I joined Mobil few years before the ExxonMobil merger and had over 10 years experience prior with other major chemical and engineering companies. One insanity that is strikingly and glaringly visible is upper management in ExxonMobil selecting middle managers called SLSs (second line supervisors) who have zero knowledge and experience in the area they are managing. Someone from Upstream logistics could become a process control manager with zero knowledge of process control. These managers check timesheets and magnetic card badging and send emails - explain where you were this day when there is no badge report and the employee has to explain I was working nights to support plant startup remotely. I have never seen these SLS layers of middle management. If these positions are eliminated all across ExxonMobil, there will be huge savings, morale would improve and engineers doing real work, not bean counters would bloom and blossom. But it is all part of the big country club. Brown the bosses boss and the boss and reap the benefits. But what management at ExxonMobil fails to realize that we are in a global economy. You create useless positions like the SLSs and their immediate bosses, also ruthless henchmen, you are paying for salaries that competitors do not have. Eventually you will start seeing the problems that ExxonMobil is having. I am amazed that upper management does not see the opportunity in firing off 90% of all SLSd and their immediate bosses. In the other companies I worked there were no such positions and the process was far better, more efficient and resulted in harmony and happiness for employees.
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@6lrc+16lI75Pj you need to stop posting this useless hashtag on every thread, it’s annoying and ridiculous. It does not bring site owner’s attention, it only does what hashtags are supposed to do - leads to a tag page for that word (https://www.thelayoff.com/h/admin).
You can create it for every word you like, just look at this:
https://www.thelayoff.com/h/severance
@OP+16lI75Pj I could not agree more. Employees thrived in an environment without the middle men. It appears as though their managers suddenly think they are above actively managing a team so we’ve created another entire layer of management. There are huge groups of leadership cutting all of their bottom level people because there is not enough work. But the huge leadership groups stay huge, keep their large salaries and really do not do much. It is completely ridiculous. We suddenly need a team lead, supervisor AND manager for one team? But they were also able to cut lower level (not low performer) employees.
In reality cutting 10% of those erroneous positions would have saved the company so much more money.
Definition shows
Proof we promote managers to manage areas they are incompetent to manage
By definition a senior manager will not have "expert experience" in other areas that he must manage. Similarly, most technical experts are "worthless" outside their expertise. Being too specialized is the route to the bottom of the rank list, especially if your expertise does not generate proven value or if your work can be done by a contractor in India
Person before me has explained (Upstream Research Company) URC very well. Management throughout was most horrendous for the past 10 years all the way from individual project leads, team lead to supervisors, Division Managers, VPs and President level. They were all donkeys of no cause. Some good talent with many bad talented were hired but almost all were quickly molded to yes donkeys from employee level to the top. There were few good people but they were more and more rare and almost an extinct species. People worked very hard to embellish nonsense and produced nothing for the company and stock holders. But no could dare question the holiness of management processes when oil was $100 and management can justify their id–tic actions.
Up and coming managers used to get their “technology” rotation at URC. It was their opportunity to display their utter ignorance as they claimed to lead an army of PhD.
The amount of man hours that used to take to brief these mor.ons, dumbing down the content not to offend their egos.
What’s worse, they could not tell their input was usually ignorant, because we all had to nod and remark on how insightful their c—amamie idea was. Like disinfectant inside the body for covid.
No humility, no self awareness, and definitely no growth.
And they would have to represent the company at technology conferences and shows with real experts. Picture Sara O. explaining the future of innovation. Embarrassing to say the least. Deer in the headlights every time there was a question.
And it wasn’t bad enough they made a fool of themselves. They had to leave their mark, by screwing research projects. It was said, they were sent to URC because they couldn’t do damage, except the future.
ExxonMobil is a textbook example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Common traits of the worst leaders.
A CEO calling out an admin, his employees, pointing fingers at other companies... should tell you this guy has not taken accountability for anything maybe in his life. This is not a leader.
The comments are fair, but not common. A decent SlS learns their trade. The how S&D is about rotating people to build experience.
He walked through the film lab one time and saw someone chewing gum while working. (Film lab is low risk, minimum PPE required is safety glasses and substantial shoes, no chemicals are used. Its just physical property testing of films). He demanded the employee spit out the gum, which is fair. You shouldn't be eating anything in the lab, just for sanitary purposes. When asked why though his explanation was very bizarre. He stated that if someone's chewing gum in the lab the chemical fumes coming off the films will enter their mouths and over time it can be a cancer risk. I remember the day he said this to my coworker. It was the most uneducated, stupid statement I've heard from someone in a SLS position. If there are fumes coming off our films we should all have full chemical face masks and gloves on while handling it. The film samples do not pose any such risk. It really showed how little he understood the labs under his charge, and the materials they handle
Those SLSs are totally waste of money and cannot do anything other than time sheet/web cat/LPO. They have no intention to learn the technical aspects to understand what his/her group is doing because they are only there for 1-2 yrs then they move on. It s actually bad for them if they get let go because they have been trained by ExxonMobil to be dummies with no competitive skills to find a job outside of ExxonMobil. Upper management may think those SLSs were excellent in technical skills and leadership/management and that was the reason why they got promoted. BUT, the truth is they have no in-depth technical skills to guide his/her group and they are only good in ERG social networking. That is another reason why they created FLS group leads. When managers of a SLS asks him/her questions, he/she reaches out the FLS for answers and then rephrase it before providing the answer to the top. Then who gets the attention and credits? SLS. FLSs and the workers continue to be sweaty workers. One achievement from the workers will pass thru at least 5 layers of managements and rewards go to those SLSs. If something goes wrong, SLS will point his index finger to cover their butts. They need to get rid of those SLSs but not all of SLSs are useless. But the ranking system always protects those useless SLSs. Those SLSs are like debt/ zombie companies to ExxonMobil and ExxonMobil just keep on borrowing money to feed those SLSs. Death spiral and now covid-19 will reveal all the ugly truths. If those upper management sees it and make a change, ExxonMobil can be saved but is the upper management smart enough to see it? Darren Woods was on interview few months and saying that he is all in in gas and oil while other competitors are reaching out to green energies. Now, who is the dummy? When you have a dummy leading the company, you as a sweaty workers will be sacrificed and now you see that? New incremental hires are let go and loyal ExxonMobilers (10-30 yrs service) got Let go without any apologies and compensation as appreciation. Wake Up unless there is a true change.
I had a similar experience. I helped an intern and new employee with analysis. He eventually became my super and I became the subject matter advisor. Arrogant SOB started telling me how to do my job (and was wrong to boot). Most miserable time in my long career. Glad to be retired. Now if these clowns can only get the stock price to recover.
ExxonMobil is full of managers without any relevant background. It’s even worse when they rotate them from upstream to chemicals or vice versa. It’s terrible when they pretend to know stuff and don’t even take the time to learn and understand the basics.