The CEO of Cloudflare weighs in.

We fired ~40 sales people out of over 1,500 in our go to market org. That’s a normal quarter. When we’re doing performance management right, we can often tell within 3 months or less of a sales hire, even during the holidays, whether they’re going to be successful or not. Sadly,…

— Matthew Prince 🌥 (@eastdakota) January 12, 2024

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The video is painful for me to watch.

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yada yada yada. If he didn't know how they did things he should be fired too.

Joseydog said:

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RIP to her future employment opportunities.

If her resume makes it past the first cut, then the company fires up "The Google." And she is immediately rejected.

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I don't think so. You may be one to tolerate sleazy behavior but many like gutsy people who stand up for themselves.

She was treated like crap. Someone will hire her and I am sure she will do well.

Wood

DallasAg 94 said:

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infinity ag said:

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So seems like Brittany was some sort of Account Exec for a company called CloudFlare hired in Aug 2023. They had a layoff after a few months which included December and they let her go citing "performance". But she fights back saying she got great reviews from her manager, and no one ever said anything about her performance and was not put on a PIP. Cloudflare was laying her off but dressing it up as a performance thing to save themselves from something. Sneaky.

So here's an example of duplicitous companies gaslighting employees about performance to get rid of them when the reason is their own mismanagement or market issues. Similar stuff has happened to me in the past.

It's good to see that she is exposing these scoundrels.

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Some comments.

CloudFlare is an emerging company that is public and quite the "darling" in terms of up-and-comers. They are losing money like many fresh IPOs that are still trying to make it. Their valuation is ridiculous.

Account Exec - that may be her title, but I'm guessing she is part of an "Inside Sales" organization that functions like a "call center." The respond to calls from marketing leads. If the company is at a tradeshow or has an online registration for content... someone like her would call and try to sell them something.

She has a music degree reciting a script for a call center. There are likely very strict performance numbers maintained. # of Calls. # of Activities. Her availability online is probably monitored. I don't know if her getting let go was a RIF or just the normal process for that role. It is a grind role and has churn.

She indicated that she had not converted anything but said it was because of the holiday and timing. All true. 4months is a short span for a role like that.

Regarding "at-will" and the fact she posted a recording: From her profile, she is based in Georgia. CloudFlare is based in San Francisco.

Texas is an "at-will" state and only 1 person needs to know you are recording and that person is usually yourself. The point is you can't record 2 people who don't know you are on the call and don't know you are recording.

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If you are using a meeting software that automatically records the meeting, such as zoom, is it still illegal for one person to record it additionally without the other person's consent?

What about employers who record "everything" an employee does on a company laptop? That also should fall under this as a privacy violation. Just because the laptop is theirs doesn't mean they can monitor every second. Next employers will start recording people in the restrooms and gyms taking a leak or changing saying you did it in company premises so they can take pictures of you naked.

One of those situations where the more any one person talks, the more I dislike them.

It's a corporate bs move, and those two couldn't sound any more incompetent or unintelligent; but she occasionally comes off as whiny. She's right-ish, but that's about the only reason I would be on her side.

infinity ag said:

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Joseydog said:

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RIP to her future employment opportunities.

If her resume makes it past the first cut, then the company fires up "The Google." And she is immediately rejected.

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I don't think so. You may be one to tolerate sleazy behavior but many like gutsy people who stand up for themselves.

She was treated like crap. Someone will hire her and I am sure she will do well.

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It's not about tolerating sleazy behavior or not standing up for yourself. It's about broadcasting the issues on the internet. Employers do not want its employees running to the internet to complain about company issues, real or perceived. Smart employers are not going to risk hiring her because she has already demonstrated that she will take her grievances public.

Jeeper79 said:

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By trying to terminate her for cause without actual cause, the company is trying to worm its way out off paying unemployment. This seems like a violation of law.

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Sadly, this is happening in my org. I've been thrown under the bus twice. You have to document everything because they're trying to create a "history" of issues so they can (and have) fire for "cause" and deny benefits.

It's the absolute worst toxic/hostile environment.

And yes, I'm trying to leave.

