"Hey, you're laid off. Click": US former employee speaks out after mass firing via Zoom

Record ID: 1650757

  • Title: "Hey, you're laid off. Click": US former employee speaks out after mass firing via Zoom
  • Date: 8th December 2021
  • Summary: MCKINNEY, TEXAS, UNITED STATES (DECEMBER 8, 2021) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) BETTER.COM EMPLOYEE FIRED BY ZOOM, CHRISTIAN CHAPMAN, SAYING: "He's just sitting there and words start coming out and it was like somebody sucked the oxygen out of the room and you start thinking 'Am I hearing what I think I'm hearing right now? Is that really happening? Wait. Is this for me? Wait. We were just talking about our holiday party - am I being terminated? Maybe that's for them. I'm a trainer. We've got two meetings and you're trying to listen to what's happening and what's being said and then it shuts off and in the confusion, I'm jumping on Slack saying 'Hey, are we being laid off?' and then my world crashes and by that I mean they shut down our computer, shut down our Slack, shut down our mobiles with the Slack, shut everything down so the community that I surround myself with, what I would consider my family, my fellow trainers that we've worked with non-stop, we can't even talk to them."
  • Embargoed: 22nd December 2021 22:56
  • Keywords: 900 people Better.com Christmas Zoom firings social media viral
  • Location: MCKINNEY, TEXAS, UNITED STATES; INTERNET
  • City: MCKINNEY, TEXAS, UNITED STATES; INTERNET
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Economic Events,United States
  • Reuters ID: LVA002F76IKW7
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Last week, Christian Chapman received his marching orders from better.com during a mass firing of 900 people via a Zoom call. This week, he was unwrapping a holiday care package from the company.
    In a video he shared with Reuters on Wednesday (December 8), Chapman is seen opening up a package that contained a mini trophy and a certificate awarded to him and signed to "The Big Apple."
    The present came after last week's firing that he said: "sucked the oxygen out of the room".
    Video of the incident went viral online after someone recorded the Zoom call, during which Better.com chief executive Vishal Garg laid off 9% of the company's workforce, citing the market, performance, and productivity as reasons behind the decision to fire employees in the United States and India.
    Chapman, a father of five from McKinney, Texas, recalled the meeting in an interview with Reuters. He said he was struck by the isolation from his colleagues he couldn't say goodbye to after the company remotely shut down their laptops, their Slack channel for communicating, and cell phones.
    "When you're completely shut out of your system, you're Zooming, we're Zooming and imagine, 'Hey you're laid off - click', there's no resolution, there's no grab your stuff from your desk. You're still sitting at your desk. Nothing goes away. The laptop's still there, it's black. It's still there," said Chapman.
    Garg, who has come under intense criticism, wrote an apology letter dated Tuesday (December 7), saying he had "blundered the execution" of communicating the layoffs.
    "I realize that the way I communicated this news made a difficult situation worse," Garg said in the letter.
    Better.com said in May it would go public through a merger with blank-check firm Aurora Acquisition Corp, in a deal that valued it at $7.7 billion.
    Earlier this month, the terms were amended to provide Better.com with half of the $1.5 billion committed by SoftBank immediately, instead of waiting till the deal closed.
    Chapman called the move a failure of capitalism and called Garg's letter "PR."
    "I think it's a lack of empathy. I think it's the quintessential corporate top percentage saying 'I'm choosing numbers over people' and I think it struck a chord with everybody saying 'Aha, see? I told you, they don't care, they don't care at all,'" he said.
    Founded in 2016 and headquartered in New York, Better.com offers mortgage and insurance products to homeowners through its online platform.
    Chapman said December and January are typically dead months in the industry, so he wouldn't be able to look for another job right away. His wife works for a non-profit organization.
    (Production: Nathan Frandino, Rollo Ross)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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