After four years, I'm starting to feel that the fastest way to grow my career would be to leave this place. I've had minimal progress since I've been here and I've seen people who have no idea what they're doing catapult their careers because they are related to or their parents are friends with somebody near the top. I can't compete with that.
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Just have lavish pool parties at the bosses house..among other things=sponsorship!
That’s the bottom line, be sponsored. I’m seeing people just be zoom placeholders or join zooms and have value. No value to plants or the field. What’s interesting is our boss told us we have less fat to hide during evals. We have to stay engaged on projects or however we value work. I still preach the sups/mgrs need to be engaged. Get rid of the zoom meetings and they create value for the their team. I know that can’t happen cuz that would throw this whole thing off but it needs to happen.
@OP People keep posting questions like this, and the answer is always the same:
- If you’re under age 40 and have been in O&G less than five years, get out of O&G. There is nothing in it for you.
- If you’re over age 40 and have been in O&G more than five years, you may as well stay where you are and play the game. The industry imparts almost no externally marketable skills to their employees, and it is an uphill battle to acquire them after so many years of getting paid good money to do very little.
2a) O&G companies rarely impose strict deadlines, ask for little beyond the bare minimum, and generally pay well relative to the amount of work. The main downside is the toxic politicized leadership and the constant whining and complaining from senior employees who should have thrown in the towel years ago, but just won’t, either because they’re too proud to admit they’re not that good anymore, or (more likely) because they can’t afford to retire and/or can’t do any better.
Have you tried being a citizen of Guyana? Literally just do that and tow the line. It's a sure fire Hipo strategy. Or at least you'll get a news article about ya. I can't change where I was born but who cares about long term company success anymore; not expecting pension and not expecting vesting shares. Good luck xom, I'll be doing my best zombie impression ✌️
Nope.
The reason you have seen little progress is because you are not engaging in "promotable behaviors".
These are being a brown-noser, regurgitating management rhetoric, showing up at the office every day at 7AM even if working from home is permitted and even encouraged by your supervisor, taking credit for others work, producing PowerPoint presentations by plagiarizing your colleague's work, never saying anything provocative or challenging, being a yes-man and having lunch at Chick-fil-A with your supervisor every day.
It's rather frustrating to see those who sponsored know nothings get career boosts. Even scarier when they are left in charge of people and making decisions.
However, you can only control what you can control. Despite what they say about "the company owning your career", YOU are ultimately the owner of your career. Don't let some know-it-all manager tell you what you ought to be when you grow up. Chances are, they haven't a freakin' clue. So really do some soul searching and research on what you like to do and then go after it, whether it be here or somewhere else.
I was at EM for 15 years with pretty decent career growth, but hit what felt like a soft cap at CL26 (GSC/EMIT). Glad to be gone.
You may want to consider that you become vested at 5 years.
Comparisons are the death of joy.
However, if you don't love what you do/where you are, or if your contributions are not recognized/valued, or if you feel that there are no opportunities to grow skills to become better, then leaving may be the best option.
Don't get too fixated on money and titles. It's a terrible yardstick to measure success and happiness.
The reason that you have seen little progress is probably that you are not very good at what you are doing. Don't look for excuses.
You’re 100% correct. Get out while you still have marketable skills that other companies will value.