Thread regarding Chevron Corp. layoffs

DEAD WOOD is leaving now, and it's about damn time!

Yep, and you are repeating it perfectly. Welcome to 1985, folks: "Back to the Future" in reverse!

Yes, there are plenty of Chevron historians out there. And just like the saying goes, "Those who don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it." It's no different here at Chevron, learn your company's history.

I believe the comments below clearly stated that the movie was fiction, but used a few real world events from the CTX merger to build a story. If you haven't seen the film, it is basically about the greed and politics of the industry, and those of the countries heavily involved in it. But, nice to know there are plenty of Chevron historians out there.

What a load of rubbish ! The Chevron takeover of Gulf was in 1984 what George Keller was CEO. The TCO deal was 1992 under Matzke and Derr. O'Reilly was in charge during the Texaco merger in 2001. Peter Bijur was head of Texaco in 1998 when Chevron's first merger approach was rejected. Derr was famouslyquoted as saying that Chevron was big enougn and didn't need Texaco to compete with the big boys.

@4ps, yes, I know. As I said, the movie was half fiction, and they played around with the timeline just enough to stay out of hot water with Chevron Legal. However, for anyone who knows Chevron history, the characters and bits of the storyline are unmistakable.

@4anf, if the backdrop to the movie Syriana had anything to with the Chevron/Texaco merger, then it wasn't Ken Derr's character, but Dave O'Reilly who presided as Chevron's CEO at the time. It was Ken Derr who was instrumental in Chevron's acquisition of Gulf Oil Company in 1984. Ken later became the CEO of Chevron.

RCH, just be sure to vet the stories through a legal advisor before publishing. You may remember a George Clooney film several years ago called "Syriana". The writers cleverly wove together both fiction and the true stories of the TCO deal with the Chevron/Texaco merger as the backdrop. Most of the company, people, and place names were fictional, although they did find a spot on actor to play Ken Derr's equivalent character and even mentioned the Tengiz field by name. However, the script underwent several rewrites to keep the producers out of a lawsuit by Chevron. Even then, the film still went pretty far out on a limb with the truth, but the company let it go. Unfortunately, given the petty thought processes of the current folks in ExCom and senior management committee, they would not hesitate to come after anyone they believed to be slanderous to the company or any of the past or present staff. We live in interesting times...

To RCH, never mind the detritus. If it smells like a fart, walk away,...

@4vxf - True story.

@4khl, you were doing so well until you gave yourself away with your last post, you obvious troll. Tuck your head and tail between your legs and head back to the Ombuds meetings.

@4khl, Agreed, and while there is much I could share, most of my company historical stories are not particularly salacious, such as the story about the FPSO in in NMA that was Ken Derr's parting gift (and turned out to be a white elephant), and the real reason behind the EGTL partnership and investment. My desire is not to disparage anyone, but to entertain. These are priceless, and precious, stories that deserve to be written, and certainly deserve to stand the test of time.

@4pgl - I don't recall that story, but I'm not too surprised. I have knowledge of several scandals that were kept rather private. I couldn't contain myself, but also don't want to give away too much more of my previous story. I'll only say the toilet's tank was also cast in brass with the ship's name from which the propeller came from. It is beautifully crafted. It shined like gold. A reliable source states the Techron formula was engraved into the underside of the tank cover, which back in 1995 was top secret. Actually, the capstone to this story are the words that Ken Derr later had engraved around the rim of the toilet after it was installed, as to keep it private from everyone. The meaning of the words may surprise many, even today. What's more to the story is where that toilet ended up. The old brass sink and countertop were too big and may have stayed in the old building, but the current location of the toilet and who has it today is what I'll reveal in the book. Lots more stories like that will be told, not only of our CEOs, but also of other executives and business unit managers over the years. I have one of Joe Geagea that will make you laugh and two of John Watson. All my stories are factual and for fun, include unsubstantiated rumors of their day. Don't expect any salacious gossip. I know lots and share only with close friends, but won't publish any of that stuff.

