A few weeks ago I wrote an article about my horrible and surreal “New Hire Experience” with Oracle Digital in Amsterdam.

tl:dr

I relocated to Amsterdam to work for Oracle Digital and the procedures screwed up my probation time.  Since then many things happened….

A new job.

First of all the best news: “I found a new job!”. Ok, I don’t work in an high paid IT job anymore, but that’s fine for me, because I decided to say goodbye to the “cut-throat environment” you find in big IT companies. I just want to be able to pay my rent, have enough food, walk my dog, then I am fine and I don’t have to sell my soul anymore.

All is true!

I think I need to stress that everything in my posts is the absolute and unchanged truth. I am willing to take an oath if you want me to. Why I need to stress this? Well, one rather arrogant feedback, I was made aware of, stated that I am “just a homeless guy with no reason to be with us and he just tells a story.”

Cynic, isn’t it? Let me ask you only one question: “If my story would be just a story, don’t you think that the company lawyers would have already contacted me and made me put down my articles?” That didn’t happen, actually no contact at all and my article is still up.

3.000 times viewed

My article was viewed more than 3.000 times on different platforms and the amount of feedback I received is impressive. So many views for someone with such a “small social footprint” like me is overwhelming and it shows that there is interest.

No feedback from Oracle itself.

Despite the fact that more then 1000 klicks came directly from Oracle, up to VP Level (thank you tracking tools and LinkedIn page statistics), I had no official response whatsoever and my contact requests and multiple emails are still unanswered.

The Feedback

Now I want to dig a bit deeper into the feedback. I received plenty direct messages and all of them encouraged me to continue, because there is a widespread company culture of “pretending to be a social company” out there.

Because of legal reasons I need to be very careful what I quote. The feedback came mostly from ex-colleagues, but there are also other companies which also have a rather disturbing approach how they handle their employees.

“Maybe all happened, because you are sick? They got aware of your situation and considered that’s better to boot you before you can claim any special disability protection.”

Yes, that’s a possibility and most likely fact unfortunately I can’t prove it.

“He is just a homeless guy with no reason to be with us and he just tells a story.”

Cynic, isn’t it? I managed to get out of a “problematic” situation just by myself. I managed to get hired and my technical expertise is still unquestioned, but I was not compatible with the “elite culture”.

“The company is a church, like Scientology. Shut up, do your thing and don’t stand out too much.”

No comment needed!

“You fell out of the procedure within the new hire process and no one had the balls to correct the ‘issue’.”

Yeah, that’s exactly what happened.

Overall 3.4 of 5

And there is way more feedback I can’t quote in here, because that would bring me way more trouble than I need, but I can direct you to the glassdoor reviews.

Maybe you judge yourself. 🙂

Overall 3.4 of 5 and a whoppig 37% won’t recommend the company to a friend, means that one out of three employees is unhappy with the company.

Conclusion

I recognized it’s not only me who experienced “company ignorance” and this kind of arrogant behavior seem to be widely spread.

Unfortunately employees nowadays need to be very concerned about their own well being when they have an opinion or being different, because there is a “self-cleaning” culture in place which prevents criticism or even change.

I am happy not to be a part of this anymore and somehow I am thankful that this happened, because it helped me to realize that money and a nice suit doesn’t make you happy, when you have to sell your soul for this.

Well, I think that’s it for now.

Have a wonderful day

Vil

It was just one step we needed to the finish line, but unfortunately Vil stumbled again and we are back to step one. Nothing! Vil decided not to go on the road again. He is in shock, realizing that there is no way anymore.

I was living in Spain when I was hired to join the Oracle Digital Team in Amsterdam and in the beginning, all sounded very well. A super job, a nice town and a good future inside a well-known company. Hired as a Digital Sales Consultant, it sounded like the job of my dreams, but unfortunately it turned out that I had a week’s long ordeal in front of me, everything went to shit and finally I was informed that Oracle will terminate my working contract, effective immediately.

Seriously? YES!

I use this way to publish my story because no one within Oracle talks to me anymore, even HR doesn’t respond and ordered all my contacts within Oracle not to answer my emails or calls. I even got the answer “… Google the HR phone number yourself…..”, when I asked for an HR contact to sort out the issues.

I don’t really know what to say, I am shocked, devastated and I needed to figure out what to do now. I decided that from today on I will publish every one or two days a little story about what went wrong until someone within Oracle will start to talk to me.

When I was hired by Oracle, I was happy and somehow proud, because I made it to the top of IT. I was now a part of one of the biggest companies in the world and my future would be a good one. I was living in Barcelona and relocated to Amsterdam. It was a dream, Oracle arranged all, the flight, a temporary accommodation and I started working straight away. There was a huge relocation budget available and I thought all will be covered, but the issues arrived very fast and finally I am without work and back to square one again.

Bottom line: “Hey Oracle you can’t hire and relocate me and then leave me alone, without any support, without any response to multiple requests for help. Maybe legally all is correct and you followed your procedures and the law, but may I remind you that there is not only the law, there’s also something YOU call ‘corporate and social responsibility’. Where was it when I asked for help?”

Now I am homeless, no health insurance, no job in a foreign country and with more than 10.000 Euro in debt with Oracle for my screwed up relocation.

If you want to know how all that happened, come back for the next part, when the “first issue” becomes clear.

Vil

Part II: “No money, no flat, no registration, no bank account, no health insurance… No help!”

P.S.: I seriously hope that someone from HR or legal will contact me. For your reference please check ID953406.