I can’t give more approval for this woman, she handled everything so well.
The backstory is that Cloudflare overhired and wanted to reduce headcount, rightsize, whatever terrible HR wording you choose. Instead of admitting that this was a layoff, which would grant her things like severance and unemployment - they tried to tell her that her performance was lacking.
And for most of us (myself included) we would angrily accept it and trash the company online. Not her, she goes directly against them. It of course doesn’t go anywhere because HR is a bunch of robots with no emotions that just parrot what papa company tells them to, but she still says what all of us wish we did.
(Warning, if you’ve ever been laid off this is a bit enraging and can bring up some feelings)
I only saw the start and the emotional vibes are pretty bad, and not just for Brittany (though, of course, even in the beginning she’s clearly already hurting).
At least somebody actually directly got in contact with her, personally, rather than firing-by-email.
If there is a lesson I learned way back at the beginning of my career in Tech back in the mid 90s is that you shouldn’t really go for the whole loyalty to your employee when they’re anything but a little company were everybody works together, because they will screw you over if its in their best interest, sometimes casually so, and those making the decision will never be in calls such as this one and instead send some poor sods like the HR lady and that director guy to do the dirty work for them and fell the hurt from the person on the other side if they have any empathy (which most people do have, which is probably why both the HR Lady and the guy were uncomfortable from the start).
Also beware of the company trying to manipulate you as an employee to have your workplace be your entire social circle of friends and even like a second family: the whole point of that is to “retain” employees without having to actually pay what the market says they’re worth. This is actually a pretty old trick in Tech HR, dating back to the original Internet Boom.
The whole loyalty of the companies to employees thing died in the late 80s early 90s and you should be skeptical when it comes to what the company “does for you” and ponder on what’s in it for them: for example, “free pizza dinners” are not at all about being nice for you, they’re about you working long hours for free (which would cost them way more than that free pizza if they had to pay for them) to enhance that company’s profits.
It’s sad and it’s the World we live in: one were the real power of the land is Money and it’s mainly in the hands of Sociopaths.
My first job out of college was for an global company. I was there just over one year when they announced they were outsourcing us. On the day of announcement, there were two meetings. One way getting hired by the outsourcer, the other was being let go at some point in the next year (after turnover). Since subset of the let go group was booted that day.
It was a great lesson to learn early in my career.
My loyalty to my employer extends to the 40 hours they pay me. I accept my on call week three times per year, because I’m in IT and that’s just how it goes. But past that, I don’t care. I do, however, appreciate and enjoy my coworkers. We are friends, and no one abuses that friendship. I would miss working with them if I left, but that’s not enough to keep me where I am. I’ve been looking, but not terribly seriously. For the most part I’m left to manage my stuff, and I don’t get too much hassle from above. There is, however, a ton of corporate BS these days.
I think what we do is called “professionalism” rather than “loyalty” - they pay us for our time and it’s a questions of professional pride and moral obligation that we are there doing the work for them, in a reasonable professional way to the best of our abilities, but no freebies.
They might decorate it with “we appreciate your work” hypocrisy and bullshit, but they treat it as a “supplier” business transaction hence I’ll treat it from my side as a business transaction too, which means what’s in the contract is what’s in the contract and if I find a better “client”, I’m off.
After less than a decade as an “employee” I actually became a freelancer and it has served me well and I never regretted it, even though I was in the middle of each of the industries worse hit by the last to major crashes, first Tech and after that Finance. Job security is an illusion, so you have to build your own security by making sure you’re well paid for your work and hence can fall back on your savings even when the whole Economy plunges and even the few genuinelly good companies to work for still end up firing most of their people.
Since when does professionalism include lying about the person’s performance metrics as the reason for the layoff? She professionally asked for receipts, they had none. These people seems to think gaslighting is part of being professional.
I think you misunderstood my point if you think I’m defending the people who accepted to work in a job, HR, were they’re going to be firing people whilst trying to misportray it in such a way that the company saves money.
Also, Professionalism and Morals are mostly separate things (though it has been my experience that those who are ok with working a job were they’re screwing other are also ok with screwing those who pay for their work).
Sure, I can see how somebody in their first job might go into HR thinking its fine, but somebody with a couple of years doing the job either is a complete moron or has figured out what it really is all about, and that’s not about treating people well or even just fairly.