As a four-month employee it shouldn't be surprising to be one of the first let go, nor expect much in the way of severance. However, they should have just straight up had the balls to tell her she was being cut due to budget and she's the FNG.

infinity ag said:

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Agthatbuilds said:

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Guess she should closed those deals

Abc

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Don't be insensitive.
That wasn't what the company asked her to do.
According to her Linkedin post:

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1. Within my first 3 months of the role, my KPI's were solely based on my activity, meetings, and pipeline gen. (That was in addition to the 5 weeks of onboarding boot camp and going through dozens of training modules). As my manager would attest, I was a leader on our team with those KPIs, despite me still rampin

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Geez dude. It's a effing joke.

texagbeliever said:

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DallasAg 94 said:

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infinity ag said:

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So seems like Brittany was some sort of Account Exec for a company called CloudFlare hired in Aug 2023. They had a layoff after a few months which included December and they let her go citing "performance". But she fights back saying she got great reviews from her manager, and no one ever said anything about her performance and was not put on a PIP. Cloudflare was laying her off but dressing it up as a performance thing to save themselves from something. Sneaky.

So here's an example of duplicitous companies gaslighting employees about performance to get rid of them when the reason is their own mismanagement or market issues. Similar stuff has happened to me in the past.

It's good to see that she is exposing these scoundrels.

---

Some comments.

CloudFlare is an emerging company that is public and quite the "darling" in terms of up-and-comers. They are losing money like many fresh IPOs that are still trying to make it. Their valuation is ridiculous.

Account Exec - that may be her title, but I'm guessing she is part of an "Inside Sales" organization that functions like a "call center." The respond to calls from marketing leads. If the company is at a tradeshow or has an online registration for content... someone like her would call and try to sell them something.

She has a music degree reciting a script for a call center. There are likely very strict performance numbers maintained. # of Calls. # of Activities. Her availability online is probably monitored. I don't know if her getting let go was a RIF or just the normal process for that role. It is a grind role and has churn.

She indicated that she had not converted anything but said it was because of the holiday and timing. All true. 4months is a short span for a role like that.

Regarding "at-will" and the fact she posted a recording: From her profile, she is based in Georgia. CloudFlare is based in San Francisco.

Texas is an "at-will" state and only 1 person needs to know you are recording and that person is usually yourself. The point is you can't record 2 people who don't know you are on the call and don't know you are recording.

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If you are using a meeting software that automatically records the meeting, such as zoom, is it still illegal for one person to record it additionally without the other person's consent?

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edit - I misunderstood your question. First if a Zoom or Teams call is being recorded by the system, all users should be aware of that. I think you're asking what if someone records it at the same time on their cell phone without the other party knowing. Does acknowledgement of recording by one method provide carte blanche for all recording.

I think the common sense expectation is the Zoom/Teams recording is strictly for internal company use, and any recording outside of that without consent is surreptitious. Obviously there is a lot of room to argue the legality of it many different ways.

C@LAg said:

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last i checked... unless you are operating under a union contract, companies have no obligation to tell you why they are letting you go. and they can let you go for whatever reason they want.

it sucks. but that is the way it is.

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If they TELL you that they are letting you go for performance issues, that is a whole different beast.

Got terminated without cause by a certain foreign owned bank in a consolidation move. Severance wasn't bad, but termination was timed just before annual bonus payments. Fine print in the employee handbook required active employment to receive the payout. Dick move for sure.

I did sue however, finally having to hire a guy on contingency. Got paid!

A VP from Salesforce seems to have left a comment on her video asking her if she wants to work there.

I would hire her for our team in a minute. She is very inquisitive under pressure. Yes, she had heads up about what was going to occur, but prepared herself well in a short amount of time. Asked great questions, and her follow up questions were very good.

She'll land on her feet quickly I suspect.

Edit. She's I believe based in Georgia and Georgia is a one party state.

oneeyedag said:

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I would hire her for our team in a minute. She is very inquisitive under pressure. Yes, she had heads up about what was going to occur, but prepared herself well in a short amount of time. Asked great questions, and her follow up questions were very good.

She'll land on her feet quickly I suspect.

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This is kind of what I suspected, that this publicity will actually open more doors for her than it closes.

Yes, there are enough virtue signaling old men out there who will hire her. If not to admire her courage, they want to be heroes at this point.

AtticusMatlock said:

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Okay the more I listen to this conversation the more I'm on her side. These HR useless asshats are just throwing around platitudes and using Buzz words that they probably don't even understand themselves and they are flat out lying to her. They started the conversation by essentially blaming her for her own firing and then admitted oh we're just recalibrating. These are the types of clowns that run companies into the dirt but never seem to get laid off themselves.

The robotic responses they are giving like "I hear you" and the other crap is the deescalation stuff they are trained to say but the problem is those phrases are now so commonly used and given in such a wooden way that they'd be better off not even using them anymore.

