Ok, I understand the point of recording this but...she is very young, and likely this is her first time being laid off. I know, it's shocking. Except for me, who had to console the person that came to get me to be laid off who was much more upset than I was, but I digress.

Here's the thing. You're being laid off. There is nothing you can say or do to change that. The people doing the firing were likely brought in specifically for that job, and they know nothing more than what management has told them. Your manager had absolutely no say in the matter, this decision was made 3 levels higher than them. Your manager likely didn't even know until about an hour before you are let go. I know you're upset, I know you're frustrated, I know you're likely not thinking straight. But it's happening, whether you like it or not. You can ask why you're being let go, but they can't tell you what they don't know. And even worse, they've had this exact same conversation at least 50 times that day. The first instinct is to make it awkward and difficult for them, but this is their job and they are use to it.

Confirm your information. Make sure you can follow up on next steps and get your employment insurance claim started immediately. If you can, make sure you can still contact your actual manager for a reference afterwards. Usually you can find out more about what really happened at the same time. Just get as much information as you can about what they will provide you for the aftermath. Then once you get of the call....scream. Cry. Jump up and down with joy, if that's how you feel. Just let it out. You're going to be feeling a lot of emotion, so just let it out. Go home, explain what happened to your family of you have one. Let them scream and cry of they have to. And then try to sleep.

The next morning will feel weird not having to get up to go to work. Enjoy it. Take the first week to yourself. Get your employment insurance claim going and all the paperwork for that. But take time to decompress so you can be ready for the next move. Work on some of those home projects you've been putting off because you were too busy with your job. Take time to spend with family. Just don't worry about finding a job yet. The emotions from the last job will still be raw, so you don't want to bring that to an interview. Let yourself adjust to the new routine before you dive headfirst into a job search. When you're ready to start your job search, you don't want those emotions clouding your judgement and avoiding jobs that you think are too close to your old job. A little distance will help to put things into perspective.

And remember, it's not the end of the world. You'll find another job. You just need to be open to the possibilities. But you can't do that of you're still pissed off to the eyeballs. Take the time to let it go and truly move on.

All of your advice is sound enough, but the point of this video was more to demonstrate that Cloudflare (and absolutely other companies) are specifically avoiding "layoff" language in favor of firings based on "performance" to avoid paying these people even the paltry amount in unemployment they would receive. It's not just that they're being laid off.

The excuse might be "performance", but they are being fired without cause officially. They can still apply for employment insurance. This is just standard procedure. Being fired with cause opens them up to lawsuits, so most companies avoid that whenever possible. Especially when they are firing multiple people like this.

Being fired without cause means an employee is being let go, but not because of any serious workplace misconduct. Conversely, being fired with cause means the employee committed a serious breach of conduct in their workplace, which led to their termination.

Citing performance is citing cause. You’re wrong and others are right in that citing performance is an attempt to demonstrate cause to avoid severance and/or unemployment. A “layoff” is without cause and entitles them to those benefits.

Again, it doesn't matter what they tell you. It only matters what they report to the government. If it's with cause and you have proof they are lying, you can sue for wrongful dismissal. But they won't do that. They will report it as without cause, because that's just easier. They don't owe her severance because she was only there for 4 months, but she will qualify for at least some employment insurance.

Again, it doesn’t matter what they tell you.

Wrong again. It very much matters what they tell you because by law they’re not required to tell you anything. They can terminate employment for no reason. Giving a reason is citing cause.

The employer might not fight an unemployment claim but if, for example, they cited performance in the termination meeting and then the employee finds out the employer had made age discriminatory comments, kind of like you did, about them, there’s grounds for wrongful termination.

You seem intent on ignoring the fact that the conversation during a termination from the employee perspective is crucial because companies can, and do, lie to protect themselves.

Pointing out the truth is not "age discrimination". It obvious that she very upset in the video, and that this is probably the first time she's been in this situation. It's also obvious that the manager and HR person have gone through this conversation many times already. There is nothing that they could say that would satisfy her. The HR person literally says that. They are giving her the response they were told to give her. Yes, its bullshit, but it doesn't matter until it's written down. This video isn't the "gotcha" that she thinks it is. Without the video, it's her word against written documentation. And of course the company is going to protect themselves, that's why they won't report it as with cause. All this video did was show her inexperience. Unfortunately we'll never see the update where she tells us what they reported on the written documents.

The point is, laying all these people off with performance as reason protects Cloudflare in not having to pay extra (which would be legally needed if the employee was not at fault).

This is probably not any kind of proof she can use, but it does make people aware of how Cloudflare operates.

It’s understandable companies have to fire people and as an employee you’d probably do best to accept the harsh reality of a business. But if they really sell fake causes of lay-offs (not only hurting the employee mentally, but also financially by bypassing rightful compensation, by law), this should be known by the public.

To be fair though, we cannot confirm her statements to be true either. But I think it’s an interesting share nonetheless.

The point is that is still comes down to what's written on official documents. Yes, what they told her is bullshit and can have a negative mental health effect. But her mental health is not their responsibility. The two people telling her that she was being let go are simply relaying exactly what they are told to by upper management.

The video was smart to record, just in case. But publishing it was just for other people to feel rage. This is have absolutely no effect on Cloudflare. A few less people may apply, but there is no shortage of people looking for jobs right now. With all the layoffs happening at every company, it's almost like the Dot Com Bust again. I got through it and stayed in IT for another 16 years. She will get through this too.

"This is have absolutely no effect on Cloudflare."

It appears to have gotten the CEO worried enough about brand damage that he felt he had to post some bullshit.

"Matthew Prince, the CEO and co-founder of the technology company, has reacted. “We fired ~40 sales people out of over 1,500 in our go-to market org. That's a normal quarter. When we're doing performance management right, we can often tell within 3 months or less of a sales hire, even during the holidays, whether they're going to be successful or not. Sadly, we don't hire perfectly. We try to fire perfectly,” Prince wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Acknowledging that they were “far from perfect” in this case, Mr Prince said, “The video is painful for me to watch. Managers should always be involved. HR should be involved, but it shouldn't be outsourced to them, No employee should ever actually be surprised they weren't performing. We don't always get it right.”

More here..

Acknowledgement, "we're sorry", and then quickly forgotten as the news cycles moves on. This will have no lasting effects. Everyone will have forgotten this by next week.

People said that the API revolt on reddit would change nothing and yet here we both are discussing the terrible behaviour of yet another corporation on a completely different platform to reddit that I would never even have known about if it weren't for exactly this kind of story. I believe things do change and I certainly won't forget that Cloudflare did this and I suspect you won't either.

Cloudflare isn't a social media site where all the users discussed the revolt on the site. Most people outside of IT don't even know what Cloudflare is or that it even exists. A lot of people don't even know what Reddit is.

"Most people outside of IT don't even know what Cloudflare is or that it even exists." They do now ;)

And by next week, they'll forget because they don't ever plan to apply there for work. The small percentage of people that will avoid applying there because of this is a small drop in the bucket of people that will still apply. This is no where near as important as some people make it out to be.

Yet the CEO felt the need to try to do some damage limitation. Clearly he doesn't share your confidence about the lack of impact this could have on the company's reputation.

Again, a little PR to brush it aside is all that was. Come back to me next week and show me the impact.

If it was nothing why brush it?

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.

Yeah... seems like you didn't read the conditions of the test I proposed. See you in 3 months ;)