11 ms·

Oracle sues its own star sales rep after she wins back $200k in pay fight

66 points by Dotnaught 10y ago

protomyth 10y ago
So, sold $10,456,055 and Oracle is mad about $257,335.79. I seem to remember stories of other companies screwing their sales people (e.g. Perot). Seems incredibly short sighted and carries a valuable lesson to the other sales people.
- salesguy222 10y ago
  yes, you absolutely nailed it. oracle actually does it on purpose, since cost cutting will always be more important than employee retention in the eyes of the company oracle wants all of its best people to quit, especially if they are walkin away from a high spending account. they will put a younger employee to service the account at 50% cost, and whether the relationship gets better or worse they don't care, because they've realized the cost savings... ... and any revenue growth the company needs comes from acquiring other companies, not from happy customers
  - chrisabrams 10y ago
    Is this to say they acquire other companies for their customers?
    - salesguy222 10y ago
      yes i would say that is correct. oracle (we) make most of our money from the fortune 500, and specifically oracle database SUPPORT CONTRACTS from those companies since then we have not been too good at innovating, so we buy companies technology + customersfor the explicit purpose of soaking up as much of their existing revenue as we can, to pad the falling sales of our databases, hw etc then, inevitably, after we have abused our relationship with those customers and the sales reps on those accounts, we... buy more companies and start the process all over again (see netsuite), rather than fixing the abuse (see hyperion, peoplesoft, jdedwards)
lovich 10y ago
Is binding arbitration not binding? Why would a court take this case when Oracle is the one that brought the arbitration clause
- pm90 10y ago
  See the end of the article: > Oracle doesn't want to pursue the case in open court. Rather it's asking to have the case re-arbitrated, with a different arbitrator.
  - Spivak 10y ago
    Is this as sinister as it sounds or is this the equivalent of appealing your case in a regular court?
    - salesguy222 10y ago
      oracle forces you to arbitration for sinister reasons, and the effect is usually for the company's benefit and the employee's harm since oracle lost this time, it is very obviously angry that it has to pay money (cost cutting is king above all) so it will use every available method to exhaust the employee suing it's pitiful and totally par for the course for all of us
      - pm90 10y ago
        It sounds more like an ego thing from the article. I don't think its hard to justify paying someone who directly got in so much business.
        salesguy222 10y ago
        maybe there is some ego contributing to the situation, either from Hurd and his executive team, Safra and her finance metric counters, or a board member... but I don't they do these things on an exclusively personal and egotistical level, e.g "How dare someone sue MY company!" I think the CEOs have a CRYSTAL clear mandate that profit margins must be above 30% /at all times/, and they might have bonus compensation metrics regarding specific costs, like cost of sales instead of cost of litigation (which oracle does cheaply by forcing us [illegally] to arbitration instead of open trial) I think this company's revenue is shrinking so profoundly and costs are so stubborn and unpredictable that as a matter of policy, they must unwaveringly and meticulously screw anyone that dares to make money here. i know this sounds like a subjective statement but I can provide ample data from myself and my colleagues that prove how systematic and arbitrary and draconian the cost cutting is it seems oracle knows there will always be a pool of talent willing to work for 50k a year instead of several hundred k... and these people are willing to press buttons that 9 times out of 10 result in a sale that isn't very different from the type of sale a VIP top rep could close
hunterjrj 10y ago
Could someone familiar with these kinds of arrangements please explain why the commission rate would drop so precipitously when quota is exceeded above 250% for a given customer?
- salesguy222 10y ago
