[epolanski]

Thanks for the link.

Not sure what was the point of her arguing though. Just for the Tik Tok video?

It's not like you will argument yourself out of being terminated.

I also find her argument forced. "Just because I haven't closed anything, it doesn't mean my performance hasn't been good", that's nonsense, it's sales, performance is valued on sales.

Not closing a single sale in 5 months does not qualify as good performance, and you don't need 1v1s with your manager to find this.

[V-eHGsd_]

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

and, if every 1:1 with a manager has been glowing and then you get fired 'for performance', there's been a massive failure somewhere.

[klipklop]

Agreed. Nobody is closing deals near the end of the year. Also it takes time as a sales person to worm your way into a company to sell them on a product. This takes good leads to follow up on. No idea if the sales agent even had that. Were there even any so close to the holidays?

Sales can be hard because you have to build relationships with companies/people. If you compare a green sales agent against an entrenched veteran they will always look bad. The veteran sales person has contacts, revolving sales from existing companies and people they can hit up to drive new sales. The newb has none of that. The amount of time she was employed was not enough to determine that.

[diggan]

Not to mention that the last few weeks of any year is famously slow when it comes to most things, including sales and purchasing decisions.

[John23832]

Nobody is even around in Nov/Dec to approve any sales. Sales don't pick up until mid Jan.

[itake]

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

[V-eHGsd_]

the first 30 seconds of the video says

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

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

[justinclift]

> ... you don't need 1v1s with your manager to find this.

While that's true, it does sound like her direct manager was outright misleading her.

Telling someone they're doing well when they're very much not (to the point their job is at risk) isn't constructive, and doesn't help anyone.

Well, not unless the manager was purposely sabotaging the employee for some reason.

It's more likely the manager is just an idiot though, and tells everyone they're doing great regardless of the reality.

Seen that before :( though I have no idea if that's the case here.

[epolanski]

Okay, but we're also taking her account on that at straight value.

I've had multiple coworkers or subordinates living in their own world and not understanding crystal clear feedback.

[windows98devops]

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

This should be able to be easily answered.

E.g.

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

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

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

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

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

[sokoloff]

Back in the 00s, I played cards periodically with a friend-of-friend. He showed up one Friday and told all of us a story about how he's doing so well that his manager recommended him for a special 8-week program to improve his performance, with a checkpoint at the 4-week mark and the end of the program.

That's right, he was being put on a PIP (at risk of termination) and internalized it that this was a perq/reward program for outstanding performance.

[ParetoOptimal]

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

[V-eHGsd_]

her account is the only account we have. do you have any reason _not_ to take this at face value?

[justinclift]

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

[jlat123]

You obviously have no clue as to the point of her video or the companies response. They could not give her an exact reason for the termination, which every employee deserves. Even the CEO admits what a crappy job they did, but all you got out of it was she was trying to argue out of being terminated. I think you should apply for a job at the company as you are great management matterall for this company...