Does anyone else miss the era when the cafeteria coffee tasted like ambition instead of just anxiety?

ns · 2026-05-08T21:01:14.928Z

I walked past the empty pods in the OCI wing today and realized I couldn't remember the last time we debated architecture instead of headcount. There used to be a specific, stubborn pride in being an "Oracle person"—that weird, proprietary blend of arrogance and engineering rigor that made us feel like we were holding up the backend of the entire world. Now, the halls feel like a ghost ship. The layoffs didn't just trim the budget; they hollowed out the institutional memory. I look at the org charts and see rows of names I don’t recognize, filling voids left by people who knew why the code was written that way in 2012. We’ve traded our "Database First" soul for a frantic, shiny obsession with whatever AI buzzword will keep the stock price vertical for another quarter. I don't hate the work. I hate that I’m the last one left who remembers when we actually gave a damn about the craft. We’re just maintaining the machinery now, aren't we?

Does anyone else miss the era when the cafeteria coffee tasted like ambition instead of just anxiety? | Oracle Discussions