We will go back to greenway on May 4th
23 replies (most recent on top)
@2kss you’re right on the management tail. I’ve never seen a company with so many managers directors and VPs with little to no direct reports. So wasteful and inefficient.
@2yfj+14wTson1 Naturally as a consultant, your wages will be higher. And if you are a specialized consultant, then more so.
My point was that for the same role and same caliber employee, excluding the very high performers, Oxy and other Oil and Gas companies offer a compensation package that is higher than most industries.
I don't disagree that I've seen many people leave for better positions and pay, but I've also never seen a company where so many people retire in place and cash in checks grossly in exceedance of their talent, position or contribution.
What other industry/company has the long tail of management? There several directors with 1 or even 0 direct reports.
I'd also disagree on the pay scales for many. I've seen quite a few people in different roles leave Oxy for better pay elsewhere, both inside and outside of the industry. I do think on the Petroleum background side (Engineers & Geos) the pay can't easily be beat. But if you're talented in another role, there are plenty of jobs that pay well out there, and that's why it's easy for those individuals to leave. But if you're mediocre at best (I hate to say it, but we know that's the case with many people at Oxy), then you're probably getting top dollar.
Care to elaborate on the payscale? I still don’t see the pay being substantially higher. I say this as a consultant they tried to onboard as a full time employee. The lowball wage was offensive.
@2anx+14wTson1 For top talent, absolutely. For middle to lower talent, no. The issue is Oxy and other O&G companies pay far too much than other industries for the same job.
If you're an AI/ML expert, you can get paid far more in Silicon Valley. However if you are a mid level automation guy or server guy etc. you'll likely make 20-30% more at Oxy for far less work.
The pay scales are crazy here.
You all make good points and everyone has unique issues, I just hope and pray they don't bring us back to soon. I am an older employee and I am really uneasy about the prospect of having to dodge people in the office. I went to HEB the other day and just the feeling I had walking around in the place made me feel very uneasy. A lot of people were in the store and many did not have mask, and people were closer than 6 feet all over the store. Plus, if you keep up with the number of cases in the US, Texas, Houston you will see everyone number is going up. That is the number of cases, in hospital, and death. The recovered number does not go up as much as the others. I just think it is a huge mistake to go back to normal and work before those numbers even off.
I heard one large company that stopped paying rent for now to keep workers going since they were working out of their houses. The CEO said he would of never thought that the company could be successful working remotely. He now says they are going to rework leases and go with a smaller office footprint, and introduce efficient ways to continue to work from home. Maybe Oxy needs to renegotiate a lot of leases and save money by having us work from home. I heard Greenway rent is around 40 million a year alone. We need to spend our money on high tech remote solutions and just use the office for meetings every now and then. I know I will avoid going to meetings with people crammed into the conference rooms.
i agree. Call us millennials who want to work from home so we "don't have to work" all you want. The fact is, us millennials are the future workforce and as it looks right now oil and gas does not meet the pay or benefit requirements for anyone to want to go into this field. You can easily go into tech, healthcare or so many other fields and make more money with better benefits like working from home, not to mention not having to experience the constant fear of layoffs all the time. I see oil and gas having a massive recruitment problem in its future.
Lol yes you are a jerk. A smug one. Did you have kids during a deadly pandemic that shut down the entire planet while you were working at a company on the brink of bankruptcy who had just substantially cut your salary? If you did, then congratulations on your achievement.
What floor are you on? I’ll send my kids by to draw on your dry erase board.
Geez. Of course I would never bring my kids to the office. Grow a sense of humor please.
There are no schools or day cares open. The only family we have are elderly and I don’t particularly feel like k–ling them. My spouse is busy working at a hospital keeping sick people from dying... perhaps someone you know. Anyone coming into our home is putting themselves at risk of exposure.
I don’t feel entitled to anything at all. In fact, if I am required to return to the office, I will politely tender my resignation effective immediately. A substantial cut to my salary followed by demands I can’t possibly meet will leave me no other option.
Also, since I am at constant risk of exposure, I also don’t want to put you in danger of getting sick. I will be sacrificing my livelihood, in part, to keep you safe.
Or, Oxy could allow me to continue working at home for a little while longer. Given the extreme and unprecedented circumstances, it doesn’t seem like an unreasonable concession at all, especially considering the massive cut in compensation they just doled out. Honestly, I Just don’t see the necessity of everyone being back at Greenway. Some people, sure. But Oxy can survive some people working at home for a while.
