The self-righteous CEO of a cloud computing company, PagerDuty was slammed on social media for quoting black civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr’s inspirational remarks after firing her employees.
Recently, Jennifer Tejada sparked outrage among netizens on social media after she sent an email to employees, announcing layoffs that included MLK’s inspirational quote.
According to the reports, Tejada reportedly announced in the email that the company is planning to refine its business structure which includes the cutting of 7 percent of its global workforce.
“We expect to finish the year strong – in fact, we have reaffirmed our guidance for FY23 today – and those results, combined with the refinements outlined above, put PagerDuty in a position of strength to successfully execute on our platform strategy regardless of what the market and the macroenvironment bring,” Tejada said.
‘Tone deaf’ PagerDuty CEO Jennifer Tejada quoted MLK in layoffs memo https://t.co/1A2fdhdjn8 via @MailOnline— Bo Snerdley (@BoSnerdley) January 28, 2023
“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,” Tejada added.
Reports revealed that the 7 percent “refinement” was referring to the company, firing about 66 people out of the 950 that it had hired a year ago.
Following the announcement, Tejada sparked outrage on Twitter, with netizens calling her email “the most tone-deaf layoff email” they had ever seen.
“The most tone-deaf layoff email I read so far … comes from PagerDuty CEO Jennifer Tejada. The email is very long, and feels like it was written by an AI that took all the phrases that people usually say, and put it one long email,” Gergely Orosz said in a statement.
“Did Pagerduty seriously decide it was a good idea to quote MLK in a press release where they are laying off 7% of their workforce?” Pete Cheslock asked.
“Maybe don’t quote MLK when firing 7% of your workforce?’ Noah Chestnut reportedly suggested.
“All time classic bad layoff announcement: CEO of PagerDuty opens with ‘Hi Dutonians,’ takes 370 words to get to the layoffs bit, continues for another *1250 words*, and ends with ‘I am reminded in moments like this, of something Martin Luther King said” Tom Gara argued.
