Thread regarding Chevron Corp. layoffs

-9pci, Agree - Point taken. Nonetheless - STEM students and graduates are generally -

• Not stupid and have above average common sense among the various majors, and would be able to translate and differentiate the rants and bitterness from disgruntled ex-employees from the legitimate criticism. And not just the ones who "ace differential equations", even the C students. Many are much brighter than we were at their age due to the Internet.

• Would not generally surf lay-off sites, there are too many other sources of info such as glass door, linkedin, etc. and more with millions of good comments and data not to mention the social media sites.

Most are optimistic and look to the future as something bright, not the turmoil here. I know because I asked a ton of them. However, certainly some may, that's true. That would be the exception. I would definitely caution my kids to take anything posted here with a bucket of salt.

But posting "Don't come work at Chevron" as one OP did, on this Layoffs.com, site is pretty much in vain, and falls on deaf ears. - Not that I would advise anyone to, particularly, that's not my point.

3umj I speak to many of these young graduates and future graduates daily, as I teach night courses. I can tell you with 100% certainty that most college graduates and those looking for jobs at all levels of their careers do not visit "layoffs" sites to get real info on prospective employers. On top of that, they have way more intelligence than believing the severely biased comments on a site dominated by laid off upset, vengeful disgruntled employees. Millennials may be spoiled, entitled, and many have a lack of work ethic, but I can assure you - Stupid they are Not.

Totally agree, 8oeb. What's more, if Chevron thought that getting rid of the many of us who often complained about these shortcomings, they did not solve the problem. They only prolonged the inevitable. Chevron will continue to flounder and not rise to the greatness it can achieve. But human nature is just that; the management that let us go, just wanted to quiet the complaints about them, as they serve out the years they need to retire well and cast the company adrift. Those are the disloyal people who really don't care.

Some meetings are important to have, such as a periodic status meeting or to address certain emergency situations. Far too often at Chevron, various processes and their associated meetings take over and it becomes one big CYA risk-aversion work environment. Every minute sitting in a meeting is one minute that you are not doing 'real' work. Meetings must add value and profitability to the company and not just be scheduled to make work for someone to make a spreadsheet or power point presentation that will quickly be forgotten.

-7tns, I got sick and tired over the many years where the usual suspects never dialed in from the field to attend our weekly-scheduled planning meeting. We often had these meetings where some of the office team didn't show up or excuse themselves to their supervisor. The team leader or group manager never looked into accountability with the team members or their own team leads. I'm sure this and many other "oversights" ever made it into a PMP evaluation or discussion. Typical Chevron behavior from 10 years on the last team I worked with.

The main thing that Chevron views as a true 'quality' and 'value-adding' trait in any manager is the ability to schedule, and have subordinates schedule, endless meetings with countless spreadsheet and power point demonstrations, packed full of action items, take aways, opportunities and more follow-up meetings. No wonder this company is so inefficient with the money it spends on all of the staff. I recognized within 2-3 months of my employment at Chevron, that attending meetings was considered a sign of status and importance. If you could spend 70 hours out of a 9/80 schedule in meetings, then you have achieved corporate nirvana. If you decide to skip a meeting now and then because you have actual work to complete to meet an important deadline, then you are considered not to be a true team player. Don't believe me? Then wait for the responses.

7wio - I did not realise that we were being scored on our replies. In future I will try to do better. Will this score be reflected on my PMP? The response was going to include "arrogant, opinionated etc etc" but did not want risk not getting your approval.

The company was built by geologist pointing out where the oil is. The best managers I've ever had were geologists, and not just at cvx. Chevron s---s big time with drilling efficiency in the permian for instance. This is primarily thanks to engineers thinking they know whats going on underground and everything can be imagined as homogenous blankets (an engineer manager literally held a meeting and tried to sell that idea...and who ate that up? all the while being last place in midcon). Look at smaller companies that still use science and look at their IPs ...they always win. This arrogance spills over into the GOM as well. That being said cvx is not google and the "chevron way" only applies to the board. In all working in E&P is a prison sentence but a lucrative one!

@4cfe, this 360 Feedback thing is BS. It's like jacking off. Feels good but is totally unproductive. IMO, the one you need to impress is your boss, so the feedback you get should come from your boss. In this world, Sh!t runs downhill so do your best to make sure it runs downhill somewhere else.

