[pc86]

What does it matter? If they say they overhired, you have people in here asking why the CEO (or the board) doesn't get fired for that decision. If they say their investors are demanding better returns (e.g. higher stock price, higher profits, wahtever that means for the particular business) you have people in here saying it's greed.

There is no answer Cloudflare could give her or anyone else that would make folks go "oh, ok, I get it. Thanks!" So why even bother giving one?

[el_benhameen]

In the case of the video, the implication is that she was told she’s being fired for performance, which seems unreasonable as she appears to have just finished training. I think the days of HR giving references with any information are long gone, but I still wouldn’t want to chance having something in my “file” about being let go for performance if that wasn’t the real reason. That and it’s just common decency to not blame someone for their firing when they don’t deserve the blame, regardless of how it’ll play on some message board somewhere.

[andsoitis]

> having something in my “file” about being

I would check your assumption here. What is this "my file" you imagine exists. What is it? Who is the custodian? Is there just one copy, if not, how are they kept in sync, etc.?

[jachee]

It’s in quotes because it’s not a literal file, per se. But HR will keep records of termination reasons.

So, if a prospective employer contacts Cloudflare and asks why she was terminated and Cloudflare says “performance” when that’s not actually the case, it’s detrimental to the potential employer’s perception of her.

[wdb]

Never heard that a company tell the reason got dismissed. they will confirm they worked there. saying performance or similar things can cause legal issues. At least in Europe. in some countries even code sentences are not allowed.

[robjan]

Usually companies now ask the question "would this candidate be eligible for rehire in the future". If someone is fired for performance or other cause, the answer is more likely to be "no".

This works around potential libel issues associated with giving specific reasons.

[darkerside]

It affects her response when her next interviewer asks her why she left her last job.

[superb_dev]

Presumably HR would keep some record of you after you're fired?

[pc86]

It's important to note that it seems like she's made zero sales in 4.5 months when there is a 90-day onramp period. At the very least that sounds like a good basis for reviewing her performance and depending on the org might even be enough by itself for termination.

[Aurornis]

> In the case of the video, the implication is that she was told she’s being fired for performance, which seems unreasonable as she appears to have just finished training.

She says she was hired 4.5 months ago and that her ramp-up quota period was 3 months long. That's not quite "just finished training".

In sales, once your ramp up period is over you're expected to be held to the same performance standards as everyone else. Ramp up periods do provide some cover for not hitting quota, but not closing a single deal during the ramp-up period and in the months following (albeit over holidays, which is tough) is not a good sign.

It could be pure bad luck, but the reality is that having zero closed sales and being past your ramp-up period is going to put you at the top of the layoff list.

[BugsJustFindMe]

> She says she was hired 4.5 months ago and

She also says that every 1:1 she's had with her manager has been positive.

I would expect in a circumstance where an employee is actually underperforming that they would not have been told otherwise during their regular performance meetings.

[theshackleford]

> That's not quite "just finished training".

In some places i've worked it most certainly would be, others not so much. I don't know if we have that level of information in this case however.

My background has been in hosting/cloud and I've run and worked within sales teams and its generally been:

Selling $5 dollar a month shared hosting accounts and 50 dollar dedies? Yeah, you should probably have something by the end of your first month after ramp.

Selling 50k+ a month cloud infrastructure and engineering services solutions? You get at LEAST one dud quarter to find your feet after ramp, if due to nothing else other than its a significantly longer lifecycle.

[rcarmo]

The time window also spanned two major US holidays. There’s always a sales slump in November-December, so that should have been accounted for.

[aestetix]

It matters because this is about trust, transparency, and honesty. If you were in her position, would you want to know if your termination was due to something you did badly, or because of a general company policy?

I agree that being honest is not going to make everyone happy, but I don't understand why they can't at least give solid reasons.

[pc86]

> I don't understand why they can't at least give solid reasons

Probably the liability around someone saying something not accurate, or something that could be construed as approaching, even indirectly, some protected class. They've already laid her off, she's not going to be singing their praises under any circumstances, anything they do at this point just increases their liability.

In a perfect world I'd love for people laid off or fired to get detailed reasons why so they can adjust course if necessary or at least know that it was nothing they did and just budgetary, but there are too many people who will want to argue the point in court that the company not only has no incentive to do it, they're heavily incentivized not to.

[aestetix]

It sounds like the issue here is actually lawsuit culture. It's scary how laws that were designed to improve the lives of the working class actually wound up making life a lot worse.

[yencabulator]

I think you misspelled "gain votes" there. Laws that were designed to gain votes.

[satisfice]

this is not about any of those things

this is about business and legalities about business

[infotainment]

> If they say they overhired, you have people in here asking why the CEO (or the board) doesn't get fired for that decision

As they should!

[piva00]

> So why even bother giving one?

Decency? Honesty?

[IG_Semmelweiss]

Knowning when to apply honesty is also important.

If you tell an ex you left them because they are (fat?), is it honest or is it cruel ?

[Arainach]

Awful analogy. It's far more cruel to tell someone a layoff for non-performance reasons is their fault.

It's particularly obnoxious with theoretically prestigious companies that "hire the smartest people" and then blatantly lie to us as if everyone inside and outside the company doesn't see right through them.

[piva00]

> Knowning when to apply honesty is also important.

> If you tell an ex you left them because they are (fat?), is it honest or is it cruel ?

It's cruel, just like it's cruel to lie to someone they are being fired due to "performance" when the real reason is just a blanket layoff scheme over a whole department.

What would be more cruel: a lie "you are not performing so we are letting you go" vs the truth "the company has decided to layoff some business units we don't believe will be profitable in the foreseeable future".

I believe it's a pretty good case for applying honesty instead of being another lying corporation.

[otherme123]

In fact, they are saying that the relationship ends because she's fat, while the most probable cause is that they have more girlfriends than they can handle. I.e. they do the cruel thing when the honesty would be better.

[occamsrazorwit]

To continue the dubious analogy, having too many girlfriends isn't a sufficient cause by itself. There's a metric used to determine which girlfriend is dumped, and that's the real reason that specific relationship ends.

[yencabulator]

What makes you think either of those mean anything to a corporation?

Legal counsel and HR will explicitly avoid stating such things.