Back at 3oxg, sounds like it will be a great bathroom read, and I can't wait for it! In the meantime, I have another one for you that you may, or may not, already have. Its a bit more gossipy, but no less true. There was an MD in CIEP in the mid-2000's (no names, as he is still with the company, but I'm pretty sure you'll know) who arranged a second company car and driver for his wife. This is not terribly unusual, as with the expectations for appearances for various PGPA events, the spouses of executives are virtually employees themselves; kind of like the First Lady or First Man. What raised eyebrows, however, was when he ordered a full time company car and driver for his teenage son. Apparently, the son was rather precocious, in a country in which a tall, good looking, western young man is a prime target for the local night life butterflies. And, so, the car and driver were intended to be a chaperone for the frisky young chap. However, what really started the tongue wagging in the office was when the young man had a $16,000 audio/video system installed in his company car (on the company's dime - btw, the car was a Mercedes Benz SUV), and, by simply being befriended and well paid off by the charming young man, his driver effectively became his nightlife coordinator, picking up and delivering ladies of the evening (procured through the internet) to clandestine trysts at various hotels around the city. This went on for two years, and was one of the worst kept secrets around the office, as company drivers are not exactly known for their discretion. Of course, that same young man would later bounce in and out of various rehab facilities around the world, but that is another story...

@2frc - Well, I just might share stories from my stash of Chevron historical archives someday. I'll write a short book and offer it in softback for leisurely reading while lounging around or sitting on the porcelain thrown. I'll give you a sample of which I will expand on when the book is published. There's a little-known story about Ken Derr, our illustrious CEO before Dave O'Reilly. Mr. Derr commissioned an ornately decorated solid brass toilet and huge sink for his private bathroom adjoining his large office in San Francisco. This was during the days when Chevron's headquarters was located in the City by the Bay at Market and Bush streets. The toilet and sink were cast from a smelted propeller of an oil tanker in the Shipping company's fleet. No one knew the reason behind the extravagant expense, but some people thought it meant something to him, personally. There were a few colorful rumors, but I'll provide those details later in the book. I have about 50 such stories spanning the years from Ken Derr to John Watson. Some are quite shocking and peculiar.

If you are leaving Chevron, you're best bet is to cut all ties, including phone numbers. It is very similar to a divorce. Get a new phone, number, and email address, pass those on to everyone you care about, or care to keep in touch with, and move forward with your life. Five years from now, you will have forgotten how to even spell Chevron. And that is aeven ssuming that the company survives that long before XOM completes the takeover. Oh, you thought that rumour was over? Hehehe...

@EIlyEMX-1uni, I don't normally use language like that, but was enjoying a glass (or two) or good Scotch, and was feeling a bit jovial at the time. However, the sentiment still stands. I too have my own historical archives about Chevron. I imagine it would be interesting to compare notes...

Just a comment about my experience trying to port my company mobile phone number over to a personal mobile. I was ROM'ed and going to leave the company in a month. I called AT&T and was told my number was subscribed to a Bysiness Premier account (business), and to get the number ported over to a personal mobile would require authorization from the person who was paying the bill for the company mobile. I went to the person who administrates all the mobile billing for my work group and was told I could not do this. The administrator opted to keep paying the mobile bill after I left the company even though no one was going to be assigned my old mobile phone. That was my experience. It is possible to get the old number ported, but the person who handles the mobile billing for your group will need to approve it. That person needs to authorize AT$T to proceed. Hope this helps.

To @EIlyEMX-1zso, from the OP.. Since the phone and number is in your name, albeit charged to your corporate card, you already have an account with AT&T. If you think the end is near, simply call and tell AT&T that you would like to transfer the billing to your personal account, and then arrange to charge to your personal cc number. The caveat here is that if you are not let go, you will have change it back later, and perhaps have to explain this to your boss. Under the present circumstances, that would likely be understood, so I wouldn't worry much about that. However, if the ax falls before you do this, it will likely be too late, as your corporate card and AT&T account will be cancelled by the company very quickly. Hope this helps.

Question: if I get axed suddenly and have to turn in my company cell phone immediately as described by the OP, can I convert my company cell phone number to a private account? I have at&t in Houston and have used that number for 6 years, and want to keep the cell number.

Thanks for the tips.

