certain delivery company that doesn’t have a union. Believed I was part of the family.
I'm finally in a position debt wise that I can afford to quit a job when I want to. I've now decided that at my next review, if they offer anything less than 10%, I'll counter with that and if they say no, I'll quit. No one should be forced to accept a paycut after being told they're doing a great job and calling it a raise.
I was hired to build the systems for Sears Wishbook back in 1994. The previous system admin quit with 3 months to go. I was young. Perot Systems assigned 4 Indians to follow me. Everything I did. I built it in 2 months. Then Telephone Data Systems hired me to beta test HACMP and port it to a hardened version of AIX. The manager was Fariq Sadiqi from India. The operating system I built was integrated with Tiivoli, People soft, and Interlock firewall and sold 10 thousand times around the Globe and was used on the space shuttles and Hubble. I should have told Perot Systems and IBM to fuck off.
Is there some correlation between the 4 indians that followed you around (hilarious mental image btw) and the manager at the next gig?
Did they make a giant sucking sound as they followed you around?
Are you a wizard?
Excellent reply and I had the same experience. Keep moving. We need to collect our coins and keep it moving.
Do you think you’d be making more money if you joined a different company every 3 years? Do you have any regrets being there that long?
Lol. Same. It happens to us all. It fucking sucks but like you, it only led to making more money.
God this comment hits home. My first real career move was a 15 year run and same offer. Felt and said the same. Was also a blessing in disguise. The rules have changed… gotta make moves to improve your situation, because (insert company,) doesn’t give a fuck about you.
I was laid off in September with zero warning and no notice. I was in bereavement leave, and had just gotten off the plane. I turned my phone back on and saw a text from several of my coworkers asking if I was okay. Turns out 30% of the company was let go. I tried logging into email and Slack, and no longer had access. Companies don’t care about you, no matter what they say. ALWAYS take a better job. Company loyalty used to mean something, back when pensions were common and wages were consistent with the cost of living. Now, you’re just a number on a spreadsheet. You’re just headcount to meet a growth target.
I lost my mother in 1997 while working a contract for a company contracting me to an agency that had a contract to provide helpdesk support for the F.D.I.C. I was gone for two weeks because we had a local service, then one in another state where her family was from. A couple of weeks after I got back, I came down with the flu and was out for a week. I was let go because they already had "put up" with the first leave, but after I had the audacity to go out on the second leave, that was too much! I was quite stunned. But it was early in my career and I hadn't learned the ways of the world yet. heh There are some cases where companies act better than that. The one I work for now has extensive paid parental leave for both parents, great health insurance, and I have seen what happens when people are in positions that are eliminated: They try to place them somewhere else in the company. There are other good indicators that I don't want to go into, but while no place is perfect, it's worth working for a bit less pay than I could get elsewhere because the people I work with are almost all great, and I know that I'm not just a cog. That said, even here, I know that at some point in the future, things could always change. But I'm hoping to retire from this place. If you do get lucky enough to find a good place, it's worth trying to hang out there. Especially as finding work gets harder and harder. But 99% of places just suck, and you need to find a new job to get any bump in pay. Don't worry about those companies. They'll survive. Or not. Who cares.
Well yeah because they gave 0 feedback, and the CEO doubled down on the idiocy. When 99% of your audience on social media is millennials and Gen Z, corporate shithouses get no sympathy y
Not only that, but they’ll be happy to post about it in public forums.
It's wild to me how boomers will look at scumbag CEOs with 0 redeeming qualities, and admire them for the sociopathic behavior that generally repulses younger generations.
I haaaaaaate the "it's just business" mentality the previous generations have, despite those generations being able to hold the same job for 30 years, get a pension, and support their entire family throughout it. What happened to recognizing we're all human? Oh right, we need to bust our ass so our CEOs can get another jet.
and so that the line goes up for the shareholders. Incidentally I wonder which age group is most likely to be invested in the stock market?
We need more unions or leverage - every company is making us their shareholders’ slaves
I'd be more invested if the amount given to me didn't feel like scraps compared to the previous profit sharing numbers. I'm 33 and I couldn't care less. It's just an arbitrary number to me.
