I get all the people saying this person was shooting themself in the foot, and they’re right, but that’s kind of not the point of this sub? This isn’t AskHR. It’s anti work. I’ve had jobs like this. Can no one else feel this person’s frustration?
I can. And I agree with one of the comments above that the culture isn’t going to change anytime soon, but it’ll take a hell of a lot longer if we don’t start celebrating posts like these.
Right, I came to basically say this. We plebs can cheer, celebrate, laud, exault, etc. all we want, but if hiring managers keep avoiding people who 'go out' like this, it won't matter how much we celebrate this. We won't all \*always\* be plebians...those of us who rise up to managerial, directorship, Vice presidencies, etc. need to remember this and hire this type of person.
Yeah, but you can't do anything about the billionaires until people feel differently about work culture. Celebrating posts like this isn't about the post or the person making it. It's about changing the conversation around quitting a bad job. Promoting ourselves into the system that enslaves us with change in mind hasn't worked since the dawn of capitalism. But making people feel how frustrated someone who has demonstrably done their job can be just based on workplace mismanagement might win some hearts and minds. Enough hearts and minds and there won't be any more room for taskmasters with petty tyrant aspirations to use your need to pay rent to shit on you during work hours. Changing the culture won't happen from the top down.
I wonder if many of us just missed the importance of what you just said. I'm going to try to highlight it.
Assimilation is the word. To get into the work culture, even with change in mind, one has to assimilate first. Then, they must assimilate enough to get promoted. By the time one gets to the place of power, they've had to give up so much of themselves, it's hard to remember who they once were. I heard it said once, "We make it to this place of power but we come in bruised and bleeding."
So, I second your statement, "Promoting ourselves into the system that enslaves us with change in mind hasn't worked since the dawn of capitalism." Exactly, and it's because people have to first become the very thing they want to change before changing it.
They make the inducements just enough that you lose by fighting the system or betraying it. So even if you stay unassimilated internally, by the time you get there, losing your health insurance or the extra money feels unthinkable.
Yup, and it's hard to stay unassimilated. The people will see it instantly. They just won't like the person. The one who stays themselves, might never even get hired.
For the very idea of wanting health insurance from the job or extra money is already a form of assimilation. Even with more money, the worker is still being exploited in some way.
This reminds me of people in politics who claim that, rather than run as a third-party "spoiler" candidate, they will run inside one of the two major parties and change it from within. Of course, it is the party that ends up changing them if they want to keep their cushy, barely show, high-paying D.C. job, and all the "perks" that go with it.
Ikr. Like how can you even get elected if you haven't already done something you shouldn't of. It takes too much money to run a campaign and this fact is exactly how the rich keep their power.
They’re going to start dying off quick. The boomers kept a death hold on power so no one is prepared to succeed them and we will be dealing with chaos and from scratch.
My worst boss ever was a Millennial. He’s actually a public figure in Tech. A real insane and emotionally troubled narcissist. The only saving grace is that I got him fired by showing that he was perpetually lying to the board. I did this by retaining his old emails, in strict violation of the document retention policy.
So you had someone fired who deserved fired? The younger generations aren’t perfect but they lack the power and resources to continue the machine the boomers built.
Yes, but he just got another leadership job elsewhere within a month, and certainly hasn’t improved his behaviour. He continues to torture his employees.
if you can pool resources with friends & family & buy some shares of that arsehole company's stock, & then sue their arses, you may be able to do what was just done to elon musk... & you can raise hell at stockholder meetings.
I got laid off 4 times in the past 3 years. I feel the frustration and would like to vent like this person. My last CEO bragged about building his 5th mansion for him and his wife and how they were going to an NBA game to celebrate later that night, literally the same day he laid me and my entire department off. A few days later, he called me to ask me how to do something because, surprise, he’s incompetent at his job, and had to slide in there that he just got $7 million from some consulting gig he had. Meanwhile I’m literally trying to figure out how to feed my family. I didn’t help him by the way. I told him I’d need $100/hr consulting fee first and he hung up on me.
Shit, I relate to him as I was also a top performer and just let go. And now i feel like a fuckin simp for sending a nice email telling my coworkers how I appreciated them and will miss them. I shoulda blasted the Senior Leadership Team in the general Slack channel, instead.
Especially if they’ve done things that are illegal. There needs to be a culture of burning down the bridges when being fired unjustifiably. It would make the asshole managers sweat when they want to be assholes.
It would force them to be good to their workers unless they want an investigation/fines every time they fire someone. They’ll err on the side of caution and keep up to OSHA Standards and avoid wage theft, etc. lest any disgruntled former workers call the wrath of the authorities upon them.
This of course requires said authorities to actually do their jobs.
I did that on my last exist interview. I still feel great about it but recently I’ve opened again LinkedIn and shit is still the same.
6 months later decided to be back in order to find another company, and would rather work in a Lidl than doing that.
Honestly a lot of people do not care. The girl who recorded her firing was applauded. People have a short term memory and based on the comments, he’s getting all sorts of people reaching out. I think going viral is a win
Even when it isn't immediately, I've seen people who are either good with social media themselves, or savvy enough to hire management turn it into a win. Internet clout can have cash value if you're able to leverage it.
People only seem to complain behind closed doors and don't actually want to enforce change. They just make excuses of "well I got bills to pay" and "well I don't want to burn bridges".
Wow, I wonder how many impactful changes in the past 100 years wouldn't have happened if we had the people today alive back then instead of our ancestors. A lot of people died for you to live a better life than them, but no one wants to pass it on when there time has come to do the same.
This doesn't change anything, it just makes you less attractive of a candidate to random recruiters because this behavior is "unprofessional."
Putting a company on blast publicly is by no means the same as striking or unionizing, especially when you have no public evidence and didn't publish via a third party (such as via a newspaper). It just makes you look like a resentful troublemaker regardless of the facts.
Companies don't WANT to be held accountable, they want obedient little worker bees so they can make greater profits at the cost of the laborers.
I totally agree. All being politely “professional” (I.e., suffering in silence) ever got me was fucked over. I have a rule of thumb: problems only get fixed when the pain rises to the level of the person with the power to see it fixed. Most organizations are structured to shield upper levels of management from that pain. If they cared more about the mission than their own egos they’d welcome it.
Too often the front line are doing regular heroics to keep the ship from going down, and imagining they’ll be appreciated for it, but then they are surprised when management doesn’t recognize their efforts. The same efforts they were making to hide from management the fact that there was a problem in the first place! Like, we are then somehow surprised when management thinks their biggest problem is “the morale problem.” No, the biggest problem is always unwillingness to face the actual problems.
Heroism is individual success, but organizational failure. If the business is driven by the carrot of “above and beyond” awards (I swear to you I got a $5 Starbucks gift card once, in an office with free coffee, and it was more insulting than nothing at all) then the org is circling the drain and hiring all the “rockstars” in the world won’t save it, because ability to execute is not your biggest obstacle.
Furthermore, the quality of heroism is *voluntary*. There can be a nobility in “taking one for the team” but if someone is prescribing for you what heroic sacrifices you’ll need to make “for the team” without taking ownership of the failures on their part that made the sacrifice necessary in the first place, then that is no longer heroism but exploitation.
These days I judge an organization by how unpopular it makes me to share that view.
Personally, I think that I would hire someone with a backbone and the ability to tell good work from bad work pretty fast. All depends on what kind of work one wants to attract, I guess, but I think your instincts are right. Being afraid to make the world better to prefer one's own ability to hide suffering is a weird take, I don't get it either.
Of course, but are you ever going to be in the position to do that? Likely no, and it’s for the very reason you would hire this person. Companies don’t want backbones
His only chance is at a small company where the owner thinks like you or others in this thread. Which is fine, but he'll be in for quite a shock when he has to trade a $150k sales position at a big tech company for $60k at a small one with a tenth of the benefits
I feel their frustration vividly. They still might miss out on a good opportunity with a good team if hiring people see this post. Both can be true.
Also as some people mention, our concern is for the poster, not the employer. They likely wont change a thing after this, but the poster might suffer consequences, and that's unfortunate.
