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)
To get ahead of it and control the narrative. They were publicly accused of a wrongful dismissal. That has huge legal connotations, whether she realized that or not. But the corporation has all their legal ducks in a row. She hasn’t exposed anything but her own inexperience. Really, if she did have a wrongful dismissal case, she likely overplayed her hand by publishing the video so soon. She’ll get employment insurance, but that’s all she’ll get at this point.
I’m finding this confusing. On the one hand you are adamant this will have no impact for them but then also say this could have huge legal connotations for them. Which is it? It can’t be both.
No, it has huge legal connotations for her. If she had a wrongful dismissal case, then she should have brought the video and the documentation to a lawyer instead of blasting it out to the world. Now the legal department that has a team of lawyers working to advise the CEO and making sure she doesn’t have a case, whether she actually had one or not. That’s why it will be reported as fired without cause. If she was told she was fired with cause but it’s reported as without cause and she can still claim employment insurance, then she has no case. If she had kept her mouth shut and let them process the termination, she might have had something combined with the video. Now she has nothing, and this will be forgotten by next week.
Patience is a virtue, especially when you’re being fired.
“Now she has nothing” - You shouldn’t underestimate the impact of going viral. If she’d kept quiet no one would have ever known about the way Cloudflare behaved. Now she’s gone viral globally and her 1 day old LinkedIn post about this situation has (so far) collected 4,260 reactions, 547 comments and 128 reposts. You can bet your bottom dollar that Matthew Prince is not sleeping soundly tonight. It’s going to be rather interesting to see what happens next…
Again, come back to me in a week and show me the impact. Prince isn’t losing any more sleep on this than the other 39 people that were let go. It’s just business to him.
Alright, let’s play this game. Firstly a week is nothing so let’s make it 3 months and let’s begin by being clear about what “no impact” means. It seems to me twofold. On the one hand there’s the impact on Cloudflare’s share price and then more directly the impact on Brittany Pietsch. If she gets no more job offers than she would have if she’d kept quiet then I guess that would be “no impact” number one. Cloudflare’s share price has risen since November last year from 54.95USD to its current price of 79.37USD. If there is no great change in three months then that would be “no impact” number two. Let’s see what happens ;)
What happens to Brittany Pietsch at this point is on Brittany Pietsch. It’s up to her to show how she can be a valuable employee.
This will have absolutely no effect on the share price. To think that laying off 40 people out of a huge organization, even if one went “viral” for a few days, will have any effect is wishful thinking. Speculating on the possible effects is only an exercise for the people that want to feel outrage over something. People in this thread are talking about having PTSD from episodes like this. It’s just a whole lot of complaining that will go nowhere, just like it has for decades. Cloudflare customers will not care about this, and that’s all that really matters. And unlike Reddit, Cloudflare hasn’t pissed off their products and drove them away to other platforms. The company will be fine…
Ok, let’s see.
So it’s been a week. Cloudflare isn’t in the news anymore. No one on this site is talking about the incident anymore. Brittany Pietsch has done nothing but complain and “hit back” at the comments 4 days ago. And the stock price has gone up.
I don’t expect you to acknowledge any of this, but knowing that I was completely 100% right is reward enough.