Woman records ‘slap in the face’ firing by San Francisco tech company

Co founder and CEO of Cloudflare, Matthew Prince speaks on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin 2019 on December 12, 2019 in Berlin, Germany. Prince called the handling of Pietsch's firing, "far from perfect." On Wednesday, a frustrated tech worker gave TikTok front row seats to her cold, corporate firing.

Brittany Pietsch, who started a sales job at the San Francisco tech company Cloudflare in August, recorded a of herself being told she was fired — and getting little other information about the decision. Rather than provide any specific reasoning to Pietsch, the two Cloudflare employees on the other end of a call ran through trite buzzwords and corporate platitudes.

They opened the call by telling Pietsch she hadn’t met the company’s performance expectations in 2023, and she would be let go. Pietsch stopped them seconds into their speech, replying that she’d finished a three month onboarding period before the holiday season and that she’d received nothing but praise from her manager.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad Over the course of the nine minute video, Pietsch repeatedly asked for details about her performance that might warrant a firing. The Cloudflare employees, a human resources representative named Rosie and a man she called Dom, appear not to have any — the most specific they got is telling her that the firing is part of a “collective calibration for Cloudflare.” “I have really given my whole energy and life over the last four months to this job, and to be let go, for no reason, is like a huge slap in the face — from a company that I really wanted to believe in,” Pietsch told them.

The video ends with the Cloudflare employees finally wearing the young woman down. Advertisement Article continues below this ad “It just doesn’t make any sense that you guys still have not been able to give me a reason why I’m being let go,” Pietsch said. “Just, from a process perspective, your questions are valid, this isn’t going to be the forum and the situation where we’re able to go into the detail that you’re looking for,” Dom responded.

“But then, when?” Pietsch interrupted. “If it’s not as I’m getting fired, it’s certainly not going to be after, when I’m no longer part of the company.” After a pause, Rosie, the human resources rep, said that she was taking notes and feedback and that they’d “circle back.” She then pointed out, “It’s not going to change the outcome of the meeting,” and pushed the conversation toward the next steps for Pietsch, saying, “I think it’s clear that you have questions that we cannot give answers to.” Advertisement Article continues below this ad Pietsch’s video and repost of the exchange had been viewed more than 300,000 times on as of Friday afternoon.

In a follow up on LinkedIn, Pietsch wrote that the call felt like she was “in the twilight zone,” and that she’d never be able to wrap her mind around the many “cold, unexplainable” firings she’d learned about since. The video even reached Cloudflare’s CEO, Matthew Prince, who on X. He wrote the company had fired about 40 people out of 1,500 in its “go to market org” — corporate language for its customer facing workers — and defended the decision to fire Pietsch.

He wrote the company’s mistake was not being “more kind and humane” as they did it. “Sadly, we don’t hire perfectly,” Prince wrote. “We try to fire perfectly. In this case, clearly we were far from perfect. 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.” Prince also threw in an odd metaphor, in which he likened Cloudflare to the never won a championship Phoenix Suns and Pietsch to a .

Advertisement Article continues below this ad “Importantly, just because we fire someone doesn’t mean they’re a bad employee,” he wrote. “It doesn’t mean [they] won’t be really, really great somewhere else. Chris Paul was a bad fit for the Suns, but he’s undoubtedly a great basketball player.” Hopefully Pietsch also continues her career at a .

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