How not to lay people off over email

The bar is really low, and yet...

Hello Gobbledeers,

Since I choose to write about website gobbledy every week you can imagine that I find the nonsense software companies write to be hilarious.

And you’d be right…because it IS hilarious. I mean, look at this hilariousness from customer data platform Blueshift:

“We supercharge your marketing with AI so you can focus on creating moments of wow for your customer, at scale.”

They wrote that! On their website! And they didn’t think, “what’s some shit we can write on our website that will crack people up?” Yet, somehow they did it. I love it.

We’re in the midst of a lot of layoffs in startup world, and layoffs are not hilarious (as someone who has been both laid off and fired, I can personally attest to this.)

So when companies that don’t know how to communicate clearly are forced to write to their employees about layoffs, the result is often terrible.

And kinda hilarious.

Except for the layoff part. The layoff part is terrible.

I wanted to talk this week about the most incredible layoff note I’ve seen in ages*.

(* “ages” = “last April” when I wrote about the hysterical note that the CEO of real estate somethingsomething Knock wrote to his fellow “knockstars” about how amazing it is that they raised $200 million and also 46% of you knockstars are fired.)

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I'm a teenager…With a little bit of gold and a pager

PagerDuty is a software company that helps IT teams with the monitoring they need to do to keep businesses up and running.

Like many companies, PagerDuty has had to let some folks go because, y’know, tech, and - because I have to assume “communicating” was one of her OKRs - their CEO sent out a note explaining the situation.

You may be aware of this story because the Wall Street Journal mentioned the backlash the CEO received after invoking Martin Luther King in the note about layoffs. But that’s only scratching the surface of the awesomeness of the thing…

It begins:

“Dutonians,”

I’ll stop right here. I get that having a name for your team is “folksy” or whatever. But if you’re about to fire a bunch of people, perhaps “folksy” isn’t the tone you’re going for.

Also, they should be called DoodieHeads.

It begins:

Part of our mission at PagerDuty is to help businesses “anticipate the unexpected in an unpredictable world.”

First, I’m sad that I wasn’t the person they paid $100,000 to to help them come up with that.

Second, if you were one of the poor DoodieHeads who received this note and was not aware of what was happening with the layoffs, you’d probably be wondering to yourself what the hell is happening and why the CEO is reminding you that you should have anticipated what’s coming. Unexpectedly.

That’s Pagey, the PagerDuty mascot. I don’t believe Pagey wrote the memo, as it’s very difficult to type with gloves on your hands.

If I only had one piece of advice (I never have just one piece of advice) it’s that if you’re writing a note to your company that’s about to break bad news, don’t make the first paragraph some corporate nonsense about how your mission is to ensure everyone on earth has socks that fit and available in fun colors.

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Next, there’s some stuff about the macro economy blah blah blah and then “inflation and geopolitical concerns caused the US Federal Reserve to hike interest rates, while the jobs market overall remained strong…”

Oh good, a strong jobs market. I’m sure that means nobody is getting fired.

Then some SaaS gobbledy about “Our $38 billion TAM of over 75 million potential users remains large.” She’s using acronyms and big numbers so everything must be a-ok. And TAM. Also, please: “more than 75 million” not “over 75 million.” (nitpick)

Plus “demand for our products and services remains stable.” Fantastic, stable demand!

But.

Here comes the “womp womp” part. And she was nice enough to make sure it was gobbledy-filled, probably just to make me happy.

Macro uncertainty and volatility has led our customers… to scrutinize and slow investments in order to preserve business outcomes and protect shareholder returns, while improving their operational resilience.  

I don’t know why “operational resilience” is in bold. And if you’re starting to think to yourself that maybe you’re about to get let go, you’re probably also thinking to yourself, “I’m not sure my mother will understand that I lost my job so companies could preserve business outcomes and protect shareholder returns while improving their operational resilience.”

IT’S NOT OUR FAULT!

Then some blah blah blah “standardizing our go-to-market motion globally” and “improving spans of control” and uh oh.

“We must generate more cash flow and increase our operating margins in the near term.”

So clearly a bunch of people are being let go. But don’t worry, the reason is good!

“…To sustainably fund the priorities and commitments our customers count on us for: resilience and security at scale, and an easy-to-use, low-cost-to-own, high-ROI Operations Cloud.”