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I've fired people before and this is not the way to do it. They way they handled it is why you hear all of the meandering and BS talk. You're not going to make them feel better. You get to the point and you say the truth. You discuss severance, insurance, last pay, retirement, collect company property, etc. It's over in under 3-4 minutes. It was stupid to claim it was because of performance because there was no documentation to reflect that. They are trying to avoid unemployment, but it won't work. Their rate will get hit because they didn't document.

Jeeper79 said:

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By trying to terminate her for cause without actual cause, the company is trying to worm its way out off paying unemployment. This seems like a violation of law.

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They will just lose the hearing and will have to pay her unemployment. Nothing else.

infinity ag said:

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The CEO of Cloudflare weighs in.

We fired ~40 sales people out of over 1,500 in our go to market org. That’s a normal quarter. When we’re doing performance management right, we can often tell within 3 months or less of a sales hire, even during the holidays, whether they’re going to be successful or not. Sadly,…

— Matthew Prince 🌥 (@eastdakota) January 12, 2024

Quote:

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The video is painful for me to watch.

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yada yada yada. If he didn't know how they did things he should be fired too.

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Why are they firing 40 people per quarter?

40/1500 is 2.6%… and 10.67% annual churn just from their own firing / layoff.
But not only that, she was there only one quarter, and systematically hiring and firing in this manner is really bad for morale and culture. It implies they're intentionally over hiring with the intention to let go a percentage of the hires after only a few months or less than a year. That's pretty ****ed up and really terrible for the hires they let go in under a year.

Obviously she had a sense this was coming so she was ready to record.

I thought she sounded pretty well composed and competent at the beginning so she's probably right about the circumstances. In big companies like this, if one employee feels a certain way, then she's likely not alone. Obviously someone being let go may have more sour grapes, so maybe the feeling isn't widespread.

Companies do this all the time. Why is this news?

Seamaster said:

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2) At the same time, its really also bogus for her to say things like, "I gave my whole life to this company.." when, come on, its been four months.

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I dunno. You don't know what she left and/or committed to in order to work there. If she left a stable job, moved across the country, and was working 80 hours a week, yeah, she gave a lot to the company.

CEO looks like a liberal fruitcake

infinity ag said:

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So seems like Brittany was some sort of Account Exec for a company called CloudFlare hired in Aug 2023. They had a layoff after a few months which included December and they let her go citing "performance". But she fights back saying she got great reviews from her manager, and no one ever said anything about her performance and was not put on a PIP. Cloudflare was laying her off but dressing it up as a performance thing to save themselves from something. Sneaky.

So here's an example of duplicitous companies gaslighting employees about performance to get rid of them when the reason is their own mismanagement or market issues. Similar stuff has happened to me in the past.

It's good to see that she is exposing these scoundrels.

Watch the video here:

https://www.tiktok.com/@brittanypeachhh/video/7323004085043612959

Her post on Linkedin:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/brittany-pietsch-237893173_tiktok-britt-activity-7151621500440104960-cTtw

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These companies that cite "performance" as a reason for termination fail in a major aspect of that termination, documentation.

This is what happens when companies hire incompetent lawyers to advise them and HR personnel that are either untrained or unqualified.

This reminds me of a TEXARNG Soldier who was a teacher out of Houston and had orders for deployment to Bosnia. He presented his orders to the district and they told him if he deploys, he would be terminated as a teacher.

He asked for this in writing and the lawyer for the district obliged. After he got a nice settlement from the district, he had a teaching job already lined up on his return in another district.

Jeeper79 said:

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By trying to terminate her for cause without actual cause, the company is trying to worm its way out off paying unemployment. This seems like a violation of law.

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Yep. They told her it was performance and then had no idea what performance issues there were. Just do a general market condition related layoff.

While HR reps are weenies and I hate nothing more than corporate speak, if I were dictator of Texas, I would eliminate all unemployment benefits. In short, as long as it doesn't violate a contract, an employer should be able to terminate an employee for any reason and at any time. Just like the employee can fire their employer at any time.

And it would be better for both the employer and the EMPLOYEE if that were the case.

Why? Because economics dictates that employees actually pay for their own unemployment benefits via lower salaries. Even thought the law pretends otherwise. Just like any tax on profit/revenue is really a tax on customers, any taxes/forced-payments levied per employee is actually paid for by the employees. After all, if it wasn't for those taxes/payments, employers would be able to spend the money directly on salaries. Employees cost employers a certain amount of money. Employers agree to hire when the employee productivity surpasses that overall cost. But it's irrelevant to employers how much of that money is spent on salary, health benefits, unemployment insurance, parking spaces, etc. It's the sum total that matters. If the law forces them to spend more on unemployment, then that leaves less left over for salary.