@EIlyEMX-1brn - I agree with you 100%. Yours is the best post made on the entire site. Perhaps not the best choice of words for everyone, but the message is very accurate. I will copy and paste it to my archives about Chevron. Thanks.

Who cares about ethics, dude! The Chevron Way went out the door with O'Reilly, Robertson, and Zygocki. The clueless pricks and prickesses now running the show are the most unethical and unapologetic that most of us have ever seen in this industry. In other words, these folks are the biggest dickheads in Chevron's long history, and that's includes a tremendous amount of dickheads! It takes quite a lot to reach these rarefied levels, but Watson, Geagea, and many, many others have finally managed to achieve what their predecessors over the last 40 years could not: a net loss in value to the company of more than 40% year on year. Good luck, boys and girls, with these folks at the helm!

When you hire a short term experienced SME contractor for a specific assignment, where do you think their knowledge came from, a university somewhere? And, when they deliver the right solution at the right time, do you question them as to where they learned that information? Get real, folks. There is industry knowledge, institutional knowledge, and personal knowledge, and those three often overlap. In actual fact, that's how industry knowledge and, to a large extent, industry standards originally began. Yes, today we have API, ASME, IEEE, SPE and all the other acronymic industry groups to steward these things, and all of the companies in the industry freely contribute their time, money, and, somewhat, knowledge. But all of that did not begin with groups of pompous PhDs pontificating for years about where to place the commas and who's paying for dinner. It began with folks taking their knowledge from one employer to another, and continuously learning along the way. It's just how the world works, folks.

A few questions for those of you expounding on the legal and ethical questionability here. Let's say you transferred to your current assignment from another one a couple of years ago, and it involved a relocation. You packed up everything that was in your old office and would up with a few boxes of books and paperwork, including hardcopies of reports, spreadsheets and such that are company confidential, You didn't really need them and you never bothered taking to your new office, but you hung on to them just in case you may need to dig something up in the future. So, they are just sitting in your home office or garage today. Tomorrow, you get the good news from your supervisor and HR that you are now available to the industry. Do you take those boxes back to the office and leave them with CBRES? Do you shred everything at home? Or, does that material simply join all the other stuff that you've accumulated over your career at home? For that matter, what is the difference between an electronic or hardcopy file and the same information that resides in your own memories? Would it be illegal or unethical for me to utilize information that I remember from a prior project with Chevron to benefit a new project I am now working on with a competitor, so long as the application of that knowledge does not violate patent or copyright laws?

DEs are the second to go. If you don't have rigs drilling - do you need DEs on the payroll? Realistically with asset sales and no rigs running, DEs and support personnel are easy targets for cost reduction. Chevron is a business with a commitment to shareholders. I would not be surprised to see a 75% reduction in the drilling department.

Chevron has been drilling engineers for a long time. Don't think you can't be drilled too.

Chevron don't layoff Drilling Engineers. Therefore, I have nothing to worry about.

Damn. I downloaded many pertinent manuals and procedures used in my line of work off the Sharepoint site. Really good stuff. I don't plan to share this material directly with any company. My intent is to use parts of the documents to strengthen or improve the manuals and procedures where I eventually will end up working. I won't elude to the source, but rather claim it is my own "work product". No one will be the wiser.

I mean illegal and unethical in the last posting. You cannot do it.

It's one thing taking your professional library with you, it's another downloading SharePoint sites. Illegal and Unethical. Software will catch you and you deserve loosing the severance.

Chevron installed a software that automatically tracks activities by an employee starting about May or so this year. The software is updated every so often. It WILL CAPTURE screens showing which files are being copied to an external drive, time, file names, etc.

Best to copy to laptop drive "C" -- and then copy from drive "C" to the external drive (USB port) when your laptop is not connected to Chevron via VPN, else an alarm goes off somewhere in ITC with the software capturing everything you do.

Downloading your work product or your professional library that you carry with you from one employer to the next without disclosing Chevron's confidential info. is one thing, but downloading confidential info. from SharePoint site is legal / ethical, even if you are not disclosing to a third party.

