- An employee at cloud security firm Cloudflare is going viral after sharing a recording seeming to show her getting fired.
- `People are praising her online for maintaining composure and defending herself with clarity.
- The video has sparked a workplace etiquette debate, with Cloudflare's CEO even weighing in.
A corporate employee is going viral online after she recorded and posted to TikTok a video of herself which appears to show her losing her job
Brittany Pietsch, who goes by the handle @brittanypeachhh on TikTok, posted the video on Thursday in which she seemed to be in a call with HR executives at Cloudflare, a cloud-based security firm. The video has since received over 160,000 views.
Pietsch, who worked at the company for three and a half months as a mid-market account executive, also posted that she was laid off, on LinkedIn.
The video, which is titled "POV: You're about to get laid off," shows Pietsch joining the call with text in the video explaining that some coworkers had also been laid off just before her.
She said that an HR executive and director who she had never met joined the call. Neither is visible in the recording, but their voices can be heard.
"We finished our evaluations of 2023 performance and this is where you've not met Cloudflare expectations for performance and we've decided to part ways with you," the director can be heard saying.
Pietsch cuts off the director as he's speaking and responds: "I'm going to stop you right there. I've been on a three month ramp and then it was three weeks of December, and then a week of Christmas and here we are. I have had the highest activity amongst my team."
A sales ramp is a measure of how quickly it takes a sales employee to go from being a new hire to full productivity.
She added: "Every single one-on-one I've had with my manager, every conversation I've had with him, he's been giving me nothing but that I am doing a great job."
A back-and-forth discussion continues for around 10 minutes, before the HR executive concludes: "So I don't think there's anything we can say in this moment or today, Brittany, that's going to change the way that you feel."
Since the video was published, Matthew Prince, Cloudflare's CEO has posted on X saying that the video was "painful" for him to watch, and that the company cut around 40 of its 1,500 salespeople last quarter.
He also acknowledged that the call could have been handled better.
"Any healthy org needs to get the people who aren't performing off. That wasn't the mistake here. The mistake was not being more kind and humane as we did," he wrote.
A Cloudflare spokesperson told Business Insider in an email that company is not conducting widespread layoffs or reducing its workforce, but said that the company "regularly review team members' performance and let go of those who aren't right for our team."
"When we do make the decision to part ways with an employee, we base the decision on a review of an employee's ability to meet measurable performance targets," they said.
Pietsch's video is being flooded with praise and also has gained traction on X and Reddit, with users applauding her for maintaining composure and defending herself clearly.
Erica Rivera, a career coach who previously worked at Google and Indeed, made a reaction video to Pietsch's TikTok explaining it takes 3.1 months on average "to ramp" and another three months to start closing deals.
"Clearly it was a business decision because of overstaffing."
One person on Reddit even commented that she displays good sales skills in the video: "I've seen people saying this may negatively affect her career. I think if I was a sales manager I'd at least interview her just on the fact that she did some pretty good objection handling, challenged her opposition and she stood her ground."
Exposing a company online is a 'double-edged sword'
Pietch's reaction to have her role terminated and uploading the recording online reflects how younger generations have higher demands and greater expectations for honesty at work. In some cases, this is rattling managers and older professionals, BI previously reported.
Pietch's "attitude is combative in a way that is understandable, relatable, and showing preparedness to push back with reasonable facts and questions," Ben Voyer, an ESCP Business School professor who founded the Gen Z Observatory, told BI.
"Younger generations have an acute sense of fairness, this is not just Gen Z, it's a staple of youth," Voyer explained, but pointed out that she may face consequences as a result of publicly exposing the company.
"Generally speaking such moves are a double-edged sword. The literature on whistleblowers, a more extreme form of publicly sharing bad practices, shows that people get stigmatized for doing so.
"Generally, society doesn't reward people that engage in behaviors that some may see as a betrayal. Pushing such content online is a way to get moral support on the one hand, and a little revenge on the other hand. "
Daniel Space, an HR expert who has worked in the tech industry, shared similar views in a TikTok video, where he said companies may withhold severance pay as a result.
"My only guidance is never do this until you get your money," Daniel said. "Companies are vindictive, run by emotionally insecure psychopaths, who are paid 500 times more than the standard American and they have all of their vested interest in making sure their reputation looks clean.
"The more people start to publish recordings, especially if it's in a two-party consent state, the more that I've seen companies try to go after people to get videos like this taken down."
BI reached out to Pietsch for comment about the incident but did not immediately hear back.