The environment at this company was hostile from day one and the hostility stems directly from the COO. Within a few weeks of your start date, all new hires are subjected to a "First and Last Free Lunch." The message the COO issues during this event, which is very clear (especially after you sit through three or four of them) is that everyone will be nice in the beginning, but after a few weeks, don't expect the same level of support. So from the moment you walk in the door, the message is crystal clear that the company has no intention of providing the support or education you need to succeed in your position, which is particularly distressing to employees coming from organizations that don't specialize in networking.
While I was working for Talari, my father fell ill, and they gave me the latitude to work from home and from my father's hospital room which is par for the course now that over 50% of the workforce telecommutes. When the layoffs started, in his haste to jettison people before the end of Q1, the COO insisted on scheduling a GoToMeeting at a time when all parties on the call (including my manager and the HR representative, both of whom have since left the company) knew I was working from my father's hospital room. I was laid off in front of my dying father who was ventilator dependent in the presence of his physical therapists and a nurse. The COO made it clear that the layoff had nothing to do with my performance or my dad's illness and that it was a decision based on the company's financial performance.
If a COO doesn't have the compunction to find an appropriate time to call an employee for a delicate conversation, what do you think the atmosphere in the office is like? My father and the hospital staff were mortified by how I was treated, and after the call, my dad turned to me and called the COO "a monster."
After the mass layoffs, the rate of attrition hit a new high as a significant part of the engineering team left voluntarily (some without jobs awaiting them).
