We have a few downstream people on my team and they are smart, nice and work hard. I would imagine downstream is struggling some what for the top leadership incompetence. To come into this mess from anywhere else is a total shock to the person. They look wide eyed and in a catatonic state.
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There are still a lot of real decent and honest workers in the office. Most of them are not supervisors or managers (I did say "Workers").
BTW,... the "cost discipline" referred to by Anon 130868 is real, although some might go so far as to call it "cheap". A co-worker and I (in CPChem) were invited to a luncheon, by our supervisor, whom neither of us had any respect for, we both knew the gesture was really nothing more than a means of her getting a free lunch, and she had the unseemly habits of "ordering the wait staff around", complaining about the most minute of things on the table, about the meal, and generally was just an ass (the only skill she really excelled at). We both knew, too, that any "praise" she might heap upon us (it was couched as a "thank you lunch"), was insincere and false, since she had not a clue as to what either of us really did. So, I, being perhaps a little too forthright for some, approached our Manager (the Supervisor's boss), and advised him of the situation and my own reluctance to participate. You would THINK he might have been more interested in "why" I/we would choose to not attend, but his first words were, "who's going to pay? Are you all going to pay your own way?" I almost gagged. The same guy, though, never missed a chance to hit up the entire group to purchase tickets to his kid's latest song and/or dance recital, you name it,... we were sitting ducks. It was like something out of The Office, except, it wasn't funny. Don't think I ever met, or worked for, a more left-handed bunch of clowns and creeps than that bunch. My experience is that the best folks to work with are those closest to the well-head, or plant. The office rats are pretty much just that,... rats.
LOL I see that it is just a screwed up. Now I have never worked for a company like Chevron where you can do what you want to do. For example I want to be in IT of Geophysics and Ummm I am a PE. People just choose there own jobs and actually get them with no skill set. I am so close to landing another job I can smell it! I just can't stay in Bizarro land. I find it hard to believe there are other fortune 100 companies this broke. Chevron thought $100 oil was going to last forever I guess. And the crazy truth is Chevron would be OK if oil was at a$100 a barrel. It's truly hard to understand how a companies culture can be so bad? I thought downstream would have much more of the chemical industry mind set and be different. But it does make sense to be just as broke as it is one company.
So far, the resounding answer to the original question would appear to be: YES!
Nepotism, weasel managers, ROM corruption, non-performance rot, paralysis by OE, ChipDip, LPS, PASA, Idiot Moments . . these all exist in Downstream also. Chevron lost a lot of knowledgeable, hard working, smart people in the 2010 ROM (aka "Accelerate Downstream") and a lot of rubbish was kept and promoted. The primary difference is that Chevron has steadily been divesting Downstream assets (and generating extra cash flow) since about 2005 vs. spending like a drunken sailor in a brothel (on the Upstream side).
Agree with 130868. But, there ARE some incredibly incompetent people, as well. One, in particular, came from Chevron upstream, weaseled her way into Procurement, but THAT manager promptly discovered what a loser this clown is, and booted her OUT. So, Shit-for-brains, somehow, found a "hiding" place in Finance (lied about her qualifications and skill sets), and, again, was discovered to be LESS than incompetent, which was pointed out to management, but THAT nutless weasel "covered" for her, because of her "ties" to a higher up (as we later found out,... still don't know what her special "hold" on the company is, but it must be pretty special). This woman is a JOKE, and every person and department KNOWS it, but she is being protected by higher ups and is, therefore, untouchable. So,... to answer the original post,... No, downstream isn't as broken as upstream in the business sense, but it's JUST as broken, in the cultural one,... perhaps, even more so, as more time and energy are expended in safety and diversity meetings than one could imagine possible. So,... while Upstream personnel are dropping like flies, Downstream harbors clowns like the one described, herein. It's a cultural rot that's killing Downstream just as surely as it has Upstream..
Downstream has a lot more cost discipline.