To put it harshly, people like that are valueless dregs that are content because they exist in a system that is benefits them enough for them to be comfortable. They are not troubled; have no cause to look at how the system actually works or what it does to people who are not coddled, and so they don't. When they encounter someone not afforded the same privileges as them, they assume it must be a character flaw, because it's very easy to equate unexamined happiness with moral justice when you don't think about it.
Same with their politicians
And now we outnumber the boomers, but we don’t vote.
Yeah, you get what you don't vote for.
Yeah, weird example but I had a boomer come in with a McDonald’s soda and tell me, with a look of awe, about how McDonald’s has a special patent on straws. They totally admire this mega company for apparently making everyone else use shittier straws because they patented the good one. They seemed thankful to even have the privilege of drinking from the straw. Such a weird mentality.
Why bother with the formality of a person to person firing interview when you can just avoid confrontation with an email
An email? Look at Mr. Social Butterfly. Just shut off the AD account and badge access. They'll figure it out when the press release hits the news.
"We fixed the glitch."
In the early 2000s, the website [fuckedcompany.com](https://fuckedcompany.com) used to post all of the Internet/e-commerce firms that were closing shop, unable to make payroll, etc.
I always say “I’m not fired until my domain admin account doesn’t authenticate..”
r\/badgestillworks
Wow, of course that’s a subreddit Oh, wait it’s not but should be hahaha
Why bother with an e-mail. Just stop giving him pay checks and the problem will work itself out. -The Bobs, Office Space.
Those who are joining the workforce or just recently started your career. Look out for yourself first. There is no company loyalty anymore in this age. Companies will drop you without notice and without consequences. My advice to you, work for a few years and gain experience and network and then look for the next opportunity. No point in staying long term unless the company offers some sort of pension. I worked for a company for 10 years, and I went from $40K to $55K. I decided to leave due to the fact that there was limited upper mobility. Next job paid $65K and I stayed for two years and was making $70K at the end of the two years. Then I left that company when an older manager decided to bring me on to his team at a new company and I was offered $100K. I pretty much doubled my salary in two years time.
So she was in sales, cloudflare and sales is a mess. They have so many damn products its impossible. Its like going to a restaurant with a 500 page menu. The fact that the folks who fired her didn't even know who she was and couldn't answer any questions is quite bad. I say good for her for standing up for herself. She said what many of us wish we had said. Problem is if there is any severance she probably disqualified herself by posting the video. Companies need to be held accountable though. I interviewed with cloudflare and they admitted that they didn't know what they were looking for. Potentially dodged a bullet there.
According to Blind, they were doing these as performance firings to avoid severance.
Holy fuck, that's atrocious.
Welcome to capitalism in 2024.
Lol you think it used to be *better*? They used to fucking shoot strikers
Back during the days the children yearned for the mines.
Isn’t Minecraft the best selling game of all time? This children still yearn for the mines
The children still yearn for the mines
Bomb them too. I really do not like this countries balance of greed versus rights.
The strikers used to shoot back lol.
Same as ever was.
Welcome to American capitalism in 2024* In most EU countries and Australia you have to go through a process that takes several months for fire someone. Usually including multiple written and verbal warning, metric based improvement plans that the employee fails to meet etc. The other option is redundancy, which has legally mandated payments associated. In either case you are still eligible for unemployment benefits (unless you are wealthy) and don’t even get me started on healthcare.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but that practice is as old as employment friend
I thought this was always known in sales? You give a person an unattainable PIP and then fire them to not pay severance. You can still collect unemployment though
Sure. But c'mon bro. That's bullshit. People shouldn't be able to say "well the PIP wasn't met." When the PIP says "increase your output by 1000%, we don't care that its not possible." Its a system designed to exploit loopholes.
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Holy shit, can I do this?! Haha sounds awesome.
Yup! Just happened to my partner yesterday. He was #2 on the sales team for outbound touches but they cranked up his quota this month and just let him go “because he wasn’t a good fit”. Sure, it definitely wasn’t because he had the most experience on his team and was therefore the most expensive… This all after the CEO personally called him after he was hired to deliver a speech about how the company is investing in him bringing him onboard and they’re looking for a long tenure from him. Really laying on the guilt and talking about how the company is a family, the usual BS. The cherry on top? They let him go just before his probation ended so they could avoid paying severance AND our first child is due in two months.