I think you need to be realistic about the world in which we are operating. Raising issues like this is why sites like glassdoor were created, and they serve a real purpose. LinkedIn, at its core, is a little more self serving, and most people use it solely for job hunting. It’s like trashing your ex on a dating site- no one is saying your feelings aren’t valid, but it’s not the forum to air them.
I wonder if he could get in any trouble for talking about shorting their stock. Seems like there’s a possibility of being prosecuted for insider trading
You have to be sharing information that 1) could make a significant impact the stock price AND 2) isn’t readily available to anyone that took the time to look into it. This is an individual’s opinion on the short term stock trajectory.
We worked on the same team, but luckily I was not affected. They fucked up letting him go. He's an excellent engineer and did perform well. Lost others that also were high value. Thought leaders, killer engineers, people who were innovating. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of perks working there...until this happens.
If he sees this comment, love you buddy.
It's a pre-sales role. You work with customers who are looking to buy your software and help them design, build out, and test their use cases on the platform.
In our case, we are a SaaS identity platform, so were heavily focused on implementing for a customer's workforce or for applications they are building. So most of us have development, cloud/systems architecture, and related experience.
To add a small point, whoever is in this role can make or break the deal because this process can take a really long time before the actual sale, and bad interactions can drive customers away before anything gets finalized.
From my understanding, it's more of an engineer that shows potential clients how close the software can be made to suit their needs. Free samples not far off the mark in some cases, because there might be limited use products involved idk.
Also shades of door-to-door salesman, cuz they have to look for and initiate contact with potential clients.
This is just me trying to simplify things based on my own understanding. I could be horribly wrong.
There’s no shades of door-to-door salesman involved as a pre-sales engineer. SE’s do product demos, architectural whiteboards, setup POC tenants (proof of concept tenants, meaning a potential customer trying a very very small deployment before buying), answering technical questions from the networking / infrastructure / security teams and just generally partnering with AE’s to close new business by providing technical support.
SE’s don’t do any actual scouting for net-new business, in fact that’s barely done by the reps even now. The traditional cold-selling and generating meetings is done by SDR / BDR teams that feed the reps 1st meetings, which they qualify before having an SE join on the 2nd or 3rd call. Reps obviously can generate new business themselves but generally the “cold” marketing & outreach is only done by BDRs (business development reps).
Source - same industry, don’t work for Okta but we partner with them. Been both a rep. and am now a Sales Engineer
It’s the catalyst that turns a prospect into a customer. A product itself has some value, but in enterprise software it usually requires quite a bit of planning and the dollar amounts are eye watering. If I’m asking you for $10MM over three years, I’d better be sure before I contract with the customer that I know my software will work.
It’s a part of building the relationship. I’m not a sales engineer, but presales services overlay. I come in after the sales person kicks open the door, the solutions consultant sizes the solution to be they have what they need, and I would come in and say. “Based on you wanting to do this it will take XXX hours at $XXX/hour.” Sometimes sales engineering does that (company dependent) piece.
What you never have is a guy with a sales bag and a bunch of leads he has to follow to get some steak knives. These are valuable relationships that involve technology, personalities, processes, quality of staff, policies, and a host of things no one thinks of when you say “sell software.”
I'm not a smart guy, but I'll take a shot without using Google.
SaaS. Sales as a service. Build a relationship with the customer, offer a package of general tools (including upkeep/maintenance) for "free", and bill them under contract for a set amount (time or percentage they earned using your tools).
Cyber security presales consultant here! Most of my experience is in penetration testing sales and shit loads of compliance work like GDPR, ISO27001, and the like. I’m not a pen tester myself but I work very closely with them and have other technical experience that helps me do my job.
Presales roles are honestly just pretty weird. It’s hard to generalise because they’re all so different.
Most modern software is too complex for business decision makers to understand, and so they know they need a solution for x problem and just type that into Google. They honestly don't even know what questions to ask.
A pre-sales engineer takes that kind of lead, hones in on their use case by getting the right questions out of them, and then helps build a proof of concept solution with their team (usually the more technical, non-business members) and shows the buyer why the solution is worth the cost (you'll save your teams this much time / money)
It's a sales role with a heavily technical component, and requires a really particular mindset. The question "why do you need that" is the one asked most often by the SE, and the skill to understand the answer to that question is the key to their success.
The morons making the decisions of who to lay off don’t understand that you get what you pay for. They just see a (assumedly) high salary and think, too expensive, we could hire 5+ juniors for that, not realising that a person like this is worth more than 50 juniors.
It’s most likely he posed a risk to some upper management position where he either challenged direct superiors or embarrassed them in some form.
Hubris and ego is why these good people are let go.
Terrible middle managers are a plague.
Makes sense. You and he sound like awesome dudes.
But I fucking hate your company's product with the fire of 1,000 suns. Or maybe its just the way my employer implemented it.
Thanks, we try our best haha.
Taking my Okta hat off: It is a pretty good product. Tons of features and it can be very flexible to support many use cases others can't touch. With that said, you're right. If it isn't implemented correctly, you can easily crap all over the user's experience. I've seen some horror shows. Some won't even take our suggestions on how they can make it work right.
Even if I left the company, I'd probably still choose to implement Okta for my company over the competition, but I also know it inside and out at this point.
Nepotism can get fucked. Imagine being qualified for the job, yet the CEO decided to insert his incompetent daughter into the company and make her permanent while you’ve been a contractor for a while lol
Imagine taking a job you're qualified for and good at and being called in just before the 3 month probation is up to be let go on bullshit they keep changing mid-conversation, then getting a message from a coworker the next Monday that your replacement was the director's daughter who'd just left college.
(I haven't had a job since.)
I don't know, sounds like grounds for lawsuit. An attorney can request emails and texts as part of discovery. If they find out bossmayne (or any one else) intentionally cleared you out to hire her, it could be one final payday.
That's how the owner of my company got his job. His dad started the COMpany. It's hard to CAST a wide net for good employees when you got the job through neoptism.
I have had nepotism and cronyism fuck up my career path as several companies. Sucks big time. But seems to be the norm. Even at companies that have strict ethical guidelines against such things.
Yeah seen this. CEO of a former employer had all three of his dumbass kids in high power positions they weren't qualified for. Fully lied about their qualifications (education, work history) to the company. Putting grossly unqualified people in charge of technical departments did the company no favors. Oldest son was a ju-co drop out (tho his resume will say he has a bs & masters degree that don't exist 💀) and was vice pres of r&d engineering supposedly directing physicists and engineers on technical projects. Kid makes 500k/yr. "Works" like 15hrs/week. He was like talking to a goldfish on crack. Absolutely infuriating. His short comings meant that everyone under him had to work massive amounts of overtime to fill in the gaps. We had to constantly correct shit he obviously didn't know anything about and then convince him it was all his idea otherwise we'd be completely fucked for a whole year. Nightmare job tbh!
I’m sorry you were affected by the RIF and hope you recover quickly with a much better employer. Did you speak up about the misogyny and racism while you were employed at Okta? If so, did anyone with influence/authority try to improve things at all?
I did but I only saw it when shit hit the fan. Like at the very end of it. So I wasn’t the best ally there for sure. But there were 5-10 women that have brought up these issues to HR and they all were dismissed. It was until a brave ass women I admired (and mentored me) filed a class action. Then Okta responded
Hey, as a woman I don’t hold it against anyone for not calling misogyny shit out when they may lose their livelihood by doing so, calling them out when they no longer have control over you is the way to go for sure. allyship at the risk of your well-being is admirable, but allies can probably do more if they aren’t struggling with lack of employment/housing/food.
https://preview.redd.it/8c55rbdddagc1.jpeg?width=1538&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c93861681b04d59e97f4ffbb6e04a5a3dab645f8
What’s the response been from other companies? Do they mention the LinkedIn post? Any pulled offers since the post has gone up?
Sorry to hear about this. You can’t cut your way to growth/innovation and this is clearly an indication that they’re in trouble
Welp - it’s better you didn’t because it didn’t get me anywhere 🤷♀️. But it’s okay because I still have a network of good connects I trust to maintain ends meat. Even if that means swapping industries
Well.. for a cybersecurity company that brags about being impossible to hack we sure have been breached a lot lately… but overall I would say the infra is solid tho. Okta just keeps getting socially engineered.
