Comment by rdtsc
2 months ago
Wonder if they'll do it like they did for Brittany Pietsch. She recorded her firing video some years ago. I think it's on tiktok but there are youtube videos discussing it as well.
Anyway, new employee at Cloudflare, just finished onboarding. Suddenly a short meeting is scheduled with two people she had never met before. She is told she is let go for "performance" reasons. She kind of tears into them with "what performance issues, I only got great reviews" just to hear the HR people squirm and backpedal, well because, they know they are lying. But of course, they're trained enough to never admit it and say "they'll get back to her on that". Needless to say, it has the same effect as a suspect being arrested arguing with the cops. But it did make Cloudflare "famous" on tiktok for a bit.
I found that video and I couldn't finish watching it. TBH it's really incomprehensible to me why we've created a culture where being so heartless is praised upon.
That's how the world works, we just automated and hidden most of the disgusting stuff.
No. She raises a valid point "if the company overhired, then just tell me".
HR doesn’t squirm because they are lying. They squirm because they minimize lawsuit surface area as much as possible. I have been on the giving end of performance layoffs in big corps and there is an extremely strict script you have to stick to (both HR rep and me as the manager).
I saw the video you’re referring to and it’s completely unsurprising they clam up further when she became confrontational. You’re not gonna talk your way out of a termination unless you have some pretty hard evidence it was for something illegal.
That’s just what getting fired looks like and people don’t often get to see the process so cloudflare “became famous”.
How is obviously lying about the layoff reason minimizing the lawsuit area? It's ripping it wide open I'd think.
Most of the US is a right to work environment where a company can let someone go at any time for any reason other than the few protected class reasons. Many companies also have 90 day probationary period where they bypass internal company processes and let someone go, again other than for protected class reasons.
It's obviously hard when people's lives are upended, but no one complains when companies do a lot of hiring because the risk is lower.
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It starts with some things that minimize the lawsuit area, but over time it transforms into a habit of lying. It's company policy, you know? Don't question, just execute.
The point is that HR declining to engage with her questions does not prove that they were lying. Even if they have 100% ironclad proof that they're in the right, what possible value is there in having an argument about it? Will she feel any better, and will they look any better to social media, if they deliver a 5 minute lecture on everything the company feels is wrong with her and her work?
(What is true, and what the Cloudflare CEO did acknowledge at the time, is that the manager who she felt was giving her only positive feedback should have been the one delivering the news.)
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