I've worked in several companies. Oracle was my worst experience. Large companies seemthe worst. Lots of politics. Oracle though was much worse than most, really dishonest management. Lots of posts on here about mid mgmt corruption but it appears to be much more than that to me. It appears the entire management stack have a criminal lean.
Mid sized companies I have enjoyed much more. Everyone knows each other but there is enough infrastructure to have a comfortable workplace.
Some people are into startups but I knew of several that were run by cutthroat and corrupt people. Most fail.
9 replies (most recent on top)
Nothing happens if good people with knowledge don't stand up and work together.
Just a few notes to add to my original story of manipulation at this other company.
Separately the victims had no chance. But when united through a legal entity that could put all the facts together they were successful.
Once the legal entity realized the scope of the abuse and that it had affected and traumatized hundreds of people over years they worked towards the end goal without payment until the final judgment.
There are ways to tell after the fact, that certain types of manipulation are used. There are specific types of things to look for. They had to work together to get it done and make it public.
Former officers of a corporation can be held liable for what they did while working there. They would never have let anything become public. That was, in fact, their greatest fear.
They felt that the public had a right to know that this can be done to anyone at any time. Those traumatized had a right to know what had been done to them. It was up to them to make sure it was not swept under the rug. They were true heroes.
Goggle has invested much in AI and wants to be world leader.
AI cannot be trusted. I have seen it create complete garbage.
AI runs on stolen code
I have seen some awful situations in my time at other places too.
One place I worked there were extreme manipulators working in the management. Two former officers of the company came in to clean things up and make it right. Instead they lied to everyone involved about what they were doing. While they cleaned they also covered.
The employees were pi---d about how they were treated. They were coerced into signing ndas and other agreements.
Then they found out that all of the corruption had been reported to the company years earlier by someone else and nothing had been done. Everything that had happened to them could have been completely avoided.
They had the task of finding the original whistle-blower. The ndas were challenged on the basis of public good as the abuse of these manipulators was dangerous not only to future people at future companies but to the families of the abusers and anyone associated with them.
The two former officers, now armed with new knowledge about how to manipulate employees resolved to hire from the pool of manipulators they flushed from the company, and use them to manipulate people for them.
It was a huge mess. All resolved by finding the original whistle-blower. Nothing happens if good people with knowledge don't stand up and work together.
I am too old for start ups
Medium+ is ok, they at least pay on time, provide benefits and there is a hope for work-life balance.
I'm with you there. While I am retired, if I had to go back into the workforce, a startup is not what I would want. On top of the crazy hours, it is as close to a crapshoot as you can get. With loaded dice. Sometimes you get boxcars and hit the motherlode but most of the time you get snake eyes and lose your bet. I have zero desire to work myself into an early grave anymore. And if you think they are always nice and create a supportive team environment, they can be some of the nastiest most ruthless places you can be.
When IPO activity starts again, you’ll probably see some of those smaller employers become medium to large by acquisition. Larger companies will get bigger.
It’s hard to pick an employer by size. That can change due to forces outside your control.
I left Oracle years ago for a 10k person company. At first people were nice, friendly, inclusive, respectful. That ended like 2 months in. The company was filled with race, s-x, discrimination. I will tell you how bad it was. I saw more there in 12 mos than I did in 15 years at Oracle. I was in a GBU at Oracle, but the mgmt at the company I went to....EASILY the worst people I ever worked around. The funny thing was, they knew zero about tech. It was a sad situation. It's scary cause the people there who were doing it, they had no idea how angry people were at them.
I am too old for start ups, cannot do 24h coding crash anymore.
Medium+ is ok, they at least pay on time, provide benefits and there is a hope for work-life balance. Large companies are usually organized as bunch of medium departments / LoB anyway.