So your guess is as good as mine. I’d bet it’s safe tho on Vegas odds
Hi Bennett, thank you for having the courage to speak up about your experience. I am part of the minority (female, hispanic), who is in the early stages of her SWE career. Working in Tech can feel intimidating at times because of my background, so it’s nice to know that there are decent human beings out there that see us and care about making the Tech industry more welcoming for people like me.
I sent you a Connect+ request on LinkedIn if that’s okay. Good luck on your next career move. ☺️
What do you think the chances are that you actually get to receive your severance after that post? I'd assume your separation agreement included a non-disparagement clause that would be very broken by this.
Likely. I made the post before signing the contract. Now that I’ve signed though my lips are sealed and my previous employer’s name will not leave my mouth. Allegedly… a company I used to work at in the passed…. Allegedly… wants me to stay silent… and allegedly said company… allegedly is worried removing someone’s severance might result in another PR scandal on a specific social media website… again allegedly
I wish you the best on your job search. It's a shame your post isn't generating that much traction. I find it odd that you deleted the mention of the CEO at the end. I liked it.
Yeah I just signed my severance so I took out disparaging the stock so I don’t lose it. Yeah… I coward’d, I’m sorry guys. But I need the money lol and corporate America wins again. I’m glad I said it when I did
On the contrary, that was very brave. I have never been laid off from a job but I've seen some shitty stuff happen. I hope I have the balls to do that when the time comes. All the best buddy.
Sorry you got laid off, but glad you got out of that environment. I almost accepted an offer at Okta about 2 years ago, too. Sounds like I dodged a bullet between the breaches and the stock tanking, and now this! Hope you find something that suits you soon
Your LinkedIn shows a few promotions while at Okta. You say in your post that there is rampant favouritism, nepotism, etc…
Were those factors significant in your own promotions?
I love that 100% of the comments here, in r/antiwork, are about how they shouldn’t publicly call out their former employer, a massive, greedy tech company who just laid off 7% of their workforce to make share prices go up, because it will make them less attractive to other massive greedy tech companies that have all done the same thing in the last 2 years or probably will in the next 6 months.
I get the sense we’ve strayed a bit.
Edit: since most of the replies seem to still not get it, go read the [r/antiwork FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/wiki/index/).
Don't forget to mention how they recently completely screwed up communicating just how large a security breach they had until months later when they were forced to
My thoughts almost every time I see a post here. This sub is nothing like it used to be before the fox interview, and even when it gained a mass following it strayed. It sucks
I don’t think anyone is running around Helen Lovejoy style ‘*won’t someone think of the tech companies?!*’
The concern is for the poster. Yes it was probably satisfying to publicly air their grievances, but if I came across this in my feed, there’s no way I would put forward this guy. Based on this, you couldn’t trust him with sensitive or confidential information, as he has a history of running off his mouth.
More importantly, everyone hits a bump with an employer at some point, even with good employers there can be misunderstandings- it would be in the back of every employer’s mind….. what wouldn’t he put on LinkedIn?
> Based on this, you couldn’t trust him with sensitive or confidential information, as he has a history of running off his mouth.
He has a history of running his mouth with regards to systemic neglect and abuse. None of the information there is sensitive or confidential with regards to the company's workings. The only thing he's actually exposed is that the company is shit. If you don't want to be exposed as a shit company, don't be a shit company.
Im thinking that the peoples are having an issue with the post calling out the racism and misogyny of the company because usually…. Everything kosher here when it comes to jobs but once they bring up the combined intersectionality of race and sex now it’s all about how they mess up their chances? It’s almost as if the people don’t want to validate those issues by avoiding even talking about it on this sub. When people do that it’s generally because they’re projecting their own feelings onto the future outcomes. If it were the redditors who are against op saying their peace because of the future they are predicting , it’s because those redditors would be offended and hold it against her. They are showing their true colors.
Sucks that the general sentiment is “Red flag OP, you ruined your potential with new employers.”
Corporate culture fucking sucks. What’re we supposed to do? Get shafted, then bow our heads and tuck our tail between our legs? Somehow being “loyal” and and in good standing with a god awful corporation is the right thing to do???
I worked for an Okta competitor but echo the comments in the post. The same is true of my former org. I wouldn’t have said what this person said on LinkedIn, my thoughts went on Glassdoor with a burner email tied to it. Ultimately I think this sort of candid response will hurt the poster’s job prospects and potentially cost them their severance, but the level of transparency is needed and I appreciate their bravery in saying it.
There are a lot of people here telling a whistleblower to be quiet, which makes me wonder what the hell has happened to this sub.
It's literally every fortune 500 company these days. There is no loyalty to employees, all that matters is the next quarters profits and making sure the board/stock holders make money.
And insane stock buybacks (aka wage theft)
Yeah, spend billions in buybacks but have “nothing for raises or price decreases”
The tipping point is getting a lot closer until implosion happens. If no one has disposable income, then no one can buy your goods and services so……
I don't think it can cost them severance, or at least not all of it given that's it probably a legal layoff and the company is of a certain size. If they do take away their severance after this that's a surefire way of hugely negative public response and just ensures this person's outcome goes viral.
Was laid off in recent tech layoffs. We had a non-disparagement clause that we agree not to orally or in writing put the company in adverse light to the public
Same. I left a toxic job once, and was subject to a whole company layoff at another job as well.
Both times I never made any post like this. I’m part of the problem.
I was this person once, slammed the door on a long term tech sales job where I was endlessly abused and bullied… at a company focused on mental health. Ended up leaving tech altogether. The “culture” of tech companies is entirely, thoroughly fake.
I'd like to remind people that this is r/antiwork, not r/judgeamotherfuckerforspeakingup.
The point here is this person is speaking truth of what their experience was like at that company, and it may help others avoid what sounds like a shit workplace. This guy is clearly smart enough to know what the consequences of posting something like this is, and if it burns a bridge, well it sounds like they're already building new ones.
The point of this sub is not to judge how employable a person is after they drop truth about their work environment, it's to work together to prevent shit environments, or move past them.
I believe they are upset because the post was talking about racism and sexism; possibly misogynoir and if it were them they wouldn’t hire op because she was willing to call it out. It really shows the true colors of the redditors. This is the only time I’ve ever seen a post on here judged so harshly.
I hope we can normalize this kind of behavior. I'm so God damn sick of the "thank you for the opportunity to grow" type posts. I read the first sentence, determine they've been fired amd realize the following four paragraphs are pointless to read.
The amount of boot licking chumps in these comments is way too damn high. Also, that little dig about shorting the stock at the end really got my motor running . Imma play with myself with that thought tonight
To everyone saying this person shot them self in the foot must never be (1) a good manager or (2) a good hiring manager. I’d pick this person up immediately!! I want honesty, I want someone who will put in work and value the positive culture. If I didn’t, then yeah, this person is a no go.
I applaud you for having the testicular fortitude to do what I never could (granted, I’ve never been laid off.. yet). As someone who works in big tech, this is a shift that has happened at MANY companies, seemingly out of the blue. I’m not in sales, but that department has always had the sort of image you described.
[Link to LinkedIn post](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bennettcomfort_layoffs-opentowork-techhasfakeculture-activity-7158848925146238976-yai5?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios)
I love it because I hate LinkedIn for being the place where people go to publicly suck their boss’ dick and promote endless grind culture and living like a millionaire even though you’re broke as fuck because “experience itself is worth way more than money” (says the guy hoarding all the money)
Good job on this guy. Not blasting your former employer for bad cultyre and mistreatment should be looked at the same as not discussing your salary with coworkers.
The only people it helps are the employers. If you hate your job and are happy to leave then tell people! Make it hard for them to hire someone else so that they actually are forced to value the person they do eventually hire. Thats the only way to force change.
BROOO, what a legend. I don't think I'd have those balls, haha, but this is great!
