News of layoffs continued in January, with CNN, Citigroup and Microsoft all seeing cut roles alone this week. Usually, these notices are pretty standard-heavy on legalese and light on cartoons.
But that wasn’t the case at Lane, a payments software company that laid off 300 workers on Monday. Some employees in various affected roles (product, operations, engineering) were notified with an illustration of a cartoon duck. The dates on the termination notices were also incorrect.
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The description was sent as a PDF attachment and said “USA-California Duck”. Business person Kor received the image of a yellow duck from the staff in the chat.
“The ones that were thrown were completely blown away,” one employee reportedly wrote.
The software company Strip this week included 300 employees and a picture of a duck in an e-mail that was cryptic and confusing.
This was clearly a blocking rhyme, one of the biggest ##Stripe They said 300 people … pic.twitter.com/oeiiwhkwou
— Mark C. Crowley (@markccrowley) January 23, 2025
A lane representative explained Business person These follow-up emails went out to affected employees.
“I apologize for the error and any confusion it may have caused,” he said. “Corrected and full notices have since been sent to all affected lanes.”
Related: Citigroup eliminated more work this week. Roles affected here.
Stripe is valued at $70 billion in the private markets, according to CNBC.
Despite the cuts, McIntosh said the company “will not be hiring” and will increase its workforce to 10,000 this year.