#environment

Most every day, right, there's either a Sr Dir or AD role po$ted. RARELY do you see T3 - T5 postings in either Dig Product or Tech, right? Very few opportunies for promotions, right? I do reckon this company (right) doesn't have its priorities straight. The company should be hiring more of the people who are stressing in the trenches while trying to GSD in such a chaotic/'everything is the the top priority', so do it all' environment. It's becoming quite toxic and unsustainable. But...food truck day....right? Ain't it funny how so many people feel the need to include the word 'right' in every sentence? Or is it just me?

Bunch of people who think they're better than they really are.

So I received 2 inconsistently meets reviews in a row. I started to turn things around, and then I made a mistake. The mistake got my manager in trouble. He's telling me that I will now get another bad review. I've heard that it's 3 strikes and you're out. My manager is telling me that it's up to HR, but I might make it. I asked for a heads up so I could resign before being fired, and he said he couldn't do that. Which way should I jump? I'm an older worker, and the job market is bad enough without the stigma of being fired. I heard from a coworker that if your manager wants to keep you, they can overrule HR. Not sure that's true in the current environment.

Minnesota is again suing 3M Co. over contamination from its products containing “forever chemicals,” this time concerning pollution at its Cottage Grove manufacturing facility.

I will be starting with Vanguard in Plano in 3 weeks. Curious of the culture, in office environment, office amenities. For example, is there a cafeteria? Gym? Do most people work 8-5 in office? I had 3 interviews. 2 managers said “come in at 8, leave at 12:30 and finish the day at home. The 3rd manager said 8-5 is the minimum expectation.

That should tell you all you need to know about how far Nike has fallen…

And hence all the problems. This ain't going to be fixed unless that' fixed.

I don’t know if it is general lack of maintenance in HOU150 or a decline in “you see, you own it” reporting, butI’m seeing sinks that won’t drain, toilets that won’t flush, and a tolerance of broken things that would make Goodwill blush. What gives?

I worked as a developer in the Fusion Middleware area, first on the on-premise tools and later on Oracle Cloud.

My experience at Oracle was extremely negative. I believe a large part of that was because I am female, honest, and a highly competent developer.

Those qualities were not valued in Oracle development. Let me address each of them individually.

Female - There were no female managers or architects in the area where I worked. Management was dominated by Indian men from a culture where women are expected to be subordinate to men, and in my experience that attitude showed clearly. I worked for multiple managers who used the same kinds of tactics. They sabotaged demos I was giving by providing incorrect conference numbers, setting me up to demo on systems with bad network settings that caused slow screen updates, telling me to prepare slides for a two-hour session and then suddenly saying I only had one hour while pretending surprise that I had created slides because I had been instructed to do so. I was also once paired with another manager’s aggressive subordinate, who went first and then claimed I was demonstrating something different from what I had been told, making me appear unprepared.

I was undermined in many other ways as well. I was restricted in what I could work on, excluded from status meetings, denied information, given incorrect information, and subjected to every kind of obstruction imaginable.

Not everyone behaved this way, but enough men did that it became impossible to function normally. I was constantly forced into a defensive position. Although there were a couple of senior managers above me who supported me, my direct managers did not, and they had enough control to make it appear that I was the problem when I was not.

There were a few women I interacted with. Some, like me, were honestly trying to do their jobs. But one woman in marketing appeared to believe it was in her interest to undermine me with the men, and another woman who was very involved with one manager also helped set me up at one point. Because of that, I eventually felt I could not even trust the other women at the company.

Before Oracle, I had been a very successful developer at other companies and had received awards for my work. Oracle has serious cultural problems, and if you are a female developer, I would advise leaving the company. There is a much better life outside of it.

Honest - The managers were, in my opinion, largely incompetent. They were deeply insecure, and even the slightest sign of initiative beyond what they explicitly directed was treated as a threat. From what I observed, this was true of nearly every manager I encountered. They were paranoid, dysfunctional, and operating inside an equally dysfunctional environment. Managers would temporarily align with one another to sabotage employees or other managers they wanted to target. It genuinely seemed like they enjoyed doing this, and that much of their professional world revolved around schemes to damage someone else’s reputation or career.