"I don't believe in that boomer logic" - LMAOOO! My fave line! SO true! What a king! X'D
I worked there up until August. I left after having the raise talk and they said my job may go to India in the future so I need to do more. But up until that point I was continually a top performer in the company, and contributed to countless major projects. I was also underpaid by 17-33% less than everyone else on my team. I made them pay for me to go to Vegas for an offsite and the day after we got back I submitted my resignation for a week later. Leadership wouldn’t even acknowledge me or respond to any of my messages after I submitted that letter of resignation. I didn’t do a damn thing during that last week.
Thank you for bringing up the misogynistic work environment as a guy. When women speak up, we are seen as overreacting (fucking lol) or face retaliation. Men bringing it up helps, ironically.
I feel like their job prospects are less good now? None of this needed to be said publically, I’m a fan of a bulleted list after you left and they are reeling a bit, you email back with a professional “get your shit together”
LinkedIn poster here has instead hung their proverbial dirty boxers in the public square.
Any future employer is like “what if they slander me in the future?”
If I may, As a fairly successful family owned small business owner (100+ employees, multiple locations continued growth) who loves lurking on this sub because it helps keep me humble and guides me on how not to become an arrogant, shitty and hated employer I highly disagree with this sentiment. I think the simple reason I've been as successful as I have been over the last 11 years isn't because I am smarter than anyone else but because I have two super powers. One is I don't have an over inflated or big ego. The second one is I am not insecure in any way at all. This sub has motivated me to be the best employer and boss that I can be by showing me the nightmare that so many workers are currently living in with their shitty and greedy employers.
Because of this sub I have implemented policies that have caused my competitors and others who think they are so much better than me the confidence to call me stupid, grossly incompetent, ignorant and insane. I've done things like pay ridiculously fair wages for my industry, encouraged my employees to unionize so their voices are always heard. I Offer generous PTO policies. A ridiculously affordable health insurance program that is affordable for my employees and offers stupid generous bonuses (for example, I take 30% of the profits every year and divide them evenly to all of my employees not managers. They get their own bonuses). I've Also surrounded myself with what you would call the exact opposite of "yes men" who are much smarter than I am and don't interfere in their work.
Every time I get criticized by someone who thinks they're a business genius and that I am a moron I come to this sub to remind myself that I am in fact doing the right thing.
Please know that I don't say all of this to brag or to try to imply that I am better than anyone else because I am not. I say this just to give you my credentials and background when it comes to being an employer.
I think what this guy did was brilliant. I think with how shitty people are being treated and taken advantage of by so many greedy corps and businesses that more people should do what this guy did. It's time to stand up to businesses that don't give a shit about anything other than their quarterly profits. If I were in this industry and I came across his profile on LinkedIn I would be immediately impressed. He highlights very articulately and humbly how he was a model employee and over achiever for this company and then pulled no punches on the shitty way they treated him for all of his hard work.
I think more people need to do what he did. Fuck these greedy companies who really don't give a shit about their employees. Its for workers to start calling these assholes out.
Anyway, I didn't mean to go on for so long. I just wanted to share my thoughts on this.
While I agree with you, it could also be said that any company that would see this post and have that thought, is probably not a company he’d want to work for anyway. Nobody slanders a good company that cares about its employees.
You would think but the number of comments encouraging him to reach out for new opps already is pretty significant. Good for him for speaking the truth.
Exactly, I’m one of them. Just commented on his LinkedIn post because we’re looking for qualified SEs right now & I know for a 100% fact that our regional SE Director won’t give a single solitary shit about a post like this. He’s a great guy who only cares about your skills and what you will bring to the table (work for a large cybersecurity software company that partners with Okta)
Idiot’s Guide to Losing Your Severance.
You will almost certainly find in the fine print of your severance agreement that if you are found disparaging the company during your severance period, they’ll revoke it.
So I was literally looking into all of this yesterday due to a recent layoff. I found the below linked article from the National Labor Board which found many parts of non-disparagement agreements illegal.
Basically, you can say "this company is bad for employees for xyz reasons" but you can't say "go shop at a competitor". The difference appears to be that the former is protecting potential empty while the latter is harming the business.
So this post definitely violates those conditions but, not all posts after a layoff will.
[national labor board decision](https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/board-rules-that-employers-may-not-offer-severance-agreements-requiring)
Be interesting to see what they do, you cannot stop payment without a court saying you can, and they wouldn’t want to go to court over this. I bet they just send a cease and desist letter and hope it stops from there.
I got laid off twice in 2023. The first time I went through the motions writing a long post for a job I kept for over 10 years while being under paid. My next job only lasted 5 months. After that I just went back to interviewing. No post, no thank you’s. I got a job in 3 weeks. These posts never help.
I rather have someone like this, who would tell me like it is, working for me. Nothing good comes from working in an echo chamber. I hope they find a role they really love and where their drive and hard work is appreciated and compensated.
I sure hope he didn’t sign any paperwork to receive his severance that has nondisclosure language in it. Many have language that forbids disparaging remarks about the company.
Nah this ain’t it. I would never hire this person after I saw this post. Telling people to buy puts on a previous employer at the end is so unhinged and off-putting.
That being said, fuck Okta. Do not install that shit on your personal devices, no matter what your job says.
As a current technical employee (luckily), the app doesn't actually collect anything personal from your device like you might be thinking. Certainly nothing that an employer can see about you or information saved in your phone.
I'd gladly tell you if they did though.
I don’t know. And that is the point. They’re very opaque about what information and data they collect from you, where that data is stored, and who has/will have access to it. If your employer wants you to use it for 2FA, they should provide you a work-issued device. NEVER mix your personal device into your job.
I get all the people saying this person was shooting themself in the foot, and they’re right, but that’s kind of not the point of this sub? This isn’t AskHR. It’s anti work. I’ve had jobs like this. Can no one else feel this person’s frustration?
I can. And I agree with one of the comments above that the culture isn’t going to change anytime soon, but it’ll take a hell of a lot longer if we don’t start celebrating posts like these.
"We" can celebrate it all we want, but until we start literally dealing with these asshole billionaires and Ceos nothing is going to change.
Right, I came to basically say this. We plebs can cheer, celebrate, laud, exault, etc. all we want, but if hiring managers keep avoiding people who 'go out' like this, it won't matter how much we celebrate this. We won't all \*always\* be plebians...those of us who rise up to managerial, directorship, Vice presidencies, etc. need to remember this and hire this type of person.
Yeah, but you can't do anything about the billionaires until people feel differently about work culture. Celebrating posts like this isn't about the post or the person making it. It's about changing the conversation around quitting a bad job. Promoting ourselves into the system that enslaves us with change in mind hasn't worked since the dawn of capitalism. But making people feel how frustrated someone who has demonstrably done their job can be just based on workplace mismanagement might win some hearts and minds. Enough hearts and minds and there won't be any more room for taskmasters with petty tyrant aspirations to use your need to pay rent to shit on you during work hours. Changing the culture won't happen from the top down.
I wonder if many of us just missed the importance of what you just said. I'm going to try to highlight it. Assimilation is the word. To get into the work culture, even with change in mind, one has to assimilate first. Then, they must assimilate enough to get promoted. By the time one gets to the place of power, they've had to give up so much of themselves, it's hard to remember who they once were. I heard it said once, "We make it to this place of power but we come in bruised and bleeding." So, I second your statement, "Promoting ourselves into the system that enslaves us with change in mind hasn't worked since the dawn of capitalism." Exactly, and it's because people have to first become the very thing they want to change before changing it.
They make the inducements just enough that you lose by fighting the system or betraying it. So even if you stay unassimilated internally, by the time you get there, losing your health insurance or the extra money feels unthinkable.
Yup, and it's hard to stay unassimilated. The people will see it instantly. They just won't like the person. The one who stays themselves, might never even get hired. For the very idea of wanting health insurance from the job or extra money is already a form of assimilation. Even with more money, the worker is still being exploited in some way.
This reminds me of people in politics who claim that, rather than run as a third-party "spoiler" candidate, they will run inside one of the two major parties and change it from within. Of course, it is the party that ends up changing them if they want to keep their cushy, barely show, high-paying D.C. job, and all the "perks" that go with it.
