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 was laid off almost a year ago. I don’t even know the reason why. Our team was fairly small, and targetted a specific product within our company that was still very profitable and we had a lot of work lined up for it. They let go of me, two other devs, the senior qa person and a few others. Our team did not over hire during COVID, in fact our team shrunk during that time. I had a good rep within the company and with the team and I know for a fact the others did too.
My only guess is that the company was trying to save money by shrinking each team, despite already being small (there were 6 left after the layoffs and about 12 before).
My layoff meeting was with my boss and an HR person that I had already been aquatinted with. They did ensure me that my performance was not the reason I was being let go, but they couldn’t get into specifics either. Strangely my boss seemed emotionally unphased.
That experience taught me the lesson that no matter who you are in a company, you’re disposable.
That’s a good lesson to know. I’ve had great bosses who definitely care about me. But - they aren’t the ones who have laid me off. They were directed to by their boss’ boss. I remember my boss literally crying as she let me go, she didn’t want to, but the company forced her to.
HR, the company, we’re all disposable. But, I still try to look for a good manager
I do think my manager at the time was a good manager and I’m sure he cared to some degree. He was usually pretty stone cold emotionally but I expected that to be different on that day I guess.
And yeah I understand that the company forced him to do it, I don’t blame him at all.
I’ve had to let people go. I was a wreck inside, but was stone cold on the outside because who the fuck am I to be getting emotional when it isn’t my livlihood being taken away?
One of my teammates got laid off because a completely different business sector lost a major, major contract. Since the math didn’t add up, everyone suffered. It doesn’t fucking matter. We’re all just cogs in the CEO’s machine. Fuck them.