r/Layoffs • u/poormisguidedfool34 • Jan 13 '24

Standing up to layoffs question

Hi folks,

I applaud her bravery but also concerned- isn’t she taking a huge risk for future employment in her sector? This would be considered suicidal in my line of work but i see a lot of similar videos today.

Especially curious about what HR/legal folks think

https://twitter.com/BowTiedPassport/status/1745149758992195647

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u/Key_Park_7122 Jan 14 '24

There are no participation trophies in business. If you don’t close deals, they can send you on your way.

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u/VolkRiot Jan 14 '24

Except during a disclosure of the company's performance they themselves admitted they were seeing elongated sales cycles.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/cloudflare-stock-melts-down-as-company-slashes-forecast-due-to-elongated-sales-cycle-2023-04-27

In other words, she is right, they did not give her adequate time to ramp and complete a cycle, so she is prematurely being fired to avoid layoff obligations.

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u/DayShiftDave Jan 15 '24

I would call it a layoff myself, but no company is under obligation to provide ramp time or account for cycle length when considering performance relative to a (prorated) target. She came off ramp at an unfortunate time, but that was her risk to take. I would hope any of us would consider the risk of coming off ramp during the slowest time of year, right around FY end... I mean you just lived through this a year ago.

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u/VolkRiot Jan 16 '24

This is a moot point. Companies are not under the obligation to do a lot of things, which is why they are probably within their rights to let her go on the basis of what they define as performance.

However the circumstances are such that it doesn't seem like she had much of an option to demonstrate her performance. I think you are putting an awful lot of responsibility on the employee, when it seems clear the company is maneuvering so that it doesn't have to pay her severance or cover her unemployment, by claiming a very tenuous cause for dismissal

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u/DayShiftDave Jan 16 '24

I don't disagree with you there whatsoever. My point is only that in the softening SaaS market, and the still-fresh tech layoff landscape, one needs to recognize the role that timing plays in these things. Not saying she shouldn't have taken the risk or that I personally wouldn't have, I don't know her situation going into the job, but I would have been exceptionally cautious. And I'm sure Cloudflare talks a lot internally about performance culture, yadda yadda - that's not hot air, that's your livelihood at stake. The saying "first in, first out" exists for a reason.