Mom, I’m moving back home but don’t worry, I’m making this sacrifice so companies can get an easy-to-use, low-cost-to-own, high-ROI Operations Cloud. So, y’know, all good here.

They’re laying of 7% of Dutonians, it’ll be hard on them, etc etc etc.

How’d they decide whom to let go?

“Decisions were predicated on business rationale that included, for example, protecting investments in top product development priorities like our new Incident Workflows, self service and product-led growth (PLG), and continued AIOps and Automation enhancements, improving spans of control and streamlining management layers, expanding teams and roles in Santiago and Lisbon, and addressing our enterprise opportunity with a hybrid strategic and high-velocity GTM motion that continues to improve our productivity.”

They get 7 extra points for mentioning Product Led Growth, and they lose 3 points for not mentioning AI. But they get 2 points back for mentioning “spans of control” for the second time.

I do need to know: How many revisions did it take to come up with “Addressing our enterprise opportunity with a hybrid strategic and high-velocity GTM motion.” I mean, nobody came up with that the first time. That’s a group effort, passed around, sanded around the edges, honed, and gobbled.

You may remember from the beginning of the paragraph that this section was about how they decided whom to fire. And “addressing our enterprise opportunity with a hybrid strategic and high-velocity GTM motion” was one of the criteria.

Bonus point for “decisions were predicated on” rather than “I based these decisions on…”

IT WASN’T MY FAULT!

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One thing they tell execs about doing layoffs is to never make it about yourself. Which is also good advice to ignore, apparently:

“As someone who has worked in this industry for decades, I have experienced this before and it is never easy…”

Though likely easier when you’re not the one being laid off. Just saying.

Then comes an ill-timed announcement of someone getting promoted (?) and some personnel shuffling (span of control?).

Then the wrap-up:

None of this would be possible without you, our leadership, and our board — thank you for your grit and resilience, your commitment to our customers and your support of our values and people.

I assume the “this” in that first sentence is not referring to the layoffs, as in “we couldn’t have laid all these people off without you, especially if you’re being laid off.”

Also, “our board.”

Annnnnnd, the kicker:

I am reminded in moments like this, of something Martin Luther King said, that “the ultimate measure of a [leader] is not where [they] stand in the moments of comfort and convenience, but where [they] stand in times of challenge and controversy.”  PagerDuty is a leader that stands behind its customers, its values, and our vision — for an equitable world where we transform critical work so all teams can delight their customers and build trust. 

I’m pretty sure - though I’m no Martin Luther King scholar - that King was not making the point that great companies prove themselves great when they lay people off.

And bravo for the King quote, followed by the part about PagerDuty is there to create “an equitable world.” Oh that is so good.

Ugh.

Piles of wordy bullshit seems funny when it’s trying to talk about IT alerts and less funny when trying to convince your team (or yourself?) that letting a bunch of people go will make for a more equitable world. Just as Martin Luther King wanted.

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Please, Indulge Me for a Moment…

Good morning,

I’m writing today to share some difficult news for the entire team here at PagerDuty.

As part of a broader restructuring, we have eliminated 7% of the roles at the company.

News like this always comes as a shock, even when we’ve heard of other companies making their own difficult decisions to let members of their team go.

I should preface that as the CEO, the decision is ultimately mine, and I do not make it lightly. But I wanted to share why we find ourselves here today.

Several years ago when we IPO’d we celebrated the moment as the culmination of a lot of hard work by every member of the team. But I was remiss back then by not speaking more about how an IPO is primarily a financial restructuring. One that changes how we make decisions as a company, and causes us to answer to our shareholders.

Although we’ve been happy with our financial results, it’s clear that the coming year will be faced with uncertainty. And as a public company we need to reassure our shareholders that we are financially prepared to weather that uncertainty in as strong a financial position as possible.

We’re making several changes across the company that we’ll discuss in the town hall, but the primary change is the reduction in the number of team members.

I know there will be a lot of confusion, sadness and anger about this decision. And I want to make myself available to hear your concerns and answer your questions as best I can. We will be holding a town hall etc etc etc.

Thank you for putting your trust in me, and I know we will emerge from this time and continue to thrive in the coming years.

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But no. She had to go with Martin Luther King. Like a wise man once said, “I had a dream…that companies will communicate directly with their employees…”

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As always, thanks for reading Gobbledy. As a reward, you’re not fired.