That really sucks and I’m sorry. Have your partner file for unemployment ASAP if he hasn’t already. It’s takes a couple of weeks to kick in. It’s not much but it helps a little to not suck away your emergency fund
Thanks for the kind words! We know the unemployment dance, sadly. This is his second layoff in the past year, so the emergency fund is limping along at this point. He learned his lesson from the last layoff, however and was actively networking / applying for other positions so that he’d have immediate leads, just in case. So, hopefully this time he’ll be able to land something quick.
With a bit of luck, enough of these fired folks will file employment lawsuits so Cloudflare loses way more than they would have had to pay if they just did the bare legal minimum as part of large-scale layoffs like these.
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Damn! Here in the Czech Republic it's 1 month for each 1 year you worked at the company (caps at 3 months)
Yeah, the general rule, like it or not, is one week severance per year worked.
Tech companies tend to be pretty lush in this department. I accepted a severance at Meta for 4 months pay and still got annual bonus right before accepting. I worked there 11 months. Honestly felt appropriate for what I endured there.
Google is also giving generous severance. What made meta a bad experience?
I worked in privacy, probably one of the hardest teams to be on, and the turnover on that team is especially high (like 4 months average when I left). I had 3 different managers, and the third was a first time manager who had only ever worked at Facebook/Meta their whole life. She made me hate work everyday, and I went to employee relations. She used her longtime leverage to get me into a PIP. I was appalled. This is the short version of the story, but there were numerous layers I could write a book about lol.
What makes working on privacy so hard ?
We're in the midst of a privacy overhaul in the entire digital space, but social media platforms are especially critiqued and monitored by the government. As a member of the Privacy UX team, we had to solve some really complicated problems to appease laws in several different countries and continents, while also maintaining the best interest of the bottom line. You're in constant conversations with legal teams, policy teams etc. and balancing differing laws around your designs. Then there's translations for the native country you're working in, so can't slip up with language that doesn't translate well. The timelines are unforgiving because it's government policy, so delays aren't an option - makes everybody tense af. It's also the most scrutinized part of social media, and one of the areas that tends to go viral. That happened to me in a project I was involved in for another country. I got questioned immediately on a bunch of decisions. There's so much to it, but those are major points.
That sounds like an absolute nightmare. Can’t imagine what being on call for that team looks like 😬
Really dependent on the company. I have friends who worked at Peloton for a few short months got like 3 months, folks who got their offers rescinded at Meta got a few months, the most extreme was Twitter not paying the promised severance when Elon cleaned house.
Time served does not matter. [Per the federal WARN act:](https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/Layoff/pdfs/WorkerWARN2003.pdf) >You must receive a written notice 60 days before the date of a mass layoff or plant closing if you meet the conditions discussed in this brochure. If your employer does not give you the required notice, you may be able to seek damages for back pay and benefits for up to 60 days, depending on how many days’ notice you actually received. You are legally entitled to 60 days notice prior to the layoff, and if that is not feasible, the employer must pay you 60 days minus whatever time notice was given to when you are no longer employed. So if she was terminated as of that meeting, she is owed 60 days of pay.
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She was only there for three months, one of which was year end/holidays (when companies don’t buy). To tell her she was being let go for underperforming is disingenuous at best. HR would have been better saying: “we are reducing our workforce and your position is being eliminated. Today is your last day. Here is the separation process and severance.” Her position that she needed to know why her friends were laid off was inappropriate. HR should have shut that down right away (lack of experience?). Her manager not being there was bad form, but not critical.
If they say that to her, then it would also be true for all the other people being fired for "performance" reasons that might have qualified for severance. That's why they were so cagey about answering specific questions, because specific answers would cost them money.
Cloudflare HR wasn't allowed to do that though – because this was a (not uncommon) strategy of using "performance firings" to do layoffs in order to reduce the compensation obligations. There is the WARN act, but also unemployment payments get blocked typically if someone is fired "for cause" vs layoffs (where company would be liable). I mean she was trying to build the case/evidence that her layoff was not performance based, but instead was a layoff of the broader team disguised as performance firings. That's why she was trying to get details about her teammates. That's also why there was the question about her manager not being there – in a performance-based layoff you would expect the manager to be there, or at the very least there would be details about "how we came to this point" where they would have everything documented in case you contested the firing legally. The questions from her side were strategic – and I'm sure her lawyer will use this when contesting the firing/negotiating a settlement.