By the end, I felt as though I was working inside an organized crime operation. The sabotage never stopped. One manager cultivated loyal enforcers who would do whatever he wanted to anyone he targeted. Unfortunately, I ended up under this truly toxic individual. Oracle moves developers around like interchangeable parts, and you often have no control over who you work for. This manager made s-xual comments toward me and treated me in a degrading way. He isolated me from others in the group and refused to assign meaningful work. In my opinion, he was deeply disturbed and manipulative.

Later, he worked with another manager and a woman connected to that manager to isolate me further and pressure me into writing a new application they intended to take credit for themselves.

There is no place for honesty at Oracle. If you want to be a thug and enjoy the idea of operating inside something that feels like a mafia structure, then Oracle may suit you. Honesty will not help you succeed there.

Extremely Competent Developer - If you are a strong developer who wants to build meaningful products and do real engineering work, Oracle is not the right place. I was an excellent developer. Earlier in my career, there were times when my abilities were questioned because I was female, but I was always able to prove myself and earn the trust of the men around me through competence and results.

At Oracle, competence was not appreciated. The managers I worked with valued loyalty above all else, and the people most loyal to management were often the least capable technically. They protected their jobs by flattering managers, attacking other developers, and helping management manipulate or undermine people within the company.

I was promoted once while I was there, but I believe that only happened because of intervention from a senior manager above me. Even while I had support at higher levels, the manager directly above me continued sabotaging me constantly.

I would have left earlier, but I had reasons for staying, so I continued trying to demonstrate what I could do, just as I had at previous companies. None of it mattered. Management remained determined to harass me regardless of my abilities.

I also saw other highly competent developers, including men, targeted in many of the same ways. My impression was that management feared capable developers because they themselves were incompetent, insecure, and uncomfortable with real technical discussions about products or code.

One important thing to understand is that none of this was obvious at first. The managers were skilled at hiding what they were doing until you started paying very close attention. They always had plausible explanations ready, and because you want to be cooperative and professional, you initially accept those explanations and move on.

For a long time, I had an application that I mostly worked on independently, and that insulated me somewhat.

My competence also allowed me to survive there longer than many people would have. My first manager gave me increasingly difficult assignments. Initially, I believed that meant he trusted my abilities. Later, I realized he was escalating the difficulty in hopes that I would fail. I believe he wanted to point to the “incompetent woman” and say, “See, she couldn’t handle the work.” But that never happened because I successfully completed every assignment I was given.

It is a deeply unhealthy place. If you dislike women, will blindly obey your manager, including sabotaging coworkers, and especially if you enjoy attacking people and playing dirty tricks, Oracle may be the place for you.

If you actually want to do real engineering work, almost anywhere else would be better.

https://x.com/TheLayoff/status/2057255874138341712

Fear / uncertainty

• Approximate presence: High before and during notifications

• Examples:

  • Questions about emails
  • “1:1s”
  • Worry about notifications

Anger / betrayal

• Approximate presence: Very high

• Examples:

  • Criticism of leadership
  • Repeated complaints

Info seeking

• Approximate presence: High

• Examples:

  • Severance discussions
  • Notification questions

Speculation

• Approximate presence: Medium

• Examples:

  • Acquisition rumors
  • Nvidia/Cisco discussion

Dark humor

• Approximate presence: Medium

• Examples:

  • Leaderboard jokes
  • “DDAY” framing

Optimism

• Approximate presence: Low

• Examples:

  • Hoping “survivors” can rebuild

Just a P.S.A. that bears repeating: Even though it feels like it would be better to quit since EJ has become such a toxic work place / environment, do not quit. If you do quit on your own volition, you are giving up many legal protections. Make them fire you. Learn the code words for ageism in disguise: "over-qualified," "passing the torch," "new perspective or cultural fit," "fresh energy," "doesn't want to learn the new technology" to name a couple. There are more and the company will dress it up as a compliment.

HR is NOT your friend.

Many people here are so lazy and never want to do any work but want credit for everything, they are always playing games and making things more difficult than they have to be. So many people I interact with are super rude, unpleasant, hate their job and are trying to push their agenda but don’t want to do any work themselves.

