Company: Oracle
Date: 2009-01-12
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: current

EXCELLENT company to work for... if you're not interested in career advancement or money!
Pros: In my department:  Teamwork, flexibility regarding family schedules and emergencies, excellent benefits and insurance packages, good work environment (Love those gyms and the cafeterias), co-workers and most of the people are very friendly, [immediate] managers will level with you and are very friendly and approachable (Even though they're controlled by upper management).
Cons: ** So why are so many Oracle employees so concerned about pay raises/not enough money?  Let's take an UNBIASED look:
(FYI:  I'm talking on behalf of my department, I am NOT talking about every single department at Oracle)
- Worked here for almost 6 years and NO pay raise.  I'm in danger of losing my home, plus daycare, and other bills (Mortgage has gone up, daycare has gone up...).  What can I do?!
- We support a workforce of thousands in the whole area and it can be VERY stressful.  Which isn't so bad if we had better incentives.
- 2 times I've gotten a bonus in my 5 years:  A 25$ gift card to Chilli's, and a 10$ gift card to Starbuck's... I got a better bonus than some of my co-workers!
- Departments here have a budget on which to pay the employees increases and bonuses.  We were promised a pay increase percentage (To cope with rising costs), which kept getting reduced and reduced and reduced until it went to 0%.  And guess who got the increases and bonuses?  Upper management (I have a few contacts who have shown me this).
- When I first came on board I was promised opportunity for growth (promotions, training, pay raises.).  So we decided to to start a family, work on the house, etc.  Now I can't EVEN put in anything into my 401K because I live paycheck to paycheck.  Not to mention stock options and flex plans (I come from a poor family, I did NOT have a base I could start from.  I've had to work up the ladder by myself with no IT or Business degree.).
- Compared my salary to the exact same jobs around here using 3 different websites.  I'm being paid 69% less than average.  I repeat, I am NOT exagerating about my experiences with Oracle.  These are jobs with the exact same responsibilities I have, except they support way less people than us.
- Apart from the pay, chances for career growth are about 0.0001 %.
- Recognition messages are just a bunch of words that are forgotten 2 minutes later.