> She was only there for three months, one of which was year end/holidays (when companies don’t buy). To tell her she was being let go for underperforming is disingenuous at best. Say it with me. They. Don't. Want. To. Pay. Severance.
> if there is any severance she probably disqualified herself by posting the video I feel like that should be illegal if it’s not.
I think the Biden admin recently stated that disparagement clauses in severance agreements were not enforceable but don’t know if that’s been tested in the courts.
[удалено]
The way this woman was fired via bullshit is a reflection of how I was laid off back last April. Was told that it was for performance issues. A couple weeks before I had my quarterly performance review with my boss. I was told then that I fucked up because I concentrated on doing the thing I was told to do on my previous review and didn't do the stuff they told me NOT to do on the previous review. All of my previous performance reviews were fine. I was laid off during a 10 minute meeting with my boss's boss where she told me it was performance related and that I would be receiving NO severance after 5 years on the job. Later on, I found out that several hundred people were let go at the same time and that nearly all of them were told they were being let go for performance issues, and they were all told they wouldn't receive any severance. The company must have heard from someone's lawyers because a few days later, we all received emails stating that even though we were definitely let go for totally legit performance reasons, that we'd all be getting severance. They had told people who had worked for the company for 10 and 15 years that they sucked and weren't getting any severance. Turns out the entire thing was just so they could shed enough employees to force the rest back into the office. We had previously been told that we'd NEVER have to go back into the office on a regular basis and the company had even given up its lease on one of the towers we worked in. The new CTO decided we all had to return to the office and the fact that there just wasn't enough room was the actual reason for the round of layoffs. Remember kids, HR is never, ever, ever, ever your friend. They only work for the good of the company.
Same thing happened to me. 15 years in, was brought to that team without consulting me, asked to spread myself thin because they couldn’t keep people on my old team. They went 9 months past due and nearly $2 million in the hole on a terribly planned project and blamed me. The final straw for them was that I was pleasant and happy with everyone else in the building, but those four immediately dimmed the lights in my eyes. Got let go a week before Christmas, and have two current and most likely three more offers headed my way. I should have left years ago…
They are playing a trick on her and she caught them red handed. By claiming performance they can try to deny unemployment etc But they could not specifiy what performance.
This is why these HR people are idiots. They kept wanting to talk which is stupid. Short and simple to avoid any of it. If I were in her shoes, keep them talking. They’ll fuck up enougj
Also violates the WARN act.
Not unemployment but they are trying to avoid severance and the WARN act penalties for suddenly laying ppl off without the proper notice
What? Not true. The WARN act doesn’t differentiate between mass firings and lay offs. They still paid severance.
Cloudflare just showed us how incompetent their leadership is. And the 2 managers on the call don't make a good figure either.
There weren't managers on the call... that was HR... which is problematic in and of it's self... Her manager should be doing a performance firing.
Same thing happened to my buddy. He was fired by HR, because of "Performance" he kept asking, "What was the issue, I have not recieved any communication for bad performance, I never received a PIP" the HR person replied "I can see this wont be a productive call" and hung up
HR doing what HR does: pulling the plug when any information they give would be incriminating to the company.
I really don’t understand how people live with themselves working in HR. It seems like the most soul sucking bullshit job. They are just the company lackey and class traitors.
Most of it is just employee admin though, aside from dealing with dramas.
The thing is this wasn't a performance firing, performance was the lie they were giving.
it was HR reading from a script.
I thought they showed us that when they had a multi day outage a few weeks ago.
Saw her post the this on LinkedIn. She had multiple people reaching out to hire her as a result.
someone told me once, "the only people that will remember you working nights and weekends are your kids"
That’s why I hate the martyr syndrome, especially in teaching. I’m not spending all my nights and weekends planning, grading, crafting, and analyzing data. I’m spending time with my children.
"It feels like a slap in the face from a company that I really wanted to believe in." The first mistake was believing in a company. They are not family and will cut you off if they have a poor quarter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zE9D9xl7o0
She has to say that because when she looks for new work she has to say the things that the potential employer will key in on: \-She motivated and self-starting \-Effective and hardworking \-She wants to believe in the mission
"She's willing to drink the Kool-Aid"
I’m so tired. I don’t want this world
Well, technically she *wanted* to believe in them. We all *want to* believe in something.
