Thread regarding Marathon Oil Corp. layoffs

I think I know the supervisor mentioned in one of the posts below. One of the most unethical people I have ever met. Fraud, s-xual Harassment,, Gambling at work, Racism, you name it. If Clarence was here he’d have got booted back to where he cane from like he did with the guy in the Middle East decades ago. Marathon never tolerated this in the past. This guy isn’t gonna like what’s coming to him

If working in the unfortunately toxic environment that is MRO today, buy a simple recording device (it looks like a flash drive) and keep it on your person at all times. MRO policy prohibits recording conversations with fellow employees, so if they find you’ve done it, you can be fired under Texas’ employment at will laws. However, Texas law absolutely allows such recordings to be made, so just record ANY conversation with your supervisor and, most certainly, with HR. If you never need the recordings in an adversarial situation you can destroy the device, or have it as a keepsake. This is only being prudent. Perhaps the most important thing of all is to tell NO ONE you have recorded anything.

I thought it was common knowledge.. Once on a PIP your days at Marathon are numbered. Very few individuals ever make it off a PIP. Not saying it hasnt happened. But only a very few have escaped termination and those that have usually quit within a year. I agree with the reply that states nothing you do will matter... Because it really is just a formality.

Worst HR Department ever! They lie and then hang you out to dry.

Yep. Saw the same thing happen to another really good guy. He was promoted but wasn’t even given a chance. Guy who reported to him ousted him and took his title. No experience in leadership and one of the worst. But it was all planned. So many good people out of work and unethical guys like these smirk and carry on. Sickening.

Is more ambiguity a problem? By the time you are meeting with HR and your manager you are well on your way to being exited with extreme prejudice. A state war exists between you and the company whether you acknowledge it or not. You must gird yourself for war, and part of that is understanding and using the tools of the system to your advantage. HR wants a clean and consistent paper trail showing that you couldn’t perform. It would be best if you could prove them wrong, but introducing ambiguity into the record is second best if you can’t clearly show you are in the right.

People are uncomfortable with ambiguity, not being able to determine if the company is 100% right or maybe a little wrong. When you introduce ambiguity you create doubt in HR, in MRO legal. Do we really know we have all the recordings that are out there? Can we really go to court or an EEOC hearing with Manager X as the star witness when he’s been caught on tape lying or saying racist things?

Having an ambiguous recording created a fear similar to being blackmailed. People pay the blackmail because they aren’t sure what the blackmailer has, and this creates fear. When you have a negative or even ambiguous recording you create fear within the organization that there may be worse coming out later. (Note: Blackmail is a serious felony and you should not engage in it - I am not recommending you break any laws. You should consult an attorney before making any demands related to recordings because it is complicated to stay on the rights side of the law on this. )

Recordings don’t help, trust me—they only make things more ambiguous.

Probably some of the best info out there. Good to know. I have recordings of conversations I took on my phone where my manager made racist, s-xist, and anti ethical statements on how to ‘pad’ expense reports

Know your rights Part V:

Have you considered documenting emails/texts and/or recording conversations with your manager and HR?

Any time your manager or HR sends you a hostile email or text you should retain it on a device that you control (not a laptop or cell phone controlled by MRO). Printing and retaining paper copies is fine too. Not only hostile emails and texts either - save anything that is confusing, ambiguous or evasive or that shows your manager or HR in a bad light. Any of this may be useful if you lawyer up. Does your manager use crude language or tell inappropriate jokes via email or text? If so, keep these. Even if they don’t directly pertain to your situation they can help muddy the water and improve your position against the company.

You should also record all of your conversations with your manager, HR and any fellow employees you feel may be supporting management, undermining your position or hostile to you. Use your own cell phone or other device - not a device MRO owns or controls. MRO company policy prohibits recording other employees without their knowledge, but you shouldn’t worry about this at all. The absolute worst MRO can do to you for violating a policy is terminate your employment- they can’t even confiscate the recording if it is on a device that you own.

Texas state law is very clear - you have a right to covertly record any conversation in which you are a participant. This includes conversations over the phone, in zoom, etc. Texas law prohibits recording if you are not part of the conversation, so you can’t do a leave behind in your manager’s office without breaking the law.

Controlling the record is a powerful tool, as recent police brutality events have shown. Imagine the look on your manager’s face when you produce a recording showing him to be a racist or her to be incompetent?

Use the force young padawan.

Not everyone let go on April 30 received severance, so yes, we do.

Does Marathon even bother with PIPs? If they want to lay you off they just lay you off. If you're on a PIP it means they want to fire you for cause (no severance) but I haven't seen that happen this time around.

