Oracle

1. Initially, you can negotiate a good salary.
2. Some really smart people work here.
3. Looks good on a resume, "punches your ticket".

There is very little planned leadership or accountability. Crisis management seems to rule the day. If someone continually screws up as an employee or a manager, no one takes the time to address the issue or fix the problem.

A very ethically-challenged organization. You are required to take ethics training every 2 years, and you just look around and see all of the violations. Some are downright criminal. But what do you do when Larry himself has an enormous conflict of interest (see NetSuite)? I also don't trust the anonymity of the tool used to report violations.

The company loves to offshore and use H1-B workers. The problem here is they seem to hire very incompetent people. Your job will be to put out fires that they create.

Middle management knows what's going on but has no authority to do anything. Whether it is rewarding job performance, hiring, or firing people, everything is run from the top. This means you get the same bonus as the guy who shows up to work 3 days a week. This also makes it very undesirable to pursue a career here.

Accountability is huge for employee morale. Slow down and figure out why you are putting out fires continually, and correct the problems.

Cheap offshore labor conflicts with the law of supply and demand. You get what you pay for. Figure out what the real cost is of using cheap labor. Flying highly-trained individuals to client sites ain't cheap. Getting sued by companies for having crappy software ain't cheap. Also, I believe our poor reputation will catch up with us.

Layoff decisions should not be made by people who don't know who the productive employees are. If you're not allowed to tell the middle managers, ask them who their best employees are. Also, who lays people off on Tuesday? Why the surprise attack? Pick up an "HR for Dummies" book.

Quit hiring and keeping your poor-performing friends as management.

FYI, the corporate card is not your personal piggy bank. I don't like seeing you bust out the corporate card for an after-work gathering. I make less money than you; I pay for my drinks at happy hour. You can too.