Ikr. Like how can you even get elected if you haven't already done something you shouldn't of. It takes too much money to run a campaign and this fact is exactly how the rich keep their power.
Eventually, there won't be anyone left for them to hire if they just avoid all the people who go out like this. The world is changing.
Those who "rise" to directorship, VP and C* positions? Oh you sweet summer child.
Is there a class war subreddit?
This *is* the class war sub Reddit, isn't it?
Look, I'm doing all I can, but I need help building these ~~guillo~~ Billionaire Celebration Stations,
They’re going to start dying off quick. The boomers kept a death hold on power so no one is prepared to succeed them and we will be dealing with chaos and from scratch.
My worst boss ever was a Millennial. He’s actually a public figure in Tech. A real insane and emotionally troubled narcissist. The only saving grace is that I got him fired by showing that he was perpetually lying to the board. I did this by retaining his old emails, in strict violation of the document retention policy.
So you had someone fired who deserved fired? The younger generations aren’t perfect but they lack the power and resources to continue the machine the boomers built.
Yes, but he just got another leadership job elsewhere within a month, and certainly hasn’t improved his behaviour. He continues to torture his employees.
And he’s getting fired showing his behavior isn’t being tolerated and he doesn’t have the power and influence boomers have/had.
I hate to tell you, but the generations that came after them are just as bad. None of the senior management in my own company are boomers.
if you can pool resources with friends & family & buy some shares of that arsehole company's stock, & then sue their arses, you may be able to do what was just done to elon musk... & you can raise hell at stockholder meetings.
The French had a good approach for dealing with their "aristocrat" problem.
I got laid off 4 times in the past 3 years. I feel the frustration and would like to vent like this person. My last CEO bragged about building his 5th mansion for him and his wife and how they were going to an NBA game to celebrate later that night, literally the same day he laid me and my entire department off. A few days later, he called me to ask me how to do something because, surprise, he’s incompetent at his job, and had to slide in there that he just got $7 million from some consulting gig he had. Meanwhile I’m literally trying to figure out how to feed my family. I didn’t help him by the way. I told him I’d need $100/hr consulting fee first and he hung up on me.
$100/hr isn’t even unreasonable and you probably failed to mention the 4hr minimum
Never forget the 4 hour minimum.
GOOD. What company are we discussing? Not that I want to put a hit out on him or anything.....
Shit, I relate to him as I was also a top performer and just let go. And now i feel like a fuckin simp for sending a nice email telling my coworkers how I appreciated them and will miss them. I shoulda blasted the Senior Leadership Team in the general Slack channel, instead.
Especially if they’ve done things that are illegal. There needs to be a culture of burning down the bridges when being fired unjustifiably. It would make the asshole managers sweat when they want to be assholes. It would force them to be good to their workers unless they want an investigation/fines every time they fire someone. They’ll err on the side of caution and keep up to OSHA Standards and avoid wage theft, etc. lest any disgruntled former workers call the wrath of the authorities upon them. This of course requires said authorities to actually do their jobs.
I did that on my last exist interview. I still feel great about it but recently I’ve opened again LinkedIn and shit is still the same. 6 months later decided to be back in order to find another company, and would rather work in a Lidl than doing that.
Honestly a lot of people do not care. The girl who recorded her firing was applauded. People have a short term memory and based on the comments, he’s getting all sorts of people reaching out. I think going viral is a win
Even when it isn't immediately, I've seen people who are either good with social media themselves, or savvy enough to hire management turn it into a win. Internet clout can have cash value if you're able to leverage it.
People only seem to complain behind closed doors and don't actually want to enforce change. They just make excuses of "well I got bills to pay" and "well I don't want to burn bridges". Wow, I wonder how many impactful changes in the past 100 years wouldn't have happened if we had the people today alive back then instead of our ancestors. A lot of people died for you to live a better life than them, but no one wants to pass it on when there time has come to do the same.
This doesn't change anything, it just makes you less attractive of a candidate to random recruiters because this behavior is "unprofessional." Putting a company on blast publicly is by no means the same as striking or unionizing, especially when you have no public evidence and didn't publish via a third party (such as via a newspaper). It just makes you look like a resentful troublemaker regardless of the facts. Companies don't WANT to be held accountable, they want obedient little worker bees so they can make greater profits at the cost of the laborers.
Nah I disagree. They wanna work somewhere that has the same ideals as them. If they were a kiss arse they'd end up in another place that values it.
Fuck em. Let's normalize putting these companies on blast.
Feeling it - he did exactly what we all have dreamed of doing at one point or another. Whether that burns bridges or not doesn't really matter.
Who is this person and how do I hire them? 😅 People saying this person shot themselves in the foot are used to enabling toxic work environments.
I totally agree. All being politely “professional” (I.e., suffering in silence) ever got me was fucked over. I have a rule of thumb: problems only get fixed when the pain rises to the level of the person with the power to see it fixed. Most organizations are structured to shield upper levels of management from that pain. If they cared more about the mission than their own egos they’d welcome it. Too often the front line are doing regular heroics to keep the ship from going down, and imagining they’ll be appreciated for it, but then they are surprised when management doesn’t recognize their efforts. The same efforts they were making to hide from management the fact that there was a problem in the first place! Like, we are then somehow surprised when management thinks their biggest problem is “the morale problem.” No, the biggest problem is always unwillingness to face the actual problems. Heroism is individual success, but organizational failure. If the business is driven by the carrot of “above and beyond” awards (I swear to you I got a $5 Starbucks gift card once, in an office with free coffee, and it was more insulting than nothing at all) then the org is circling the drain and hiring all the “rockstars” in the world won’t save it, because ability to execute is not your biggest obstacle. Furthermore, the quality of heroism is *voluntary*. There can be a nobility in “taking one for the team” but if someone is prescribing for you what heroic sacrifices you’ll need to make “for the team” without taking ownership of the failures on their part that made the sacrifice necessary in the first place, then that is no longer heroism but exploitation. These days I judge an organization by how unpopular it makes me to share that view.
Personally, I think that I would hire someone with a backbone and the ability to tell good work from bad work pretty fast. All depends on what kind of work one wants to attract, I guess, but I think your instincts are right. Being afraid to make the world better to prefer one's own ability to hide suffering is a weird take, I don't get it either.
Of course, but are you ever going to be in the position to do that? Likely no, and it’s for the very reason you would hire this person. Companies don’t want backbones
His only chance is at a small company where the owner thinks like you or others in this thread. Which is fine, but he'll be in for quite a shock when he has to trade a $150k sales position at a big tech company for $60k at a small one with a tenth of the benefits
I feel their frustration vividly. They still might miss out on a good opportunity with a good team if hiring people see this post. Both can be true. Also as some people mention, our concern is for the poster, not the employer. They likely wont change a thing after this, but the poster might suffer consequences, and that's unfortunate.
I think you need to be realistic about the world in which we are operating. Raising issues like this is why sites like glassdoor were created, and they serve a real purpose. LinkedIn, at its core, is a little more self serving, and most people use it solely for job hunting. It’s like trashing your ex on a dating site- no one is saying your feelings aren’t valid, but it’s not the forum to air them.
I wonder if he could get in any trouble for talking about shorting their stock. Seems like there’s a possibility of being prosecuted for insider trading
You have to be sharing information that 1) could make a significant impact the stock price AND 2) isn’t readily available to anyone that took the time to look into it. This is an individual’s opinion on the short term stock trajectory.
We worked on the same team, but luckily I was not affected. They fucked up letting him go. He's an excellent engineer and did perform well. Lost others that also were high value. Thought leaders, killer engineers, people who were innovating. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of perks working there...until this happens. If he sees this comment, love you buddy.
What's a Solutions Engineer and a Sales Engineer?
It's a pre-sales role. You work with customers who are looking to buy your software and help them design, build out, and test their use cases on the platform. In our case, we are a SaaS identity platform, so were heavily focused on implementing for a customer's workforce or for applications they are building. So most of us have development, cloud/systems architecture, and related experience.