  made an account just to comment. i'm a sales guy at oracle and this case is absolutely common at the company. i am not surprised that oracle used our sales contract (which is stuffed full of every self serving rule under the sun and changes almost every quarter actually) to screw a hard working sales employee arbitrarily it really is as bad as it seems. they want to lower cost of sales in every way possible, including illegally. if you sue, they sue back. if you quit, they hire a younger person at 50% pay to service the relationship EDIT: sorry about that, was rate limited for a bit i took this job because oracle hired me and 200 of my colleagues at the tender young age of 23 straight out of college with no experience selling technology or to enterprises. for many of us, this was our best and only offer, so it made complete sense in 2013 75% of my colleagues quit for other sales jobs/grad school within the first 14 months (!) those of us who stayed have done so because this job is a relatively palatable way to make 80-120k per year with very little skill/experience that would make us attractive to more discerning companies i myself will last 1 more year and then be laid off most likely, and i hope to be a technical account manager at a smaller place that values my specific sales and technical abilities that i've honed from all of the bullshit i've slogged through in this, my first "real job" :)
salesguy222 10y ago
hi everyone, i'm a sales guy at oracle. feel free to AMA, i'm here for a bit (5:45 NY time) i wanted to add that a yearly commissions earning of +800k would put you in the top 50 of all 80,000 global sales people (we have 139k employees) so when the article says that her contribution is minor in the eyes of oracle, it really shouldn't be seen that way, because they are screwing one of the company's best sales people 10x harder than they screw the rest of us also, they screw us in the following ways: withhold payments, late payments for months, improperly calculated profit margins (we are paid on profit not rev), changing our rates mid year, data entry errors that assign commissions to wrong sales reps... you name it, they do it. all about cost cutting. no desire to retain employees or customers. EDIT: i appear to be rate limited so i will will either comment with edits or just wait until it expires :)
- hunterjrj 10y ago
  Out of curiosity, what keeps you there?
  - overcast 10y ago
    $$$
    - salesguy222 10y ago
      yes, this poster is right, we all make 80-120k out of college and for many of us, it was the best and only offer we received since we are wholly unqualified for most any other job of that $$$ the system is archicted such that we are either forced to screw our customers on price/terms, or get laid off most people left after 14 months (75% of new hire sales reps), but very few are doing as well as they were at oracle
- solipsism 10y ago
  i appear to be rate limited so i will will either comment with edits or just wait until it expires This "you are posting too fast. Please slow down" BS is a real mistake on HN's part.
chrisabrams 10y ago
How many of Oracles competitors have sent an offer letter to this sales person? This is the easiest resume advertisement ever and doubles as a stab at Oracle's profits.
- rockdoe 10y ago
  She might have a non-compete agreement. In fact this thread makes it sound likely.
  - salesguy222 10y ago
    I don't know this sales rep and I haven't looked up her online presence, but I would say it's unlikely oracle made her sign an NDA or non compete, even at her position (field sales on a key account i think? which is as high as you can get at the company) oracle would definitely never hire her back considering the legal history between them, because oracls is relentless and ruthless in replacing "outspoken" employees with cheap obedient ones on a systematic basis I do think some other competitor that sells old world enterprise tech to enterprises would have some reservations about her background as a "litigator" (that stigma wrongly exists in sales) but clearly she is excellent at her job and i would be surprised if she was having a hard time finding another sales job
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
- salesguy222 10y ago
  Yes, you are exactly right, they do it expressly for this reason. All of my experience and data shows that not only is it more cost effective for Oracle to litigate against its employees than it is to just pay them as per a fair and sensible contract, they actually save even more money when the employee becomes frustrated and quits. when a deal this big goes down, oracle is happy for the revenue but doesn't really care that much about it, because it can just buy another "cloud company" to grow the top line if needed (which lately it always is :D) what is much more important is saving on cost and preserving our 30% profit margin than traders take seriously. As revenue shrinks, which oracle feels is inevitable, it will find ANY method under the sun, legal or illegal, to lower the cost of present and future sales. so, if you, as a high commmission tier field sales rep voluntarily leave the company, with no severance and no rightly earned commission check, Oracle is ELATED!!! because now they will hire a college kid or a phone salesman from romania (of which we have 10,000) to service the account at a minimum of 50% less cost, if not 75-80%. which is why, i should add, the employee in this article has not quit the company i can prove this with data if needed of course. but this is how oracle works :)

