Thread regarding ExxonMobil Corp. layoffs

Couldn’t agree more. Well written post.

LOL I guess in your own mind you’re a “technical powerhouse”. Truth is, you’re not, and you’re not valued, and this is why you got PIP’d. NEXT.

Wow, a real winner here. I smell a Trumptard that causes problems at work and needs to be terminated without severance.

@2fkn+16nOi5cz the pot calling the kettle black?

@1orp+16nOi5cz did you entertain yourself with that useless reply?

Hey, man. Why don't you get into a Post-grad Philosophy program so you can make some sense of what you say?
Here's a little joke from way back about engineers.
It appears there was an engineer in the day of the French Revolution - but a philosopher too.
He found himself on the guillotine - so sloppy the workers that his head was facing up.
"I think I see the problem!" - he said as it came sc-aping down.

So - be an engineer and not a whining philosopher. Crater-face.

Not in this company. Network, make your supervisor look good. Get 2-3 other supervisor to know your name and you’ll be set. It’s not what you know it’s who you know in this new system plain and simple. Oh and better hope your supervisors manager likes you too or it’s game over.

work hard, embrace core values and instead of being rewarded, received separation notice from the silly leader. counting days to leave the company, sunset industry, dooms day for all who continue to lick the boot. good timing to leave considering the company value deteriorate as its shares continue to drop. What goes around comes around...retribution in the making for bad leaders who abandoned its employee

I have read all this comments over here, most of you sounds of a pack of Exxon Mobil drones try to apply psychology that the only the good guys are you and the company. You have to realize when this kind of problems appears, it is the management fault. Of course non of the manager will take the fault, because the money is pretty good and the travels around the world as well. In my experience working at EM, many of you think that because you are working at EM, you are a superior being, even when people that come out of the school coming with that attitude as well. One of many problems in this company, it is when a people start to point people that are lazy or evaluate without knowing the person, you are acting as a despicable person (EM drone). This is one of the first problems to solve in this company.

It’s not about working things to the nth degree, or about being scientific, or thorough. It’s that person who blows everything up into a catastrophe when you ask them a question. Sounds like there are about three on this thread now.

And to the poster who said they’ve never met anyone like this, have you ever heard the jokes about “every group of friends has one of these, and if you do t know who that friend is, it’s you”?

Can we not agree that EM has lost it's way? EM works problems to the nth degree and while the industry is passing it by, it's still analyzing the problem. Everyone is afraid to be wrong. I've had 32 years of this and nothing seems to change. The way EM has handled this downturn is absurd and lacks a principled response. The competitors are several class levels above EM. It's sad what EM has become. The Standards of Business Conduct are now bullsh@t! Glad to be separated!

@kvr, you just proved OP's point...

Seriously now? First, who is responsible for this culture other than management that penalized technical folks every time that they missed something? Of course we developed an attitude of going to weeds and covering every little detail. Second, assuming there is something wrong with these people, where was management all these years to mentor/train them? And, third, yes I have met the person you described. Only this person has elevated the art of blowing up the problem to the point that he made it to CL 30 as a technical person.

It’s very easy to have “answers”, when it doesn’t matter if they are wrong or it can’t be verified (until years later) that they were wrong.
That’s why the senior technical professionals (STCs and Chiefs) especially in geoscience are full of self-confident a-holes, who pound the table and pontificate.
Managers tend to gravitate towards those who give them reassurance instead to those who inconveniently point out fatal flaws.
Hence the problem, once it’s been decided what the outcome is, we can’t be bothered with nuances or facts that highlight the ignorance of an SME or the incompetence of a manager.
Do it in public, say at a meeting or worse -a town hall- and you’ll have “behavioral issues”, never mind you saved the corporation from a very costly mistake.
Thinking is for pus ssies, softies, and I&D , it’s only time to get in line, and over the cliff.
Eye roll.

Anecdotally amongst the more senior staff there is a general agreement that XOM has become too touchy-feely. Adam Grant, Wharton professor, would put that as the company has promoted too many agreeable givers, and worst of all, agreeable takers.

We should be protecting the disagreeable givers and unfortunately those who are disagreeable are often marked as having behavioral issues, regardless of whether they are takers or givers.

https://qz.com/work/1309735/adam-grant-the-best-employees-are-not-the-agreeable-ones/

Kinda true.. there are sme's my group avoid in general as you know they'll end up generating more work/comments instead of helping close out the issue at hand.

@qdd I suppose it’s a matter of degree.

I agree with you if you’re in a mentoring position and your understudy is bombarding you with questions that they eventually need to know how/where to answer. Encourage them to find the answers they are capable of finding. However, I cringe at the idea that you should make it a circus for them to come to you though to discourage them.

On the other hand, if someone has identified a problem that is outside of their technical competence, and inside yours, then I say get them to the answer as efficiently as you can!! You can call that a Google mindset, but I just think of it as solving problem A so that we can move on to problem B.

While I largely agree with this sometimes the round about questioning is a form of mentor ship and education. Like it or not the SME is more useful as a trainer. Someone who forces you to think on your own than google.

It is a fine balance but some people are natural trainers. Getting info out is such a circus you really think hard before asking. That extra energy in thinking is valuable too but not as bankable as saying I asked he/she gave the answer in 5 min like google.

On the flip side knowing we are in google culture if you have answers give them quickly without fuss and let people grow reliant on quick answers from you.

Be one of those people that eats problems and c-aps out answers! I love working with those people, send them an email, and boom, they close it out. Coffee is for closers ...

Very true!