Skip the Interview

   Have you ever gone through an Interview process and thought "how in the world are they still in business?". Well, on May 13, I interviewed with Oracle in Colorado Springs with several groups. At the time, I was flying back and forth from San Francisco on a weekly basis while consulting for a large finance company using Visual C++ and ODBC.

   Prior to the interview, I told the Personnel Manager, Corey, I would interview if they compensated me for out of pocket expenses the $50.00 airline fee for changing my flight plans. Corey agreed enthusiatically.

   After the interview, the Oracle people liked me so much that they wanted me to meet with a Vice President, Thomas , in San Francisco. I didn’t mind. But I told them I was downtown across the street from TransAmerica building and had no car. And I would be glad to meet with Tom for drinks, or dinner, or any where NEAR by.

    Well, the Oracle group in the Springs set up a 3pm meeting on Wednesday at their Redwood Shores Corporate Office. I was notified on Wednesday at 11am. Immediately, I asked the Springs Middle Manager, Chris, if they’d pickup the cab fare to Redwood (about $75+ roundtrip). Chris got back with me 2 hours later and stated I should paid for it to demostrate how much I wanted the position. He said all Oracle employees are expected to make sacrifices. I pointed out to him since Oracle has had such a high turnover of employees in San Francisco, lower cost of living (and wages) in the Springs, and the offer of $30,000 - $50,000 was so low that may be they should reconsider the deal they were getting. Chris responded ‘No way!’. Needless to say, I said no thanks.

        Well, 4 weeks later I asked Corey about the $50 of reimburement they had agreed to and still owed. Corey stated some accounting foul ups and I would see something in a few weeks. Two weeks later, I called Corey, and this time he didn’t return any of my voice messages. I wrote to Barry, and asked for help. A week after my letter, Corey called, to say that Chris had gotten my expense check and would endorse over to me and I would have it in a few days. A week later, on June 29, I got the check. I noticed the date of the check was June 14 and the post mark was June 28. Oracle for some reason took their time reimbursing me.

        I would advise any one wanting to interview with Oracle reconsider. I thought it was a fine organization, I have 300 shares of their stock in street name in my IRA. To my dismay, I’ve discovered incompentence, lack of professionalism, and a mean streak a mile long. No wonder their support group is experiencing high turnover. I won’t want to work there and I hope you would think twice before interviewing with them too. I think I’ll be selling my shares soon.

Sincerely,

Michael Received on Sat Jun 29 1996 - 00:00:00 CEST