I’d agree, poor managers don’t take well to being challenged/called out on their BS by subordinates. They “lead” by manipulation and constant fear-mongering. Take a lesson from Bakkens PE manager; he’s the greatest at it—which is why he’s always “working on a tool” that’s a repeat of data we already have available.

Know your rights Part IV:

Many employees underestimate their ability to make a discrimination or harassment complaint. People tend to think only of about the obvious, and/or quid pro quo type claims - things like a manager refusing to promote a specific ethnicity or demanding s-x from an employee. But a creative employee (or their lawyer) can find discrimination/harassment in many situations that occur in the workplace. Have you ever heard a manager say any of the following?

• Sarah was a top performer before, but has lost focus since she returned from maternity leave.

• Jose has great leadership skills, but his English skills just aren’t up to a supervisor spot.

• Hannah is a real distraction- she’s dating half the landmen and all the geologists. We can’t promote her.

• Bob’s a great guy, but those old timers just don’t keep up with current technology.

All of these are potential discrimination or harassment claims in the hands of a good attorney.

People also often forget about “reverse” discrimination and more obscure forms of harassment. Consider the following:

1. Is it impossible for you as a male employee to advance since a female manager came in over you?

2. Is a g– manager discriminating against straight employees?

3. Are you a democrat/liberal harassed by your manager/fellow employees over your political beliefs?

4. Are you a religious conservative compelled by MRO to attend pro-g– diversity training that violates your religious beliefs?

5. Are you a new father who is expected to work nights and weekends while new mothers are given more schedule flexibility?

A good lawyer can turn any of these into a valid claim that may help protect you from the company.

Know your rights Part III:

7. Do you know of anything that could be the basis for a claim under the US False Claims Act? This one is kind of rare, but potentially lucrative in addition to triggering whistleblower protections for those who report.

8. Do you know of any cause for a discrimination or harassment complaint with the EEOC? This could involve discrimination/harassment against yourself or others you are aware of. Federal law prevents discrimination/harassment for all of the following reasons: race/ethnicity/nationality, religion, s-x, disability (possibly including invisible disabilities such as mental health), age (only if you are over 40), political affiliations/beliefs, pregnancy or conditions related to childbirth (only if you are female), s-xual orientation, gender expression or nonconformity, status as a veteran. There are probably others I can’t recall right now. Once you bring a complaint to EEOC, you become a whistleblower and federal law prohibits retaliation.

Being a whistleblower can be very powerful in preserving your employment rights - either by extending your stay, delaying your exit or motivating the company to pay you off to go away. I won’t lie to you - once you become a whistleblower you’ll be about as popular in the tower as a skunk at a wedding shower, but if you’re considering my advice you are already being exited anyway. Piss off everyone from your direct supervisor right up to Lee Tillman? Who cares? You don’t love them and they certainly don’t love you. There is a good chance you’ll never see any of them again after the day security walks you out, so fight for what you need and don’t worry what others may think.

To summarize all of this, please keep these points in mind:

1. Don’t agree to/sign anything without legal advice.
2. A lawyer is a powerful weapon - get one.
3. Use federal law to your advantage - EEOC, OSHA, FLRA are your friends.
4. Being a whistleblower is a powerful tool to prevent/mitigate retaliation by the company.

Remember - you’re on your way out whether you like it or not. You can’t win at this point, but you may be able to spread some of the losses around and get some of what you need in the process. In today’s job market, even a 6 month delay while you keep cashing MRO checks is potentially valuable and may be worth fighting for.

Know your rights Part II:

4. There is power in numbers. When one employee complains about an issue, the company can retaliate. If two join together on the same complaint, federal law requires MRO to treat it like a union grievance, which protects you from retaliation.

5. Don’t forget the ethics hotline. Do you know of any managers who are discriminating or harassing? Conflicts of interest or inappropriate gifts? Any lawbreaking or violations of company policy? Use the ethics hotline - once you make a good faith report you are a whistleblower and MRO can’t retaliate against you.

6. Is the company exposing you or others to unsafe working conditions (hello COVID)? if so, report it to OSHA. Then you are a whistleblower and MRO can’t retaliate.

Know your rights:

1. Federal law allows you to discuss all conditions of your employment with coworkers- this includes discipline and performance correction documentation, processes, etc. HR will tell you not to discuss it, but it is your right to do so (unless you are a manager or a contractor).

2. You have a right under federal law to examine and copy all documents in your employee file. This applies while you are employed and for a couple of years after.