Leadership is full of su-k ups who only manage up and don’t care about their team at all. Hard work is only rewarded with more work and the incompetent who play politics stay while the rest end up leaving. Overall I have to say this is a toxic hellhole where people only stay for the money and lack of options turning many into bitter lifers. And who can even blame them when the company is rotten inside out.

This site was once a community and source of knowledge. It’s in a tailspin of conspiracy theories.

• When someone makes a reference to an exec from 3 years ago, and is no longer here. Ignore them.

• When someone makes an outrageous claim like “30% of us will be laid off” - do the math. That would be the largest layoff in USAA history times 3. That’d be nearly 11,000 employees to be laid off this year. They have no details. No sources. Just vague fear and round numbers. Ignore them.

• When someone is posting about a single person every week. Ignore them. That’s an unhinged person.

• We need to collectively stfu about RTO. There’s quite literally nothing we can do about it. The company has moved on. Society has moved on. Every other company has moved on.

OK, so Six Sigma is impressive cause nothing says INOVATION like spending 6 months proving with a laminated chart that people occasionally make mistkes... then assigning Greek letters to the revelation so it feels scientific.

its greatest achievement is turning common sense into a certification ladder... where every workplce problem can be solved by a belt-ranked priesthood... armed with acronyms, control charts, and the spiritual conviction that if a process still fails it simply has not been measured into submission hard enough...

So, yea - Six Sigma is the way to go...

They say it’s about walking around your vehicle, but the truth is you’re not doing anything on camera cone.

Looks like Pete decided to depart for family commitments just 2 days after the DOJ wanted to depose him, I guess a golden parachute is better than an orange jumpsuit! This is not the same as the other CMS pending case for failure to comply with reporting and the nearly billion dollars in historical payments being set aside.

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/legal-regulatory-issues/elevance-senior-executive-fights-doj-deposition-bid-in-medicare-advantage-fraud-case/

“According to an April 27 letter filed with the court, the government said it first contacted Elevance about deposing Mr. Haytaian on Feb. 24, two days before the company announced his departure.”

“The MA case in which Mr. Haytaian is being asked to testify was originally filed in 2020. The government alleges Elevance (then Anthem) violated the False Claims Act by knowingly failing to delete inaccurate diagnosis codes it submitted to CMS for risk adjustment purposes, instead using a retrospective chart review program to identify additional codes that could generate higher MA payments. The complaint describes the program as “a cash cow” that generated more than $100 million per year in additional revenue during certain periods.”

The title says it all and we know the truth. This mess of a company can be best described by toxic, dysfunctional, hostile, depressing to be around and bad for ones health. If it was a family it would be a toxic, dysfunctional one with violence and hostility. as a relationship it would also be toxic and dysfunctional headed for divorce or separation. a civilization based on exxon would be doomed and fighting within itself. The exxon civilization would collapse upon itself as a corrupt empire. Only the ones who have suffered at exxon know the horrors of working at this toxic, vile , disgusting monster of a company.

The cliquishness/exclusivity is strong, and managers operate on fear-based leadership. Where is the psychological safety?!

Being hated by id--ts is the price you pay for not being one of them. I am talking about the professional button pushers, fakers, day traders, boot lickers, stall dwellers, adulterers, gossipers and the lovely rotten rest. Only to get fresh batch of out of the state yokels and travelers to expand the goofball, making me despise whatever this company means and whatever they want to project.

I'll keep smiling, waving and cashing my checks while having my cake and eating it too. Because i can, there is nothing you can do and is way too much fun just to miss out.

Why are we pushing to adopt a self destructive technology?
https://youtu.be/F-6la_I-xkQ

There's absolutely no Dell branding, it's straight out of the box, looking like it came out of 1980 design book, but this is Oracle's 2019 Redwood design that Dell adopted https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIyp1AWqsZM . It's absolutely horrific to look at!!

Every round of cuts here goes after the people who keep things running. The ones who know the systems, who have the relationships, who fix problems before anyone notices them. The dead weight somehow always survives. They are not cutting fat. They are cutting muscle.

Instead I'm spending my evenings learning everything I can AI-related and working on a new certification. I don't know when hiring will pick back up, but I want to have my resume ready and my skills updated when it does. That's about all I can do as we all wait to be laid off.