66 points by Dotnaught 10y ago

So, sold $10,456,055 and Oracle is mad about $257,335.79. I seem to remember stories of other companies screwing their sales people (e.g. Perot). Seems incredibly short sighted and carries a valuable lesson to the other sales people.

salesguy222 10y ago
yes, you absolutely nailed it. oracle actually does it on purpose, since cost cutting will always be more important than employee retention in the eyes of the company oracle wants all of its best people to quit, especially if they are walkin away from a high spending account. they will put a younger employee to service the account at 50% cost, and whether the relationship gets better or worse they don't care, because they've realized the cost savings... ... and any revenue growth the company needs comes from acquiring other companies, not from happy customers
- chrisabrams 10y ago
  Is this to say they acquire other companies for their customers?
  - salesguy222 10y ago
    yes i would say that is correct. oracle (we) make most of our money from the fortune 500, and specifically oracle database SUPPORT CONTRACTS from those companies since then we have not been too good at innovating, so we buy companies technology + customersfor the explicit purpose of soaking up as much of their existing revenue as we can, to pad the falling sales of our databases, hw etc then, inevitably, after we have abused our relationship with those customers and the sales reps on those accounts, we... buy more companies and start the process all over again (see netsuite), rather than fixing the abuse (see hyperion, peoplesoft, jdedwards)

lovich 10y ago

Is binding arbitration not binding? Why would a court take this case when Oracle is the one that brought the arbitration clause

pm90 10y ago
See the end of the article: > Oracle doesn't want to pursue the case in open court. Rather it's asking to have the case re-arbitrated, with a different arbitrator.
- Spivak 10y ago
  Is this as sinister as it sounds or is this the equivalent of appealing your case in a regular court?
  - salesguy222 10y ago
    oracle forces you to arbitration for sinister reasons, and the effect is usually for the company's benefit and the employee's harm since oracle lost this time, it is very obviously angry that it has to pay money (cost cutting is king above all) so it will use every available method to exhaust the employee suing it's pitiful and totally par for the course for all of us
    - pm90 10y ago
      It sounds more like an ego thing from the article. I don't think its hard to justify paying someone who directly got in so much business.
      - salesguy222 10y ago
        maybe there is some ego contributing to the situation, either from Hurd and his executive team, Safra and her finance metric counters, or a board member... but I don't they do these things on an exclusively personal and egotistical level, e.g "How dare someone sue MY company!" I think the CEOs have a CRYSTAL clear mandate that profit margins must be above 30% /at all times/, and they might have bonus compensation metrics regarding specific costs, like cost of sales instead of cost of litigation (which oracle does cheaply by forcing us [illegally] to arbitration instead of open trial) I think this company's revenue is shrinking so profoundly and costs are so stubborn and unpredictable that as a matter of policy, they must unwaveringly and meticulously screw anyone that dares to make money here. i know this sounds like a subjective statement but I can provide ample data from myself and my colleagues that prove how systematic and arbitrary and draconian the cost cutting is it seems oracle knows there will always be a pool of talent willing to work for 50k a year instead of several hundred k... and these people are willing to press buttons that 9 times out of 10 result in a sale that isn't very different from the type of sale a VIP top rep could close

hunterjrj 10y ago

Could someone familiar with these kinds of arrangements please explain why the commission rate would drop so precipitously when quota is exceeded above 250% for a given customer?

