This isn’t very holiday feely. Vishal Garg, CEO of Better.com, recent got 900 employees to log in to a Zoom Video call and then fired them all. He told them, “If you’re on this call, you are part of the unlucky group being laid off.” That sounds bad, but I got to thinking about it and I kind of have to give him credit for doing it personally and kind of face to face, albeit on video, instead of an anonymous pink slip. I pulled up the video of that Zoom call. He actually started it by apologizing and saying he didn’t want to do it.
That said, last year he sent an e-mail to employees that said, “You are TOO D*MN SLOW. You are a bunch of DUMB DOLPHINS…SO STOP IT. STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE EMBARRASSING ME.” My main question is, what kind of upbringing did this guy have that he thinks calling people dolphins is some kind of insult? Or maybe “dumb dolphins” is the insult and he thinks calling someone a regular dolphin is a compliment. Perhaps, when he’s in a good mood, he walks around telling people, “Great job dolphin. I love what you did there dolphin. That’s so much better than those dumb dolphins.”