Anyone concerned about Chevron coming back on them for downloading data needn't worry. Yes, Chevron Legal is large and has a very healthy budget, but it is not infinite. Believe me, Legal will be so tied up over the next several years with not only the regular day to day business, but also managing all of the upcoming restructuring, divestitures, and the tsunami of labor litigation that is just now at the beginning to worry much about somebody making copies of data for their personal use. As long as you don't do something overtly stupid with it, such as partnering with a competitor on reserves, well logs, financials, HR, or other obvious internal or insider information, you will not even remotely make a blip on Legal's radar. Commence Ctrl+a, Ctrl+c, and Ctrl+v to your heart's content!

From the OP. To clarify, I was not suggesting that you steal company confidential information to share with others. Anything you download would be for your use and edification only. Certainly, never share any of this with a prospective employer, for reasons already well stated in other responses below. My point, quite simply, is that we are all human, and none of us has photographic memory. Chances are, you will be faced with a similar technical challenge with another company down the road, perhaps years from now, that you previously worked to solve while with Chevron. Having that information at hand for your own use will be of great assistance. Again, do not share it with anyone else, as that would likely be illegal, depending on the content, and probably unethical. Look at it this way, how many times throughout your Chevron career have you dug back through old emails or old O: drive/SharePoint files to find that data point, report document, or a person's name/contact info that you couldn't remember off hand? If you worked for many years in a technical position in Chevron, as I did, then not having access to that digital information, particularly work that you yourself did or contributed to, would be like wiping your own memories. In these days of information overload, we are perhaps more dependent than we would like to admit on electronic storage to augment our memories. It's why we keep our old university textbooks and industry standards reference manuals. Its also no different than the business world of years ago when shrewd folks kept Xerox copies of their files at home, not for anyone else's eyes or use but themselves. While the laws on all of this do vary, and we could debate the ethics of it all day, I see nothing wrong with positioning yourself for success in the future by retaining what you worked so hard to build over your career.

@EIlyEMX-ctd - Good advise about not copying one's own work product to show prospective employers. You are right and I stand corrected. That will most likely damage your chances of getting a job. Good point.

Take a mini recorder with you to meetings with HR and your manager. It is legal in Texas to record in secret, with only you knowing. You are not protected in CA.

The OP wrote a valuable exit strategy. Take copies of your work. When you interview, just delete or black out numbers and locations. He Chevron has used Orwellian tactics to build fear, a powerful controll method. You need copies of your emails to make your case if you want to file a lawsuit.

For the OP and others who think it's okay to take company property when they leave so they can show"work products" to potential new employers, a word of caution: if your potential new employer embraces the confidential chevron information, which they probably know is confidential, then you can be confident they share your lack of ethics. Perhaps you want to work for an unethical company, but I personally will pass. If the company is ethical, your sharing confidential information from a previous employer will likely cause them to reject you as a candidate. After all, if you took confidential information from chevron when you left, you will probably do the same to them. I recall a job interview where a candidate pulled out a bunch of internal reports from his previous employer to show us as his "work product". We gave them right back without opening them, let him know that was wrong, and ended the interview. The high road is not always easiest, but it's usually best.

Also, back up your company phone and ensure you have all of the information from that, as well: contacts, texts, notes, and anything else you may have stored in an app. For example, if you have a company iPhone, you can do a backup to iTunes on a personal PC or Mac, making it easy to restore to a personal iPhone later for recovery.

One of the conditions of receiving severance is that you cannot take any company confidential information with you. That includes files and emails. They can sue you for that, so I wouldn't take any chances. And like someone else said taking something that doesn't belong to you is theft, especially after the company is kind enough to give you a severance.

Take all you think will be useful to you in your next job. For me, it would be my work product to show as examples to my next employer. I would also export all my contacts from whitepages to an Excel file, including email and phone numbers. By all means, take home your personal items and desk decorations, a little at a time. No one wants to be seen getting escorted out of the building with a box in hand. But, forget about stealing Chevron intellectual property. Just getting caught could be reason for being fired with cause. You will lose your severance and maybe your pension too. If Chevron wanted too, they can even prosecute you.

Even better, start looking for a job now. The next wave won't be as lucrative as the Project Alpha layoff was. But then again, if you are part of the friends and family plan, make sure your connections are safe, so you will be safe as well.