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Oracle slashes 30k jobs

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Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#601

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

jimkleiber wrote: post #484
Aurornis wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my past employers tried to give laid off employees a dignified send offs including not immediately revoking their access. The number of people who snap and make rash decisions to try to exfiltrate data, plant backdoor logins for themselves, or sabotage company work in those hours was a much larger number than I would have guessed prior to seeing it.

Maybe the solution is to not do mass layoffs. Not sure there's a dignified way to let go of many humans at the same time with almost no reason for why they're being let go except maybe a vague profitability scorecard. And also to expect and manage people snapping and giving them an off-ramp, financially but emotionally as well and maybe professionally, too. Why not try to help them find other jobs? Companies don't ju…

Yeah, but of that list, the only thing I want my employer to provide me is the money. The rest I can do on my own.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#602

Post by rustystump »

jimkleiber wrote: post #509
rustystump wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrary to what people may think, the most humane way is a fast clean cut. Drawing it out in anyway doesnt help anyone. This does assume communication is clear about employee next steps for HR related tasks. This is also why in the other direction a fast clean cut works too. I mean if they want two weeks of “work”, i always consider that severance. The fast clean cut is true in all industries. Drawing it out only ma…

It sounds as if you're describing how to humanely kill a living being. There are alternatives to killing things and I don't think fast clean cut is true in all industries. I think people want it to be true because then it hides away the complexity of the emotions we feel. Just cut it off and pretend that the cutting off won't bother us or them after the event. I think that strategy may appear helpful but just buries…

Killing is an escalation to what i said.

The reality is the layoff decision has been made. There is no undo. It is better to cut cleanly as it allows people to move on faster than drawing it out.

The best thing for the most people is to help them move on to the next gig quickly.

The people u work with bosses included, are what make or break this. In my experience, people help one another. I have seen ceo’s push resumes of people let go to other execs in their network. This is outside company policy or communication for legal reasons but not everyone is dirt bag.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#603

Post by kpil »

lateforwork wrote: post #552
kyledrake wrote: post #157

The bulk of the comments in here are focused on comparing Larry Ellison to a lawn mower, so I'll try a new tack and say that I'm genuinely confused at what the value prop of Oracle is. Given the history of their business model being licensing of important databases that are hard to switch off of, I've actually made a point to avoid using Oracle as much as possible (even so far as to leave MySQL when they acquired it,…

Oracle database has unparalleled scalability. Ask someone who works at Microsoft SQL Server division what their bug database looks like. They will tell you that a single SQL Server instance cannot scale to the entire SQL Server division. Oracle on the other hand has a single database for the entire company. No other database is this scalable. But Oracle is not just a database company. Oracle started as a database com…

I'm actually impressed by the amount of abuse our Oracle instances are able take from our developers.

Massive amounts of parallel single reads and writes with millisecond responses mixed with mega-joins of incorrectly indexed tables that works flawlessly "on their machine" that limp on well enough to sneak past performance testing with just the planner silently writhing in agony.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#604

Post by ifwinterco »

8ytecoder wrote: post #550
seanhunter wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short answer: today I think there is genuinely nothing that anyone should use oracle for, but their database used to be seriously far ahead of the competition. A very long time ago (circa 2000) there were basically 2 databases that worked for use cases where you needed high availability and vertical scalability and those were Oracle and Sybase and Oracle was really the only game in town if you actually wanted certain…

We were building a payments system in the early 2000s and got a diktat to not use Oracle. The amount of things we had to build to satisfy the availability and durability requirements were so huge it consumed the first few years of work. We didn’t get to the business side of things until much later. Funny thing is we ended up giving up on MySQL and went back to oracle after all that work. The whole thing was scraped a…

We should really be more thankful for the existence of PostgreSQL

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#605

Post by brailsafe »

jedberg wrote: post #261

My Amazon layoff notice came at 5am. Same deal. I thought it was fake because it came to my personal email. Then I logged into my work computer and found that all my email had been erased except for a copy of the layoff notice and an invite to a 10am Zoom with HR. The funny part was the invite had everyone who had been laid off in the To: line. I was able to send internal only emails until 1pm, and then it logged me…

I've been laid off or fired ~7 times, in slightly different ways, some more humane than others, and it's quite a... traumatizing/colouring experience that stays with you from that point forward, even when I was over the job anyway.

I once had my access cut off while I was working late, albeit from a much smaller company. Got to go to sleep knowing I didn't have an income in the morning. Incidentally, in retrospect I'm glad they made the decision for me, since I eventually was forced to leave my awful hometown in search of greener pastures, so it's not always a bad thing long-term, and I ratted them out to the tax man which I'm sure they had fun with.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#606

Post by keeda »

Huh, layoffs in India? That's weird, because most tech companies are freezing headcount and laying off people in the US and increasing headcount in India. I wonder if that says something about the prospects of NetSuite, which is the org they've been cut from...

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#607

Post by oblio »

Izkata wrote: post #510
tombert wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an economist, but I have heard that there's an argument to be made the easy firing also makes it so that it's easier to hire too, so it creates more jobs. That's one of those things that sounds like bullshit, so I don't know that I believe it, but that's what I've heard anyway.

The other part is that at-will goes both ways: you can just walk out of a bad job with no legal repercussions. Not always the best idea due for social/professional ones, though.

That argument is definitely BS, though.

What do you think happens in the most restrictive labor market in Europe? We're not slaves. There is a short notice period, usually 1 month or even shorter (notice periods for companies are longer, usually double or longer).

And if it's a bad job people just phone it in, take medical leave, etc during their notice period.

Hardly the end of the world to last 1 month.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#608

Post by oblio »

xXSLAYERXx wrote: post #591
jimkleiber wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if companies understand the emotional impact on the laid off and the layoff survivors. It almost seems like a terror campaign, whether intended or not.

When i was first laid off during the dot com bust I was working on a sales floor. All open no cubes. We didn't know layoffs were coming. Manager walks in and taps this one guy on the shoulder, says grab your personal things and come with me. Manager came back in did the same to a few others. Then it was me. Talk about embarrassing! Also, was 2 weeks before quarter ended. If you were not working for the company at the…

Don't worry, big companies are doing similar things now.

Layoffs after the main activity period is over, laying off HR people after they held layoff meetings for other departments, etc.

Reptiles.

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#609

Post by nubinetwork »

jollymonATX wrote: post #208
imglorp wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels correct. Their business model is squeezing anyone who can't migrate off their properties and suing the rest. Why would go $58B in debt to support a new feature that no one will want after alienating everyone above?

They have not pulled the pin on the ZFS grenade yet, but I expect at some point it happens.

I'm not sure Larry would be interested in suing Matt Ahrens (one of the original designers), or a handful of LLNL employees (ie the US government).

Re: Oracle slashes 30k jobs

#610

Post by outside2344 »

kyledrake wrote: post #157

The bulk of the comments in here are focused on comparing Larry Ellison to a lawn mower, so I'll try a new tack and say that I'm genuinely confused at what the value prop of Oracle is. Given the history of their business model being licensing of important databases that are hard to switch off of, I've actually made a point to avoid using Oracle as much as possible (even so far as to leave MySQL when they acquired it,…

They do own some vertically integrated products like PeopleSoft that use these lower level foundational pieces. But I agree, I don't know why anyone in their right mind would use Oracle outside of golf and sailing bribes.
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