So by imposing these programs, on employers, government is actually screwing over employees. Not helping them. But employees don't realize this, so they vote for their government "benefactors".

In an ideal world, this phone conversation would have been more honest like, "Sorry, we screwed up and hired too many people. We have to let you go." And whining would serve no purpose. The call would have been 2 minutes long. But at least she would have had larger income checks for those 3 months to make up for it.

Meh, looking at this situation I can see issues on both sides.

Corporations have engaged in incompetent and insidious behavior. At the same time, this situation is more about leveraging victimhood into another opportunity.

infinity ag said:

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Joseydog said:

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RIP to her future employment opportunities.

If her resume makes it past the first cut, then the company fires up "The Google." And she is immediately rejected.

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I don't think so. You may be one to tolerate sleazy behavior but many like gutsy people who stand up for themselves.

She was treated like crap. Someone will hire her and I am sure she will do well.

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Until she underperforms again

AlaskanAg99 said:

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In TX it's legal to record conversations as long as 1 party gives consent and is part of the conversation. That prohibits bugging an office.

Releasing it to the public is a other issue.

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She's in Georgia according to her LinkedIn. Here's the law in GA:

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Georgia Wiretapping Law

Georgia's wiretapping law is a "one-party consent" law for purposes of making audio recordings of conversations. Georgia makes it a crime to secretly record a phone call or in-person conversation "originat[ing] in any private place" unless one party to the conversation consents. See Ga. Code 16-11-62(1), 16-11-66 (link is to the entire code; you need to click through to Title 16, Chapter 11, Article 3, Part I, and then choose the specific provisions). Therefore, you may record a conversation or phone call if you are a party to the conversation or you get permission from one party to the conversation in advance. That said, if you intend to record conversations involving people located in more than one state, you should play it safe and get the consent of all parties.

source

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Question is, where were the goons in Cloudflare's HR department on the other side of the call? What state?

I made my comment before knowing those details.

I will stand by my statement that, at least, in TX anyone in a toxic/hostile environment should only their best interest at heart. Company HR is never on your side. They are the org henchmen. They rely on the notion employees have no rights nor resources to go against the company.

And this is the crux....if the company is immoral/corrupt/inept....how do you fight back to at minimum preserve your own reputation?

It's a fine line with many negatives. Most employee/middle class folks just don't have the nerve/bankroll to go against crappy employers. It numbers. Little guy (while righteous) loses. Lawfare.

AlaskanAg99 said:

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I made my comment before knowing those details.

I will stand by my statement that, at least, in TX anyone in a toxic/hostile environment should only their best interest at heart. Company HR is never on your side. They are the org henchmen. They rely on the notion employees have no rights nor resources to go against the company.

And this is the crux....if the company is immoral/corrupt/inept....how do you fight back to at minimum preserve your own reputation?

It's a fine line with many negatives. Most employee/middle class folks just don't have the nerve/bankroll to go against crappy employers. It numbers. Little guy (while righteous) loses. Lawfare.

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No problem. I didn't know when I read your original comment so I looked it up. I am still unclear about the law if the HR goons were not in a non-consent state. Regardless, the whole thing boils my blood. I am not a good candidate for corporate america for I would last about 3 hours under that kind of environment. The CEO is a putz too. What he wrote on X was awful. (And I am a cloudflare customer, albeit a small one).

We fired ~40 sales people out of over 1,500 in our go to market org. That’s a normal quarter. When we’re doing performance management right, we can often tell within 3 months or less of a sales hire, even during the holidays, whether they’re going to be successful or not. Sadly,…

— Matthew Prince 🌥 (@eastdakota) January 12, 2024

samurai_science said:

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infinity ag said:

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Joseydog said:

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RIP to her future employment opportunities.

If her resume makes it past the first cut, then the company fires up "The Google." And she is immediately rejected.

---

I don't think so. You may be one to tolerate sleazy behavior but many like gutsy people who stand up for themselves.

She was treated like crap. Someone will hire her and I am sure she will do well.

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Until she underperforms again

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She did not underperform. She got no bad reviews or "coaching". Her boss assigned tasks to her in those 4 months and she did them. Boss never complained.

She was not assigned to make any sales in those 4 months so she did not.

911sAg said:

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C@LAg said:

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last i checked... unless you are operating under a union contract, companies have no obligation to tell you why they are letting you go. and they can let you go for whatever reason they want.

it sucks. but that is the way it is.

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wrong depends on the state

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Specifically what states are not "at will" employment states?