Its something small but I only noticed after leaving the company and working elsewhere. It is rare for 360 degree feedback to be instituted in Chevron - this means that some middle managers and senior managers are just trying to tick boxes and please their boss, even if subordinates are poorly managed and not happy. These middle managers seem to get promoted for their ability to conform to PMP expectations more than for their leadership skills, or actual ability to manage projects. It kind of sets up a chain reaction of middle management sheep who aren't very aspirational and have weak leadership skills - but who have false confidence in their abilities because they consistently get decent PMP rankings so "they must be doing a good job" so low-value behaviors are reinforced.

If there were better ways for teams to give performance feedback to their bosses i think this would be less of an issue - i have certainly seen it at other energy companies.

This is not all bosses, I have also had very good bosses at Chevron (particularly older career Chevron) who really knew what they were doing, but were rarely recognized for that.

There is definitely something unique to the Chevron company culture and work environment that would cause many more negative posts here than you will find at all the other major and large mid-sized oil companies that have had similar large layoffs. It seems that many people were/are very unhappy working in the PC/LGBT/Diversity Celebration, meeting-crazy, BS slogan, micropause environment and were either unwilling or unable to seek employment elsewhere. Now they are all venting on this site what they could not say at work, or even at home. I was laid off in 2016 and can clearly remember how I had to motivate myself every morning to go to work at Chevron. The pay was great, but my mental well being and psyche were taking a beating. I never thought that I would ever be thinking that, but it eventually got the better of me. Being unemployed is really bad, but I honestly believe that working at Chevron was taking years off my life. A lot depends on your immediate manager, an mine was a true company man chevroid.

3ujm- You make a good point and in my opinion there is a measure of damage control attempted on this site, as expected just more words. I must say for a few of the other Oil/Gas companies the negativity seems to be minimal.

-2rud. I can guarantee you that Texas A&M, Texas Tech, LSU and UT juniors and seniors are reading this Layoff website. I have heard first hand. A common question was whether Chevron was posting damage control via anonymous posters. Graduating students are pretty astute when it comes to reading between the lines with social media.

3tov- Bigger is not always better.

-2rud, This is not a "blog" and why would a recent college grad read comments at a layoff's website? The comments on this site are extremely biased against all companies, not just CVX, to say the least. Not to mention college grads should generally have much better things to do with themselves and the layoff sites are the last place that any normally astute person, college grad or not, new or old, would go to glean any useful information.

-2wvs (previous post) may have an idea worthy of consideration. CVX market cap is approximately $199 B. COP market cap is approximately $55 B. A non-cash merger between CVX & COP would be valued at approximately $254 B w/ current pre-merger CVX shareholders owning approximately 78 percent of the merged entity. There would be some value-adding synergies attributed to the no-cash merger....yielding billions of dollars of value essentially cost free....

Let's tone down the negative posts. CVX is and will be a survivor during this downturn. CVX (and XOM) is (are) the flagship(s) of the E&P industry not only in the U.S. but in the world. CVX may want to consider a non-cash merger, as was done with Exxon & Mobil and Conoco & Phillips, with either COP, OXY or Marathon. All are essentially pure upstream companies. Again, let's knock off the absurd negative posts. After some necessary corporate downsizing and streamlining, CVX will be well positioned.

All college graduates need to read this blog. Stay away from this company. You are a comodity and they will lay you off at any moment. You have no career or stability at this company for planning for your life expenses such as children's college or college. When you turn fifty they will lay you off to prevent paying you retirement benefits

No, it is rapidly consuming the company. Victory is within sight.

Oh yes OP Google has come to save us and show us the way. I did read that trash you suggested and its the same garbage that has everybody believing that if you can manage a pig farm then you are capable of managing an oil/gas field. Replace the managers with one of those Googling Muppet's and who will then coach, mentor and develop staff? Who will be developing long term strategies and budgets? Will the staff respect and support that Muppet? Yes I am referring to those areas where the money is actually made as I think most the major centres are already staffed with what you have suggested. There has been enough of all this LGBT, Diverse politically correct hypocrisy which is slowly consuming the company.

Is OP the HES millenial crybaby?

Hate to break it to you but the company was built by engineers. If you want safe space rooms by all means go to google.