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

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

theregister.co.uk

66 pointsDotnaught31 comments

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 :)

Out of curiosity, what keeps you there?

$$$

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

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.

It's likely put in place to prevent abuse by using new accounts to spam. I think it's a reasonable measure. I believe I've seen at least one case where the mods have exempted a new account used for legitimate purposes from this restriction. 'salesguy222 may want to contact them to request such an exemption. See the Contact link in the footer.

it was a bit frustrating to deal with because it was actually rate limited by IP, and after only what, maybe 5-6 posts in a 30 min period

but i guess it isn't really a big deal because i am able to post now and at least i have a throwaway

Thanks for the clarification. The IP rate-limiting makes sense from a spam prevention perspective. If spammers can get around the limiter just by creating additional accounts, it would defeat the purpose of rate-limiting.

i agree with you on this, surprisingly posts on this site are a bit durable (a few days at the top pages?), so the urgency of commenting with a new account isn't as severe as something like 4chan

I think if my opinion was truly valued urgently and anonymously, I should just make a paste bin or github post and let my writing stand as its own topic

80k out of 140k employees are sales?

yes that is correct, actually 89k if you wanted to be precise, with 39k in development/opps and 11k in HR, legal, admin

of that 89k, it's important to know that i estimated 9k as being in marketing, sales dept finance, event organizing, CRM admin, etc

but yes, +80k that are calling customers, presenting slide decks, drafting legal documents and quotes globally (majority US and romania)

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.

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

Is this to say they acquire other companies for their customers?

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)

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

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.

Is this as sinister as it sounds or is this the equivalent of appealing your case in a regular court?

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

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.

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

I had a laugh at that. Apparently binding arbitration is binding only when the company wins.

Exactly, and it is not a laughing matter. Have you noticed how common arbitration 'agreements' (that you cannot in any practical sense avoid) are becoming?

To be fair, Oracle is suing but they haven't actually won. The courts may decide to let things stand as they are. We shall see.

Thats still not binding arbitration though. Unless binding means "its binding once we get the result that benefits us"

Additionally the article also says "So it is suing one of its own employees, applications account manager Felicia Wilson, in a New York court to undo the arbitrator's $257,335.79 award." which sounds like its going through the court at some point, even if only asking to have the arbitration process redone

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?

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" :)

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.

She might have a non-compete agreement. In fact this thread makes it sound likely.

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

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