January 2024
Brittany Pietsch was several months into her role as an AE (Account Executive) at Cloudflare, when she got the dreaded 15-minute meeting calendar invite with two strangers from HR. 
She wasn't the only one receiving those invites that day. Her "work bff" had received a similar invite 30 mins and was laid off, and she let Brittany know what was going on. 
Brittany then proceeded to do what any white woman with a pulse and a TikTok account would do - turned on her camera and took the call on speaker.
She put up a good fight, but ultimately, was unsuccessful in the face of unwavering corpo-speak and acknowledgment of feelings. For her, it would be the biggest moment of her life. For the two corporate HR executioners, it was Friday.
She then posted the video to TikTok where she got at least 2.6 million views (TikTok is scary and confusing, it looks like she posted it twice, one with 1.something million views and another with 2.6). Warning - it's like 8mins long
In addition to this, she ended up on Reddit:
The comments are mostly as you'd expect. A majority of "stick it to the man" / "you go girl" with a (controversial) minority of "hmmm this may not be the best strategy".
The CloudFlare co-founder came out and posted some corpo-speak on X in response:
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. 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. We don't always get it right. And sometimes under performing employees don't actually listen to the feedback they've gotten before we let them go. Importantly, just because we fire someone doesn't mean they're a bad employee. It doesn't mean 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. And, in fact, we think the right thing to do is get people we know are unlikely to succeed off the team as quickly as possible so they can find the right place for them. We definitely weren't anywhere close to perfect in this case. But 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. And that's something @zatlyn and I are focused on improving going forward.
Of course, with the sentiment of the internet behind her, on TikTok, LinkedIn and Reddit, the world was Brittany's oyster. No doubt she'd be fielding offers left and right for rest of her life.
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Present Day - June 2024
Apparently, things did not go as planned for Brittany, with her making this post on LinkedIn yesterday:
I feel embarrassed to be posting this, but desperate times as they say.
It's been almost 6 months since I was laid off, and I am at my wit's end. The amount of conversations, interviews, presentations, and research I've done for companies I will never work for is beyond what I could have imagined.
4+ rounds of interviews for no job offer, and no feedback except "we loved you, but there was another candidate who just had a bit more experience". Or "you interviewed great, but you're just missing one small piece in your background". And then I will see the same hiring managers or recruiters continue to post the job postings on their LinkedIn page. I don't understand! You have an awesome candidate right here, with natural relationship building and sales aptitude, begging to work for your company and willing to put in the time and effort to understand and sell your product.
Discouraging, disheartening, exhausting, scary, frustrating. All words to describe this process and what I've felt every single day. I feel like giving up.
When the video went viral, I received literally thousands of "I would hire you in a heartbeat" or "any company would be lucky to have you" messages. Yet when it comes down to it, it has been the opposite.
6 months of no income has now begun to put me in a scary financial situation, and I am asking my network for help.
I may have gaps in my resume, and I may have short stints at my previous companies, but that does not deter my ability to be a kickass sales rep. As an account executive on your team, I will be beyond driven, tenacious, organized, curious, a sponge, resilient, and will become a top performer on your team. All I need is a chance to prove it. #opentowork #sales #accountexecutive
The sales bros over at /r/Sales take some time out of their busy days of telling their SDRs to do their outbound cadences and snorting lines of cocaine to discuss:
Honestly, looking at her resume, she didn't seem qualified for that role in the first place.
Honestly the biggest issue is, you already know she will post something negative on LinkedIn if she is unhappy, and people will stand up and take notice.
It's not fair, but it's a bit like hiring someone who has a gun to your head... And HR departments likely wouldn't allow it if they do even a little research.
It sucks a lot for her.
I wonder if the "you're doing so well" boss was just another scrote trying to close in a different sort of way? 
Definitely somewhat main character vibes as someone else alluded to. Voicing your opinions/feelings on LinkedIn about not landing a job in what is most probably one of the toughest job markets today is fair. But considering that you have also previously posted a layoff video ranting on the employer on another social media platform, this being Tiktok, it doesn't take a hiring manager long to connect the dots as to what this person could be as an employee. Having employees or colleagues who dare to voice their opinions is great and every workplace needs that to some degree but it's so easy to fall into the trap of being opinionated and that for sure doesn't look good if you go about displaying that type of behaviour on LinkedIn. At the end of the day it's a balancing act and I hope she gets the job she's applying to.
I had some friends get fired on the same hiring call as her. They all felt the same way, but most of them were smart enough to keep their heads down and go get other jobs.
Have they landed somewhere?
Most of them, yeah. A lot took a step back career-wise.
Still, not a step back to LinkedIn rants. I've reset careers so many times, but it's better than sitting at home (most days).
Wow, there's a need for qualified sales people. I have no idea where she worked or what she posted. Was it so bad to blackball her?
She recorded herself being laid off, and then blasted her employer on LinkedIn. That's a dumb move.
Plus she says herself she has gaps and multiple short stints on her resume. Her actions + her resume paint a story that she's the problem, and an employee you don't want.
Also in her video she says she worked full time for 4 months without closing a single deal and still talks about how amazing her "performance" was. She doesn't appear to be a competent sales person if the only information you have about her is what was said there.
So I went and looked at her profile, and honestly I think she just needs a reality check. From a post 1 month ago-
"After taking a few months off of my job search to mentally process how suddenly different and overwhelming my life became following the viral video of me getting laid off, I'm now back on my search and quickly remembering how tough and discouraging it is."
Granted I'm sure having your video go viral is a little crazy at first, but I guarantee she thought that was her golden ticket to millions. No way you take a "few months" off to process a video going viral, unless you were trying to cash in on everything you could during that time. Took her a few months to learn she's not actually special, still broke, and still unemployed lol
Absolutely dingus move on her part to post that video for her 15 minutes of fame, I called it from the start.
I don't know her personally but what she did is an hr nightmare and the fact she takes no accountability for that is just pouring gasoline on the fire. It's way too big of a risk for a hiring manager to stick their neck out for the "girl who posted her layoff on TikTok with a really sh*tty attitude."
It's the lack of introspection for me.
"Driving revenue at Cloudflare" on your LinkedIn headline despite never having closed a deal. How am I supposed to trust what you say in an interview if you're already dramatizing verifiable details.
And that's just the head of several other major issues.
Least dishonest LinkedIn headline
