WTF?! Getting laid off is one of the most unpleasant experiences anyone can face, but digital payment software giant Stripe managed to make it even worse. The company is laying off 300 people this week, some of whom received a PDF image of a cartoon duck in the emails giving them the bad news. If that wasn’t enough, affected staff also received an incorrect termination date.
Stripe laid off 300 employees, equivalent to around 3.5% of its workforce, on Monday, with most of the roles in the product, engineering, and operations departments.
Business Insider reports that some of these employees received a PDF file attached to their termination emails. It showed a cartoon yellow duck with brown feathers, along with text that read “US-Non-California Duck.” Adding insult to injury was the fact that the email contained the wrong termination dates.
Stripe confirmed to Business Insider that the image of the duck was not a misguided attempt to lessen workers’ pain upon hearing they were being let go. Like the incorrect dates, the duck’s inclusion was a mistake on the company’s part.
Stripe said that it intends to increase its head count by around 10,000 people by the end of the year. The statement was likely meant to draw attention away from the 300 people laid off and its penchant for including Disney-like waterfowl in termination notices.
Employees were understandably unimpressed by the incident, noting on an internal Stripe group on the Blind app that it was another “indication the comms to those laid off were flubbed completely.” One jokingly suggested making a slack emoji of the duck.
The story brings to mind other instances of terminations that were made worse by those implementing them, such as the Better.com boss who fired 900 employees during a three-minute Zoom call, and the CEO who got rid of 90% of his employees, many of whom were unpaid, for missing a meeting.
We’re only a few weeks into 2025 but there have already been some big layoffs at tech firms, including Meta laying off 5% of its workforce and Microsoft making performance-based cuts. A recent report found that the IT job market declined for a second consecutive year in 2024, though AI and cybersecurity roles remain in demand.
