I work for a vendor that works for ConocoPhillips. I find a lot of the comments here to be bitter and insulting, but given the circumstances, I suppose that is to be expected.
I thought I'd give a different point of view to the dilemma that has affected so many of you. For obvious reasons, I, and my company, shall remain anonymous.
First, COP is one of our biggest customers. A couple of years ago, they were the biggest, but in spite of our competitive pricing and excellent service record, COP decided that we needed some competition. So be it.
COP is a pretty difficult company to work for, from a vendor's point of view (and, yes, I've talked to several other vendors). It is a company that is run by committee. Nobody can make a decision, and they are constantly changing their collective minds. It makes it very difficult for us to prepare for jobs when the specifications change every day, or perhaps several times per day. I've had procedures sent to me that list 8 or more engineers for a given project, along with 4 approval signatures, yet the procedure was full of mistakes. COP can't wipe it's ass without a 50 page procedure. It's ridiculous!
It may be of interest to current employees that my company doesn't give as large a discount to COP as we give to other companies. This is specifically because of the sheer number of job changes and last minute job cancellations we have to put up with. Everyone has a problem once in a while, but with COP, it happens a couple of times per week. Now, when I post a COP job on the schedule board, our crews joke that it's just another 'imaginary Conoco job' that I post to make the boss think we're busy.
Just today, they cancelled a job that was sent to me yesterday. No problem, COP called in two more jobs that they forgot to schedule yesterday. I don't know of any other oil & gas company that has so many planners & schedulers, yet about the only thing they can schedule is lunch and vacations.
One thing that I've noticed is that many of the office staff lack commitment to their jobs. Just stop by the office on a Friday and the parking lot is empty. Employees are far more worried about their 3-day weekend than getting anything done. (Note, the 3-day weekend is nice, but I think it really hurts productivity because people spend so much time planning their mini-vacations instead of working). I don't see this mentality at other companies, major or little independent. I do believe that most of the field people are pretty dedicated to their work.
As for those that have gotten the axe, well, I'm sorry. However, it's NOT the end of the world. I've lost jobs, too. You just move on. It sounds like some of the younger folks are devastated about it. Remember, you were looking for a job when you found the one at COP, you can man up and find another. Keep in mind that Conoco was NOT looking for YOU when they hired you, they were looking for a warm body to fill a vacancy. Don't take it personally. The company doesn't love you and, a year from now, many of your former co-workers won't remember your name.
Will ConocoPhillips survive? Who knows? I hope so, but they will need a major shift in their management philosophy in order to do so. Dump the team concept, hire people with genuine leadership skills and let them lead. Put individuals in charge of projects and hold them accountable. Don't put so many people on each project. It doesn't take a team of a half dozen engineers to do a plugback/recompletion of a well, especially when they've done dozens of similar jobs in the same field. Dump the political correctness and diversity bullshit. I had lunch with a group of COP engineers a couple years ago and the senior engineer made a point about what a wonderfully diverse group we had at the table. FIVE countries were represented! I nodded, but I couldn't help but think how much more effective they could be if they could only TALK to each other!
Well, it's getting late. Best wishes for a brighter future to all of you!