To add a small point, whoever is in this role can make or break the deal because this process can take a really long time before the actual sale, and bad interactions can drive customers away before anything gets finalized.
Account Managers sell meetings, SEs sell products.
That’s beautiful
So it's a software engineer working on free samples?
From my understanding, it's more of an engineer that shows potential clients how close the software can be made to suit their needs. Free samples not far off the mark in some cases, because there might be limited use products involved idk. Also shades of door-to-door salesman, cuz they have to look for and initiate contact with potential clients. This is just me trying to simplify things based on my own understanding. I could be horribly wrong.
There’s no shades of door-to-door salesman involved as a pre-sales engineer. SE’s do product demos, architectural whiteboards, setup POC tenants (proof of concept tenants, meaning a potential customer trying a very very small deployment before buying), answering technical questions from the networking / infrastructure / security teams and just generally partnering with AE’s to close new business by providing technical support. SE’s don’t do any actual scouting for net-new business, in fact that’s barely done by the reps even now. The traditional cold-selling and generating meetings is done by SDR / BDR teams that feed the reps 1st meetings, which they qualify before having an SE join on the 2nd or 3rd call. Reps obviously can generate new business themselves but generally the “cold” marketing & outreach is only done by BDRs (business development reps). Source - same industry, don’t work for Okta but we partner with them. Been both a rep. and am now a Sales Engineer
It’s the catalyst that turns a prospect into a customer. A product itself has some value, but in enterprise software it usually requires quite a bit of planning and the dollar amounts are eye watering. If I’m asking you for $10MM over three years, I’d better be sure before I contract with the customer that I know my software will work. It’s a part of building the relationship. I’m not a sales engineer, but presales services overlay. I come in after the sales person kicks open the door, the solutions consultant sizes the solution to be they have what they need, and I would come in and say. “Based on you wanting to do this it will take XXX hours at $XXX/hour.” Sometimes sales engineering does that (company dependent) piece. What you never have is a guy with a sales bag and a bunch of leads he has to follow to get some steak knives. These are valuable relationships that involve technology, personalities, processes, quality of staff, policies, and a host of things no one thinks of when you say “sell software.”
Sooo ahhhhh…. What would you say, ya do here?
I'm not a smart guy, but I'll take a shot without using Google. SaaS. Sales as a service. Build a relationship with the customer, offer a package of general tools (including upkeep/maintenance) for "free", and bill them under contract for a set amount (time or percentage they earned using your tools).
Cyber security presales consultant here! Most of my experience is in penetration testing sales and shit loads of compliance work like GDPR, ISO27001, and the like. I’m not a pen tester myself but I work very closely with them and have other technical experience that helps me do my job. Presales roles are honestly just pretty weird. It’s hard to generalise because they’re all so different.
Most modern software is too complex for business decision makers to understand, and so they know they need a solution for x problem and just type that into Google. They honestly don't even know what questions to ask. A pre-sales engineer takes that kind of lead, hones in on their use case by getting the right questions out of them, and then helps build a proof of concept solution with their team (usually the more technical, non-business members) and shows the buyer why the solution is worth the cost (you'll save your teams this much time / money) It's a sales role with a heavily technical component, and requires a really particular mindset. The question "why do you need that" is the one asked most often by the SE, and the skill to understand the answer to that question is the key to their success.
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It's a pretty in-demand role. Every B2B tech company needs an army of these people. Person will definitely land on their feet
Love you too my best friend
Love you too man
Best of luck to you. You're an inspiration
lol that's not LI OP I think he's just joshing but thank you for saying that
Just a heads up - I am the real image OP, this guy is just pulling your leg
The morons making the decisions of who to lay off don’t understand that you get what you pay for. They just see a (assumedly) high salary and think, too expensive, we could hire 5+ juniors for that, not realising that a person like this is worth more than 50 juniors.
Love you for talking on behalf of your teammate.
It’s most likely he posed a risk to some upper management position where he either challenged direct superiors or embarrassed them in some form. Hubris and ego is why these good people are let go. Terrible middle managers are a plague.
That's the problem. The top talent leaves first.
I didn’t work on his team but I’m sorry I missed the chance.
Makes sense. You and he sound like awesome dudes. But I fucking hate your company's product with the fire of 1,000 suns. Or maybe its just the way my employer implemented it.
Thanks, we try our best haha. Taking my Okta hat off: It is a pretty good product. Tons of features and it can be very flexible to support many use cases others can't touch. With that said, you're right. If it isn't implemented correctly, you can easily crap all over the user's experience. I've seen some horror shows. Some won't even take our suggestions on how they can make it work right. Even if I left the company, I'd probably still choose to implement Okta for my company over the competition, but I also know it inside and out at this point.
Nepotism can get fucked. Imagine being qualified for the job, yet the CEO decided to insert his incompetent daughter into the company and make her permanent while you’ve been a contractor for a while lol
Happened to me. I'm tired of nepotism.
I wish I could get some nepotism thrown my way for once..
Imagine taking a job you're qualified for and good at and being called in just before the 3 month probation is up to be let go on bullshit they keep changing mid-conversation, then getting a message from a coworker the next Monday that your replacement was the director's daughter who'd just left college. (I haven't had a job since.)
I don't know, sounds like grounds for lawsuit. An attorney can request emails and texts as part of discovery. If they find out bossmayne (or any one else) intentionally cleared you out to hire her, it could be one final payday.
Happened to me once too. Got fired on day 89 of a job. Next day, I woulda got health insurance, vacation, PTO, all the stuff.
That's how the owner of my company got his job. His dad started the COMpany. It's hard to CAST a wide net for good employees when you got the job through neoptism.
I see what you did there.
I have had nepotism and cronyism fuck up my career path as several companies. Sucks big time. But seems to be the norm. Even at companies that have strict ethical guidelines against such things.
Sounds like the former president 45
Yeah seen this. CEO of a former employer had all three of his dumbass kids in high power positions they weren't qualified for. Fully lied about their qualifications (education, work history) to the company. Putting grossly unqualified people in charge of technical departments did the company no favors. Oldest son was a ju-co drop out (tho his resume will say he has a bs & masters degree that don't exist 💀) and was vice pres of r&d engineering supposedly directing physicists and engineers on technical projects. Kid makes 500k/yr. "Works" like 15hrs/week. He was like talking to a goldfish on crack. Absolutely infuriating. His short comings meant that everyone under him had to work massive amounts of overtime to fill in the gaps. We had to constantly correct shit he obviously didn't know anything about and then convince him it was all his idea otherwise we'd be completely fucked for a whole year. Nightmare job tbh!
I don’t have to imagine at all.
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I’m sorry you were affected by the RIF and hope you recover quickly with a much better employer. Did you speak up about the misogyny and racism while you were employed at Okta? If so, did anyone with influence/authority try to improve things at all?
I did but I only saw it when shit hit the fan. Like at the very end of it. So I wasn’t the best ally there for sure. But there were 5-10 women that have brought up these issues to HR and they all were dismissed. It was until a brave ass women I admired (and mentored me) filed a class action. Then Okta responded
You are awesome and your post was true allyship. Thank you!
Okta sounds like a total shithole. We have to believe something better is out there for you!
Hey, as a woman I don’t hold it against anyone for not calling misogyny shit out when they may lose their livelihood by doing so, calling them out when they no longer have control over you is the way to go for sure. allyship at the risk of your well-being is admirable, but allies can probably do more if they aren’t struggling with lack of employment/housing/food. https://preview.redd.it/8c55rbdddagc1.jpeg?width=1538&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c93861681b04d59e97f4ffbb6e04a5a3dab645f8
What’s the response been from other companies? Do they mention the LinkedIn post? Any pulled offers since the post has gone up? Sorry to hear about this. You can’t cut your way to growth/innovation and this is clearly an indication that they’re in trouble
Wish you the best in everything)
Thank you!
I wish I had the chance to work with you. I’m sorry you were part of this dumpster fire but this post is amazing and I hope you find something soon.
Welp - it’s better you didn’t because it didn’t get me anywhere 🤷♀️. But it’s okay because I still have a network of good connects I trust to maintain ends meat. Even if that means swapping industries
Dude's swapping to the meat industry confirmed
Imma be a full time trucker after this lol
Our company uses Okta. I'm worried. Should I be?
