Thread regarding Oracle Corp. layoffs

When will they fire Tim Zuch? He’s a cancer to Oracle.

Merit increase freeze su-ks. RSU cliff is worse. Dry promotions hurt morale the worst. Hope your team doesn’t have to suffer from that.

@bn I went to an internal team meeting, they demoed a new initiative with AI - a literal GPT chatbot. In the midst of the customary "looks great" feedback I could sense that everybody in the call including the demoers knew 100% that we are as gen z says cooked and ngmi.

My team is reading the book “5 languages of appreciation” and dedicating 1 chapter to review biweekly. Give it a try! Love the team and our manager! Our work and accomplishments are always outstanding.

The words above I could have written myself - this is so true ...

"the team was energized by AI initiatives, but it quickly turned into internal fighting over recognition"

Everyone wants the "win" of the first kick-a-s AI innovation, and execs seems to believe AI is a push button "make it AI", when in reality we forget the age old project management mantra of "project management" - read requirement - initial spec - etc...

Great commentary.

@ba Late? Been checked out for last 2-3 years now.

@b9 You learned it even though you are late. why would you work your a-s of though? Thats your insecurity driving it...

Worked my a-s off on critical prototypes, implemented the critical service components, stayed up late to extinguish fires... just to be told yet again "you are doing alright but others were more visible than you". That's when I stopped and now do only bare minimum. Every year there was a lame excuse why not to bring my base into the band for my level and no refreshers.

@ac, Nashville is totally a different stuff. Put in simple words, people are not working and are already prepared for the layoffs. They are just waiting for their turn.
Oracle might have money to build a Data center. But It never had/has talents to build new things from scratch. We have been doing lots of toy projects, tools and now those too are getting affected with this AI automation. AI can't change a product drastically but it kicks supporting tools & teams where lots of families survive.
In fact, the slacker's you mentioned are the top-tier talented I was mentioning. Its just they keep quiet without going extra mile waiting on benefits or better opportunities outside. Unfortunately I had to layoff people who tried jumping another team or who lost motivation. Even though I tried retaining them. All my time is spent on keeping the projects in Status quo rather than thriving forward.Things were fine till last Sept. Atleast we gave hope of survival in Oracle. Now with Layoff rumors, I see the culture is getting shattered.
Usually product companies are known for innovation, taking risks, creativity and always going an extra mile. But Oracle has become a maintenance hub. Just acquire other companies , copy competitors, acquire their employees. No Organic growth.
Last year there was heavy push for moving stock price above 200 and it happened. But the whole efforts collapsed like falling dominos. I am sorry I had to leave. But I wish good luck for the rest.

Was laid off in Sept lucky I sorta got a heads up so started looking
no takers during that period but when I got laid off it vamped up and
got a job quick sorta like we wonder why your leaving to its ok looking for a job
now since your laid off.
I am happy now received a job if you believe it , more pay and up the ladder two steps, i would now be my bosses boss. I always heard they pay more outside of cerner / oracle
and they do!
What I am really happy about is I got laid off just in time, wouldnt be fun going against 30k people trying to look for a job.
my payout was great more than they had to pay out actually. so my bank account ended up profiting because my job started right away. hope everyone else finds a job quick wont be the last of the layoffs. I wont be surprised if they get rid of the area i was working in altogether.

Once again, poor management. Indian class hierarchy in effect. Those rewarded are….
Best of luck.

I’ll say that some management brought in last couple of years isn’t helping. Oracle is a relationship biz and the KM/TZ/KJ style isn’t working but they don’t care. They just have easily bruised egos and use titls to what they want and they su-k at closing.

I’ll be honest if I’m still left after you lay off my buddies I will check out too and do the bare minimum.

Yeah, people here have been saying similar things, thanks for sharing from a manager's perspective. The aggravating thing here is that it's all so predictable, what's happening to morale and the remaining employees' attitudes. Of course they're scared, and they're learning just how little they and their efforts are valued by the company. We're also learning how little the customers are valued - customers who pay to use the company's products. It's not helping that performance isn't totally a factor in who gets cut. I've seen skilled engineers with desperately needed expertise being let go, no doubt because of the size of their salary. There's no predicting where the axe will fall, so what else are employees supposed to do but check out. It's self-preservation, because even if they busted their backsides, it won't save them.

The insanity is mind-boggling, committing all that money to build a data center for another company to the point of gutting your own company to do it. Then wanting to construct a new building for their new world headquarters in Nashville. NASHVILLE!. Nothing wrong with Nashville, but it's not a tech hub, who are they going to get to work there other than people who are willing and able to relocate? WHY? So they need to build OpenAI's data center and construct a new world headquarters building, so cut more head count to be able to do it. Madness.

AI is totally inadequate to do the jobs of the employees that are being let go, so support for the products is suffering. Unless they have humans there to check and correct the work, AI is generating faulty code that is not maintainable.

We're watching a very large corporation self-destruct in real time, and I'm wondering where is the board of directors? Are they on board with this? Nobody to overrule LE's decisions on this?

What differentiated them from their colleagues who were let go? Are they really producing less than they were before? Or, did your group simply lose a similar percent of production proportional to the impact of the cuts with a tax for synergy? Any sufficiently large team will internally differentiate certain tasks, are there any tasks which were informally done by someone who is no longer there to do it? Lastly, a motto I learned about 30ish years ago.....no one gets fired in a layoff mentality.

When your in professional limbo just waiting for it to end, some people will buckle down and focus on the job; some will focus on themselves; some will just drift. In reality they all will do each of the above in different percentages, but its harder and harder to take management seriously when you watch colleagues who spend most of their time drifting which is basically doing anything but their job and there is no repercussions for it. You know, or at least hope that they are being kept to fill a slot in the next round of layoffs which will inevitably. You basically know that with the current climate if they are dismissed now, you won't be able to replace them and you would likely still need to lose someone in the next round regardless. So, you, tolerate the slacker because management won't get rid of them and even if they did you wouldn't get anyone else and they will be the sacrifice in the next round.

Still, you can't but help be impacted....and since you know who is likely to be lost in the next round of layoffs whenever those will be, you now have a target. If you're more productive than the slacker, you won't be the lowest performer. You also start to guess, you know how many you lost in the last round and you have a general idea how much work you have. So, if you think you might only lose one person next time, then you're all set, if you might lose 2 then you aim a little higher.

Ok