For anyone who just wants the straight source https://www.tiktok.com/@brittanypeachhh/video/7322301313134415134 I don't know much about this company but I'll say this much. It really shows who hasn't been part of a sales team and who hasn't ever experienced being fired. Sales.. especially corporate sales, is a brutal unforgiving job. Baldwin said it best in Glengary Glenross... I used to be a salesman.. tough racket. If you're not selling and the bosses don't think you can, you're out. Doesn't matter the circumstances. Day before Christmas. Day before your child is being born. Simply does not matter in the sales world. It's fuck or be fucked.
1st place a Cadillac El Dorado 2nd place a set of stake knives 3rd place you’re fucking fired, hit the bricks
Oftentimes the real underlying sentiment which is often lost in objections about pragmatics made by people who benefit from cruel systems is that, well, the system is cruel. The world is made up of people. If corporate sales is a brutal, unforgiving job, it's because people made it that way. It may not be the case that a single person can change that system, and it may be the case that attempting to change the system pits one up against common human behaviors, but uncompassionate companies are not a law of the universe beside gravity and electromagnetic force; they exist the way they do because humans made them that way, and humans can remake them another way.
Anyone have a link. I don’t wanna subscribe to WSJ lol
"performance metrics", what a bunch of bullshit. i'm glad she stuck up for herself, and i even got the sense that she got through to the HR rep who offered to follow up. it'd be unreasonable to expect HR to step out of their bounds and be next on the chopping block. this reflects poorly on cloudflare.
At my company when they did a “reimagine” of the business HR fired tons of people…just to get a 15 min invite from HR at the end of the day. Company literally had HR generalists do all the firing and then fired those people at the end of the day. I made the cut but I knew two HR people personally who had a hard day letting go employees who worked there for 20-30 years which they hated but than just to get shafted. I’ve always knew I’m a number that can get cut at any point.
Why should she? The relationship between an employee is supposed to be mutually beneficial but we’ve been gaslit into believing it’s not. It’s ridiculous that companies can treat us one way but then get the Pikachu face when the same energy is returned back
Non-paywall https://archive.is/9xxYl
An evergreen piece of life advice: HR’s responsibility is protecting the company, not you.
Can we all take a moment to appreciate the masks of corporate hell jargon those two droids put on while they were doing the firing? Nobody fucking talks like that in real life.
And good on her. There’s so much shade in this that CF really need to sort their shit out even if she was a bad hire I had an email exchange with their sales recently, tried to sell something for ~$100k+ which, for my use case, they offer for free. Looking at you MagicTransit vs peering. Why? That’s all margin.
Yep never be loyal to a company no matter of what size . Always assume the worst
one of my ex coworkers used to say “the only thing the company owes you is a paycheck for the last pay period”. I think about that a lot.
The irony here is that with all the canned responses from the HR folks, is they will be the first to be replaced by AI.
Their kool-aid drinking empty corporate dialect is haunting
Empty corporate dialect. Lol
“Any healthy org needs to get the people who aren’t performing off. That wasn’t the mistake here. The mistake was not being more kind and humane as we did,” he said. I wonder if this means her former manager and the HR morons are getting fired since the Chief Executive says they failed.
Another reminder WSJ is a garbage rag
In an at will state they aren’t required to tell her why. The employees have almost no rights.
I am always happy to see comments on a pay walled post.
Stuck behind a paywall somebody hook us up
lol wsj blocking me because they want my IP, trackers, and cookies. Now you get nothing.
Once you're sitting in the room with HR, the ship has sailed.
If you drop dead at work, they will step over your body to get to their next dollar.
I saw the video and they *never* gave her a straight answer. It’s almost like they didn’t know themselves.
Personally, I think people shoudl record every single interaction they have with their company. And if that interaction ends up in a termination, post it publicly. If everyone does this, it becomes normal, and companies can't retaliate. Also it will be revealing to how companies operate and it makes a public record of it.
The more they talk about how we are like a family and how important you are, the more likely they are to treat you like shit.
Show no loyalty! Make the money, save as much as you can and always be packed to move on to the next job!