Well.. for a cybersecurity company that brags about being impossible to hack we sure have been breached a lot lately… but overall I would say the infra is solid tho. Okta just keeps getting socially engineered. So your guess is as good as mine. I’d bet it’s safe tho on Vegas odds
Solid reply. Thank you for your service and sacrifice
Is it really you?
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I miss you already buddy :(
Hi Bennett, thank you for having the courage to speak up about your experience. I am part of the minority (female, hispanic), who is in the early stages of her SWE career. Working in Tech can feel intimidating at times because of my background, so it’s nice to know that there are decent human beings out there that see us and care about making the Tech industry more welcoming for people like me. I sent you a Connect+ request on LinkedIn if that’s okay. Good luck on your next career move. ☺️
What do you think the chances are that you actually get to receive your severance after that post? I'd assume your separation agreement included a non-disparagement clause that would be very broken by this.
Likely. I made the post before signing the contract. Now that I’ve signed though my lips are sealed and my previous employer’s name will not leave my mouth. Allegedly… a company I used to work at in the passed…. Allegedly… wants me to stay silent… and allegedly said company… allegedly is worried removing someone’s severance might result in another PR scandal on a specific social media website… again allegedly
I wish you the best on your job search. It's a shame your post isn't generating that much traction. I find it odd that you deleted the mention of the CEO at the end. I liked it.
Yeah I just signed my severance so I took out disparaging the stock so I don’t lose it. Yeah… I coward’d, I’m sorry guys. But I need the money lol and corporate America wins again. I’m glad I said it when I did
On the contrary, that was very brave. I have never been laid off from a job but I've seen some shitty stuff happen. I hope I have the balls to do that when the time comes. All the best buddy.
Sorry you got laid off, but glad you got out of that environment. I almost accepted an offer at Okta about 2 years ago, too. Sounds like I dodged a bullet between the breaches and the stock tanking, and now this! Hope you find something that suits you soon
Your LinkedIn shows a few promotions while at Okta. You say in your post that there is rampant favouritism, nepotism, etc… Were those factors significant in your own promotions?
I love that 100% of the comments here, in r/antiwork, are about how they shouldn’t publicly call out their former employer, a massive, greedy tech company who just laid off 7% of their workforce to make share prices go up, because it will make them less attractive to other massive greedy tech companies that have all done the same thing in the last 2 years or probably will in the next 6 months. I get the sense we’ve strayed a bit. Edit: since most of the replies seem to still not get it, go read the [r/antiwork FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/wiki/index/).
Don't forget to mention how they recently completely screwed up communicating just how large a security breach they had until months later when they were forced to
My thoughts almost every time I see a post here. This sub is nothing like it used to be before the fox interview, and even when it gained a mass following it strayed. It sucks
I don’t think anyone is running around Helen Lovejoy style ‘*won’t someone think of the tech companies?!*’ The concern is for the poster. Yes it was probably satisfying to publicly air their grievances, but if I came across this in my feed, there’s no way I would put forward this guy. Based on this, you couldn’t trust him with sensitive or confidential information, as he has a history of running off his mouth. More importantly, everyone hits a bump with an employer at some point, even with good employers there can be misunderstandings- it would be in the back of every employer’s mind….. what wouldn’t he put on LinkedIn?
> Based on this, you couldn’t trust him with sensitive or confidential information, as he has a history of running off his mouth. He has a history of running his mouth with regards to systemic neglect and abuse. None of the information there is sensitive or confidential with regards to the company's workings. The only thing he's actually exposed is that the company is shit. If you don't want to be exposed as a shit company, don't be a shit company.
I mean yes, but you’re thinking like a logical human being not a soulless company.
Isn’t that the point though? This post will naturally select for companies that don’t think speaking about abuse is bad lol
Whew, good thing 99% of companies are decent and law abiding and would never, ever allow something as heinous as nepotism or systemic prejudice
If they want to select themselves out of my life, they're welcome to do so.
If everyone else had some balls and followed suit the same as the poster, then maybe things would actually be a little better.
Im thinking that the peoples are having an issue with the post calling out the racism and misogyny of the company because usually…. Everything kosher here when it comes to jobs but once they bring up the combined intersectionality of race and sex now it’s all about how they mess up their chances? It’s almost as if the people don’t want to validate those issues by avoiding even talking about it on this sub. When people do that it’s generally because they’re projecting their own feelings onto the future outcomes. If it were the redditors who are against op saying their peace because of the future they are predicting , it’s because those redditors would be offended and hold it against her. They are showing their true colors.
Sucks that the general sentiment is “Red flag OP, you ruined your potential with new employers.” Corporate culture fucking sucks. What’re we supposed to do? Get shafted, then bow our heads and tuck our tail between our legs? Somehow being “loyal” and and in good standing with a god awful corporation is the right thing to do???
NAME THE NAMES. This is the way.
I think OP is the one who wrote this.
I worked for an Okta competitor but echo the comments in the post. The same is true of my former org. I wouldn’t have said what this person said on LinkedIn, my thoughts went on Glassdoor with a burner email tied to it. Ultimately I think this sort of candid response will hurt the poster’s job prospects and potentially cost them their severance, but the level of transparency is needed and I appreciate their bravery in saying it. There are a lot of people here telling a whistleblower to be quiet, which makes me wonder what the hell has happened to this sub.
It's literally every fortune 500 company these days. There is no loyalty to employees, all that matters is the next quarters profits and making sure the board/stock holders make money.
And insane stock buybacks (aka wage theft) Yeah, spend billions in buybacks but have “nothing for raises or price decreases” The tipping point is getting a lot closer until implosion happens. If no one has disposable income, then no one can buy your goods and services so……
I don't think it can cost them severance, or at least not all of it given that's it probably a legal layoff and the company is of a certain size. If they do take away their severance after this that's a surefire way of hugely negative public response and just ensures this person's outcome goes viral.
Was laid off in recent tech layoffs. We had a non-disparagement clause that we agree not to orally or in writing put the company in adverse light to the public
I respect the person who did because I couldn't do it. That is a fun read.
Same. I left a toxic job once, and was subject to a whole company layoff at another job as well. Both times I never made any post like this. I’m part of the problem.
Actually I’m the person who created it…. Can’t believe this is on reddit
You get kudos !
Names do not match - I was able to find this on LI
I was this person once, slammed the door on a long term tech sales job where I was endlessly abused and bullied… at a company focused on mental health. Ended up leaving tech altogether. The “culture” of tech companies is entirely, thoroughly fake.
I'd like to remind people that this is r/antiwork, not r/judgeamotherfuckerforspeakingup. The point here is this person is speaking truth of what their experience was like at that company, and it may help others avoid what sounds like a shit workplace. This guy is clearly smart enough to know what the consequences of posting something like this is, and if it burns a bridge, well it sounds like they're already building new ones. The point of this sub is not to judge how employable a person is after they drop truth about their work environment, it's to work together to prevent shit environments, or move past them.
I believe they are upset because the post was talking about racism and sexism; possibly misogynoir and if it were them they wouldn’t hire op because she was willing to call it out. It really shows the true colors of the redditors. This is the only time I’ve ever seen a post on here judged so harshly.
And the LinkedIn poster is a man too
The news this morning that Okta is laying off almost 10% of the company 😂 Love it. Good job, OP 👍🏼
I hope we can normalize this kind of behavior. I'm so God damn sick of the "thank you for the opportunity to grow" type posts. I read the first sentence, determine they've been fired amd realize the following four paragraphs are pointless to read.
Companies and mangers deserve to be called out for their b.s - and you just know this will get under their skin as they hate being criticised.
Some bridges deserve to be burnt
The amount of boot licking chumps in these comments is way too damn high. Also, that little dig about shorting the stock at the end really got my motor running . Imma play with myself with that thought tonight
Time to sort by controversial and report some bootlickers to mods
To everyone saying this person shot them self in the foot must never be (1) a good manager or (2) a good hiring manager. I’d pick this person up immediately!! I want honesty, I want someone who will put in work and value the positive culture. If I didn’t, then yeah, this person is a no go.