salesguy222 10y ago
made an account just to comment. i'm a sales guy at oracle and this case is absolutely common at the company. i am not surprised that oracle used our sales contract (which is stuffed full of every self serving rule under the sun and changes almost every quarter actually) to screw a hard working sales employee arbitrarily it really is as bad as it seems. they want to lower cost of sales in every way possible, including illegally. if you sue, they sue back. if you quit, they hire a younger person at 50% pay to service the relationship EDIT: sorry about that, was rate limited for a bit i took this job because oracle hired me and 200 of my colleagues at the tender young age of 23 straight out of college with no experience selling technology or to enterprises. for many of us, this was our best and only offer, so it made complete sense in 2013 75% of my colleagues quit for other sales jobs/grad school within the first 14 months (!) those of us who stayed have done so because this job is a relatively palatable way to make 80-120k per year with very little skill/experience that would make us attractive to more discerning companies i myself will last 1 more year and then be laid off most likely, and i hope to be a technical account manager at a smaller place that values my specific sales and technical abilities that i've honed from all of the bullshit i've slogged through in this, my first "real job" :)

salesguy222 10y ago

hi everyone, i'm a sales guy at oracle. feel free to AMA, i'm here for a bit (5:45 NY time) i wanted to add that a yearly commissions earning of +800k would put you in the top 50 of all 80,000 global sales people (we have 139k employees) so when the article says that her contribution is minor in the eyes of oracle, it really shouldn't be seen that way, because they are screwing one of the company's best sales people 10x harder than they screw the rest of us also, they screw us in the following ways: withhold payments, late payments for months, improperly calculated profit margins (we are paid on profit not rev), changing our rates mid year, data entry errors that assign commissions to wrong sales reps... you name it, they do it. all about cost cutting. no desire to retain employees or customers. EDIT: i appear to be rate limited so i will will either comment with edits or just wait until it expires :)

hunterjrj 10y ago
Out of curiosity, what keeps you there?
- overcast 10y ago
  $$$
  - salesguy222 10y ago
    yes, this poster is right, we all make 80-120k out of college and for many of us, it was the best and only offer we received since we are wholly unqualified for most any other job of that $$$ the system is archicted such that we are either forced to screw our customers on price/terms, or get laid off most people left after 14 months (75% of new hire sales reps), but very few are doing as well as they were at oracle
solipsism 10y ago
i appear to be rate limited so i will will either comment with edits or just wait until it expires This "you are posting too fast. Please slow down" BS is a real mistake on HN's part.

chrisabrams 10y ago

How many of Oracles competitors have sent an offer letter to this sales person? This is the easiest resume advertisement ever and doubles as a stab at Oracle's profits.

rockdoe 10y ago
She might have a non-compete agreement. In fact this thread makes it sound likely.
- salesguy222 10y ago
  I don't know this sales rep and I haven't looked up her online presence, but I would say it's unlikely oracle made her sign an NDA or non compete, even at her position (field sales on a key account i think? which is as high as you can get at the company) oracle would definitely never hire her back considering the legal history between them, because oracls is relentless and ruthless in replacing "outspoken" employees with cheap obedient ones on a systematic basis I do think some other competitor that sells old world enterprise tech to enterprises would have some reservations about her background as a "litigator" (that stigma wrongly exists in sales) but clearly she is excellent at her job and i would be surprised if she was having a hard time finding another sales job
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

salesguy222 10y ago
Yes, you are exactly right, they do it expressly for this reason. All of my experience and data shows that not only is it more cost effective for Oracle to litigate against its employees than it is to just pay them as per a fair and sensible contract, they actually save even more money when the employee becomes frustrated and quits. when a deal this big goes down, oracle is happy for the revenue but doesn't really care that much about it, because it can just buy another "cloud company" to grow the top line if needed (which lately it always is :D) what is much more important is saving on cost and preserving our 30% profit margin than traders take seriously. As revenue shrinks, which oracle feels is inevitable, it will find ANY method under the sun, legal or illegal, to lower the cost of present and future sales. so, if you, as a high commmission tier field sales rep voluntarily leave the company, with no severance and no rightly earned commission check, Oracle is ELATED!!! because now they will hire a college kid or a phone salesman from romania (of which we have 10,000) to service the account at a minimum of 50% less cost, if not 75-80%. which is why, i should add, the employee in this article has not quit the company i can prove this with data if needed of course. but this is how oracle works :)