We all knew layoffs were coming and the leadership didn’t put too much effort into hiding this, so I can’t say I’m surprised, but what I am surprised about is the way they were doing and what employees were targeted. From what I see, among the folks that were laid off was a majority of the ones that did their jobs well and in that way gave their contribution to the state that the company is in not being even worse. Meanwhile, the ones that gave their contribution to the downfall of the company apparently got to stay. Seems to me that this is not very wise move, aside from being unfair and somewhat perfidious.
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This is what I have seen. Each manager in my area had a couple of "yes"-men/thugs that worked for them. The goal of those managers is to keep those people, no matter what. So, you when you see a team of people where the 2 good developers are laid-off and the weak one is kept, it's the weak one that is important to the manager. The other 2 are dangerous to him.
A manager like this is stupid and incompetent beyond belief. They believe they will just hire some cheap people somewhere to replace the 2 people who are gone. They will find out it doesn't work like that. There is actual knowledge in the people who left.
It's really all a game of thugs to the managers who work like this. Probably, the credit for what the other 2 people were doing was given to the guy that was "weak" when the manager talks up the chain of command.
We think, as developers, that the management we work for understands what we do and believes that it is important, but if you have a manager like this, they seriously are too stupid to understand that. You are working inside a mafia-like organization, where the manager is intensely insecure and feels that the only way for him to succeed is to have people around him that will lie with him. He will give credit to anyone who will do that for him, eliminate anyone who won't, but use them for the time-being.
I don't understand the logic of the layoffs.
In my group, IDC was hit hardest. One theory is that TK hired many IDC workers, so laying them off was either payback, a move away from the "low-cost geography" strategy, or both.
In the US, one worker who was laid off was the last one hired. The other was a long-time employee who performed well. Much dead wood was kept and good wood thrown out.
I was notified the day before that of an employee on the list -- and then forced by HR to read the most heartless script to him in a notification meeting. I heard of other managers not even being notified that their employees were laid-off. They found out after their employee contacted them. And even worse, managers who had to give the notifications and then an hour later got laid-off too. Yesterday was a complete blood bath for certain departments and Oracle handled it in the most disrespectful way.
"pure power grab by the Seattle folks" . <--- THIS
5 documents writers are asked to go out in last 2 days from IDC and they are very low paid. I am not sure where this company will go by sacking this low paid employees. And 2 very good developers on L1, they are also asked to go. Now they need to take there kids and wife back to Russia with in less than 2 years.
Most of it was a pure power grab by the Seattle folks.
I can imagine what the criteria was in a single symbol: $
Here is your budget, get rid of the two highest paid engineers, period.
Which is mo--nic, I know, but this is Oracle, they are ruled by $
There was not a clear criteria. Me and another peer were the main resources for a product, and we were both laid off.
The remaining guy is the weak one on the team.
The action was top down and lot of managers were not even aware of the lay offs...
This time it wasn't performance, but product. If a product wasn't selling, the team is laid off.
Great post