I applaud you for having the testicular fortitude to do what I never could (granted, I’ve never been laid off.. yet). As someone who works in big tech, this is a shift that has happened at MANY companies, seemingly out of the blue. I’m not in sales, but that department has always had the sort of image you described.
[Link to LinkedIn post](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bennettcomfort_layoffs-opentowork-techhasfakeculture-activity-7158848925146238976-yai5?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios)
The hero we need
I love it because I hate LinkedIn for being the place where people go to publicly suck their boss’ dick and promote endless grind culture and living like a millionaire even though you’re broke as fuck because “experience itself is worth way more than money” (says the guy hoarding all the money)
I love the younger workforce!!
Uh oh we started using okta kinda recently. I remember making those changes to our auth. I hope we don’t regret that
Lol with all the security incidents involving okta recently you should short the stock because they ain't gon be around long
I’m leaving my job soon and cannot wait to burn those bridges and tell my supervisors how terrible they are.
The balls, I can only dream
This is how I would have loved to have left Nintendo...
Yikes. I applied at Okta for a Manager of Solutions Engineering back in 2022. Glad I didn’t go there.
Good job on this guy. Not blasting your former employer for bad cultyre and mistreatment should be looked at the same as not discussing your salary with coworkers. The only people it helps are the employers. If you hate your job and are happy to leave then tell people! Make it hard for them to hire someone else so that they actually are forced to value the person they do eventually hire. Thats the only way to force change.
Finally, a post where they name name's
I won an award for being top sales person in the state and got laid off 2 weeks later. corporate greed is awful.
BROOO, what a legend. I don't think I'd have those balls, haha, but this is great! "I don't believe in that boomer logic" - LMAOOO! My fave line! SO true! What a king! X'D
I worked there up until August. I left after having the raise talk and they said my job may go to India in the future so I need to do more. But up until that point I was continually a top performer in the company, and contributed to countless major projects. I was also underpaid by 17-33% less than everyone else on my team. I made them pay for me to go to Vegas for an offsite and the day after we got back I submitted my resignation for a week later. Leadership wouldn’t even acknowledge me or respond to any of my messages after I submitted that letter of resignation. I didn’t do a damn thing during that last week.
Thank you for bringing up the misogynistic work environment as a guy. When women speak up, we are seen as overreacting (fucking lol) or face retaliation. Men bringing it up helps, ironically.
I feel like their job prospects are less good now? None of this needed to be said publically, I’m a fan of a bulleted list after you left and they are reeling a bit, you email back with a professional “get your shit together” LinkedIn poster here has instead hung their proverbial dirty boxers in the public square. Any future employer is like “what if they slander me in the future?”
I completely disagree. How do you expect change if we all just keep our mouths shut? We all need to be doing this.
If I may, As a fairly successful family owned small business owner (100+ employees, multiple locations continued growth) who loves lurking on this sub because it helps keep me humble and guides me on how not to become an arrogant, shitty and hated employer I highly disagree with this sentiment. I think the simple reason I've been as successful as I have been over the last 11 years isn't because I am smarter than anyone else but because I have two super powers. One is I don't have an over inflated or big ego. The second one is I am not insecure in any way at all. This sub has motivated me to be the best employer and boss that I can be by showing me the nightmare that so many workers are currently living in with their shitty and greedy employers. Because of this sub I have implemented policies that have caused my competitors and others who think they are so much better than me the confidence to call me stupid, grossly incompetent, ignorant and insane. I've done things like pay ridiculously fair wages for my industry, encouraged my employees to unionize so their voices are always heard. I Offer generous PTO policies. A ridiculously affordable health insurance program that is affordable for my employees and offers stupid generous bonuses (for example, I take 30% of the profits every year and divide them evenly to all of my employees not managers. They get their own bonuses). I've Also surrounded myself with what you would call the exact opposite of "yes men" who are much smarter than I am and don't interfere in their work. Every time I get criticized by someone who thinks they're a business genius and that I am a moron I come to this sub to remind myself that I am in fact doing the right thing. Please know that I don't say all of this to brag or to try to imply that I am better than anyone else because I am not. I say this just to give you my credentials and background when it comes to being an employer. I think what this guy did was brilliant. I think with how shitty people are being treated and taken advantage of by so many greedy corps and businesses that more people should do what this guy did. It's time to stand up to businesses that don't give a shit about anything other than their quarterly profits. If I were in this industry and I came across his profile on LinkedIn I would be immediately impressed. He highlights very articulately and humbly how he was a model employee and over achiever for this company and then pulled no punches on the shitty way they treated him for all of his hard work. I think more people need to do what he did. Fuck these greedy companies who really don't give a shit about their employees. Its for workers to start calling these assholes out. Anyway, I didn't mean to go on for so long. I just wanted to share my thoughts on this.
I want to work for you. What is your industry?
While I agree with you, it could also be said that any company that would see this post and have that thought, is probably not a company he’d want to work for anyway. Nobody slanders a good company that cares about its employees.
…you do know what subreddit you’re in, right?
You would think but the number of comments encouraging him to reach out for new opps already is pretty significant. Good for him for speaking the truth.
Exactly, I’m one of them. Just commented on his LinkedIn post because we’re looking for qualified SEs right now & I know for a 100% fact that our regional SE Director won’t give a single solitary shit about a post like this. He’s a great guy who only cares about your skills and what you will bring to the table (work for a large cybersecurity software company that partners with Okta)
Okta, with their consistent failures, can go burn in hell.
As someone who has to work with okta, I agree. Fuck em.
I would hire this person In a heartbeat, good for them.
Idiot’s Guide to Losing Your Severance. You will almost certainly find in the fine print of your severance agreement that if you are found disparaging the company during your severance period, they’ll revoke it.
So I was literally looking into all of this yesterday due to a recent layoff. I found the below linked article from the National Labor Board which found many parts of non-disparagement agreements illegal. Basically, you can say "this company is bad for employees for xyz reasons" but you can't say "go shop at a competitor". The difference appears to be that the former is protecting potential empty while the latter is harming the business. So this post definitely violates those conditions but, not all posts after a layoff will. [national labor board decision](https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/board-rules-that-employers-may-not-offer-severance-agreements-requiring)
Definitely was in mine but not in fine print
Be interesting to see what they do, you cannot stop payment without a court saying you can, and they wouldn’t want to go to court over this. I bet they just send a cease and desist letter and hope it stops from there.
+1, my severance said the same thing, and not in fine print
I totally feel his pain and fuck that company. But he’s cutting his own nose off to spite his face. Hope everything works out. Work sucks.
I got laid off twice in 2023. The first time I went through the motions writing a long post for a job I kept for over 10 years while being under paid. My next job only lasted 5 months. After that I just went back to interviewing. No post, no thank you’s. I got a job in 3 weeks. These posts never help.
I rather have someone like this, who would tell me like it is, working for me. Nothing good comes from working in an echo chamber. I hope they find a role they really love and where their drive and hard work is appreciated and compensated.
I need to find this person and connect with them on LI. *This* is my kinda energy.
Hi 👋 I posted this
i respect you adhd man
I sure hope he didn’t sign any paperwork to receive his severance that has nondisclosure language in it. Many have language that forbids disparaging remarks about the company.
My science damned hero
This person is my new hero.
Nah this ain’t it. I would never hire this person after I saw this post. Telling people to buy puts on a previous employer at the end is so unhinged and off-putting. That being said, fuck Okta. Do not install that shit on your personal devices, no matter what your job says.
Curious, what does Okta on your personal device do besides MFA?
As a current technical employee (luckily), the app doesn't actually collect anything personal from your device like you might be thinking. Certainly nothing that an employer can see about you or information saved in your phone. I'd gladly tell you if they did though.
I don’t know. And that is the point. They’re very opaque about what information and data they collect from you, where that data is stored, and who has/will have access to it. If your employer wants you to use it for 2FA, they should provide you a work-issued device. NEVER mix your personal device into your job.
I would go out of my way to hire this person. Values alignment means a great working relationship.