3. Don’t sign anything without discussing with an attorney. MRO policy says that you can’t have legal counsel at discipline and performance meetings. This may be true per MRO’s own policy, but MRO is subject to state and federal law. MRO is prosecutor, judge and jury within its own process, but a good attorney can help remove your problem from MRO’s process and get you to a more even playing field - court, mediation or the EEOC.

PIPs & RODs are simply part of the documentation to satisfy HR's requirement to terminate. Another tell-tale sign is if you have a meeting with your supervisor and they follow-up with a detailed email of the conversation. Trust me, Marathon HR loves a paper trail.

Former employee here (victim of last RIF). Has placing employees on PIP become widespread? Are they legit or using it as a way to avoid severance pay? Which departments/how wide spread?

If MRO is using bogus performance plans to avoid severance, anyone placed on one should immediately lawyer up and/or complain to the EEOC. Just because MRO has rigged the hand doesn’t mean you have to play in the game. If they want you gone, you’ll probably be gone anyway, but you might get some severance or COBRA out of it.

People usually avoid fighting the company for one or more of several reasons:

1. They are embarrassed to be known as a “performance problem”.
2. They think by “improving their performance “ they will reach home plate and be “safe”.
3. They think by fighting they will “burn bridges” in the industry and make it hard to find employment elsewhere.
4. They don’t know their rights.

I’ll address these individually:

1. Don’t worry about embarrassment. Your manager’s respect likely isn’t worth seeking given the recent evolution of MRO. Your colleagues will know the “performance problems” are bogus, or at least the colleagues you should care about. HR uses the threat of embarrassment like blackmail to keep coworkers from uniting together. Get over the embarrassment and you remove the blackmail leverage.

2. The system is b—s— - no amount of “improvement “ will save you because you aren’t the problem. The decision has been made and the process is a formality to make the paperwork shiny.

3. During normal times, burning bridges may be a valid consideration, but not right now. There are no jobs right now, so you’re better trying for severance than worrying about what future employers may hear. Truthfully, no one in the industry has much respect for MRO management anyway, so likely don’t put much weight on anything they may hear about someone getting fired from MRO. And future employers probably won’t get any details anyway - MRO’s verification line only tells them start date, end date and your last title. Nothing else -nada. Unless you do something so bad it makes the front page of the chronicle, everyone will assume you were caught up in the covid layoffs.

4. Know your rights -stay tuned for more on this in my next broadcast.

Agree 100%. Also, if your supervisor or manager feels threatened by you, watch out! Poor leadership can’t handle it.

If you work for the land VP And are a pre-2015 employee you are screwed no matter what.

Yeah, I saw that happen to a colleague of mine. Great guy who always went the extra mile for MRO. Tried keeping his nose to the grindstone in fear of belong labeled “can’t hack it” and eventually wore himself out (after about a year of running like this) to the point of making seemingly careless mistakes in his work.

His supervisor pretended he didn’t know the guy was struggling (illustrates a poor leader in my book) and commenced the passive aggressive layoff routine described below. I figured something was up when he all of a sudden left work in the middle of the day “because something came up”—which wasn’t really characteristic of him, at all. Turns out he was put on “decision-making leave” to decide if he wanted to quit or not.

Of course the guy got laid off shortly after but it was definitely MROs loss and some other company will be grateful to have him—assuming he hasn’t started his own at this point.

I agree with the previous writing 100%. You’ll know something’s fishy when you set up a 1:1 discussion with your boss and you get taken into a conference room with HR instead—that’s the lowest of bad management in my book.

Everything at MRO is about who can get to HR first. Even then, HRs job is to back management, not subordinate employees.

Essentially, if you’re ever in a meeting with HR, your career at MRO is effectively done.

My advice: As soon as you realize you’re working for an inept/incompetent manager, try finding another position in the company ASAP.

Correct. Once you get put on one of these, your ticket out the MRO door is already written in stone. You may as well quit trying at that point because nothing you do will change the scenario.

You’ll know when you’re passive-aggressively being set up for a lay-off. Don’t ignore the warning signs (I.e your boss won’t look you in the eye when talking to you, your boss won’t speak to you in the hallway, you’ll not get assigned any projects, all projects you do head or put forward for approval will be rejected just because it was YOU who made the recommendation, you’ll be told to “get buy in from the rest of the group” before going forward with something, you’ll largely be ignored in 1:1 sessions with your boss, etc).

If all lines up, use your time wisely to start looking for employment outside MRO so your time being unemployed is as short as possible. You’ll be thankful you did.