Has anyone heard of what happened?
https://x.com/i/status/2049952933144563840

I thought moon lighting was against the bofa politics.

They brought in our new boss from Walgreens and his boss is also from Walgreens. We kept an open mind but he is a ja----s and fake a--hole! And we will have to score our reviews with good grades since they can tell who scored them and how we answered. So we are fu---d once again! I have a friend at Walgreens and he said most his people hated him and they always had security problems. We already had that theft of laptops here in VH that made the news and it is only going to get worse. This place su-ks a-s!

The GoT quote to describe Elavon is “the night shift is dark and full of terrors”. Everyone is looking out for themselves.

So mismanagement loses the Marriott account and immediately out come the travel cuts! I don't think we will T&E our way out of this poorly run company! Does stopping manager travel and meetings, training events, back filling roles send the right message? How about stripping Senior Leaders bonuses? Those bloated million dollars payouts for poor performance? And if you say we will lose them so be it there has not been a strategic decision made in over 5 years! Funny how we blow smoke up everyone's butts on Town Halls but behind the scenes we do this cr-p!

I wish all our customers could see the amount of money this company spends on the convention. I work on it and see the amount of money and entitlement. Over $100 million, luxurious suites, personal drivers for execs, alcohol flowing, private concert (Pink) and arrogance on full display. They share the same message every convention, unveil new commercials and act like it’s all new. We are modernizing, get ready. My wish is they would get called out for spending policyholder money to throw a party for themselves in Las Vegas.

Are you id--t enough for that or should you demand pay more with do less ? Which do you prefer if you decide to stay at ShitTel ?

I keep hearing this CEO and management saying it’s all about the customer . Focus is on the customer and their experience. Yet I deal with a lot of customers daily for years and not one of them ever says they enjoy dealing with Ai when calling in or speaking to someone outsourced they don’t understand. It’s really odd how you say it’s about the customer but nothing you’re doing is going to benefit the customers. Letting go of 25-30k people … that’s gonna positively affect 1 thing … the CEO bank account in 3 years … it will make the customer experience dealing with verizon worse . Cellphone signal has gotten horrible in last 5 years since they sold off towers …. Are they investing to fix it ? Expanding Fios without govt welfare? Verizon is now one of the most toxic work environments out there …. It used to be just inside culture but it’s taken over the whole company . Greed at the top is disgraceful as they sc--w the thousands that built Verizon

Absolutely no point in taking the survey or participating in anything Chevron related. Its a completely dead company so who cares. Back to operation bare minimum effort!!!

I have been laid off after more than 20 years as a physician. It was a huge shock, with no warning—just an invitation to a Teams meeting! Inhumane! On the other hand, it was a relief after working nonstop in a horrible, toxic environment and wondering every day how much longer I could tolerate it. If you still work at Optum/WellMed clinic-leave!—do yourself a favor and don’t waste your time waiting for the next layoff.

Mandatory distribution of performance reviews will always lead to cutting those with institutional knowledge. As one moves up, the number of people you are distributed against becomes smaller and smaller.

At some point, you are no longer talking about high performers and low performers, but those who are liked better. When the company then uses those reviews to decide who to cut, they are making a big mistake. It results in cronyism.

As you already pointed out, this is rampant in this company. Here's to hoping I get chosen for severance next time.

This company is headed for the trash heaps of history.

There’s an interesting parallel between what happened at Oracle and what seems to be unfolding at XOM. Oracle initially tried to cut costs by aggressively offshoring technical work, which created short‑term savings but also eroded internal capability. Later, when the AI wave hit, they had to rebuild expertise they had previously hollowed out.
XOM looks like it’s following a similar pattern: first pushing a low‑cost labor strategy, then suddenly pivoting toward AI without having the internal technical depth to support it. The result is the same structural tension.

how r those boys doing up there? used to install wellheads 4 days a week we were busy busy

Teams have been gutted, some repeatedly, by layoffs and reorgs that solve nothing. Yes, talent is expensive. But when you're too lazy to cut strategically and just go for the simplest savings, you shed the people you actually need. Meanwhile, the endless turmoil ki-ls morale, ki-ls commitment, and ki-ls any chance of long-term planning. Chaos like that always turns out to be far more expensive in the end.