I have a great boss currently and if I want to work from home he is okay with it even before the virus. I just don't do it much because I don't want to stand out in the crowd. But truth be known I usually am logged on by 6:30am and usually don't get off until 6:30pm, or when we get ready for dinner. Subtract the commute and I usually work 10-11 hours a day and it really seems like less. I am able to get up and walk around the neighborhood about every two hours for 10-15 minutes and maybe walk a little more around lunch and then around 4 another quick 10-15 minutes, but none of it combines to over an hour, so I am getting my exercise as well, and it all equals about a lunch which I just spread out over the day.
It all comes down to people not abusing the benefit of working remotely. A few years back Compaq Computers did this and my wife was one who really worked hard and had a set schedule. She was able to take our kids to school and pick them up, and when I got home I would take over with the kids and she would finish up a good 2 hours work to end the day. She always got her work done and her reviews were just as good as being in the office. There were 10 of them doing it, and after a few years she was called back into the office because others had failed the system. Their productivity had went down, and come to find out they all had real nice tans from laying in the sun about 4 hours a day. My wife ended up quitting and became a stay at home parent and we just got by. Those years she was at home getting the job done was really great and allowed us a lot of flexibility. She was able to use her lunch basically to take kids to school and pick them up saving them two hours or more on the bus. But when you have 2 or 3 out of 10 doing the work the others just ruin it. I think that is why the older managers just don't let go and let us all work from home. There will always be those that screw it up for the rest of us. There are also a lot of mid 30 to early 40 managers that want to say they are progressive, but they are the worse about wanting to see a body in the office.
Microsoft just gave parents 3 months of paid time off to deal with kids being home-schooled, etc., to be used at all of their employee's discretion. Do you think that makes Microsoft more or less valuable? MORE! Their employees want to stay with Microsoft and work hard, and many people would love to have a job there. Happy employees are productive employees. Beaten down and stressed employees are unproductive employees. We're not the tech industry, because we're not smart like them. Microsoft was worth 10 times Oxy only a few years ago. Right now they're worth 111 times Oxy. They could buy us simply using the interest they make off their vast cash reserves. But they never would, because we're a poorly run company. With my 30% pay cut and horrible management all the way up, I hate this place, which is why I do so little work now. We are Oxy.
@1rit: You're right. Work can't be done effectively from home. What was I thinking? How silly of me! Obviously many finance, tech, healthcare, utility, automotive, insurance, and other industries aren't getting anything done from home. Or even our peers and the majors, many of whom are working from home. I get it, you work in the field, and people can't do your job from home. But I have never been in the field, and never will. I don't think my work is any more important than field work, but I also know that I have been more productive working from home than I ever was in the office. More time to focus on the work, less stupid meetings that could be a simple email, less wasteful micromanagement, etc. If after this settles down, Oxy tries to force everyone into the office, I guarantee I will try to find another job. You're right, we're not in IT or Tech, we are in O&G. But you're an id–t if you think the way we do things for the next 20 years is the same way we did things for the last 20. Face it, technology provides a lot of efficiencies in every area that will be critical to our survival. Everything is becoming a tech and data industry, and we just happen to produce Oil & Gas as a by-product. If Oxy doesn't realize that, then we won't survive the next 100 years.
Tson1 Your in O&G, not IT. If you want to sit around in your underwear at home then change industries. Just because you don’t want to wear pants doesn’t mean others don’t like getting up, cleaning up and going to work. And I’d like for you to put in a pipeline from your home office - the work is in the field, you are just support. Too many employees in oil and gas act like the office job is more important than the field work, but it’s not. Morale at most places is s—ing because Interpersonal communication skill lacks. Yes, they could probably go to some type of schedule with home based working. But you will be a contractor before you know it and on your own for benefits. And for new people into the workplace, they need to work in the office and interact with teams so they understand that it’s not just another commenter on social media they are dealing with but an actual person with a personality. Working with people and getting things done requires some finesse with people and personalities. You can’t gain that skill behind a screen.
@1aha - I guess I said it wrong about the kids, and you put it better. I agree with everything you are saying with the exception of staying at home with kids and being as productive as you were in the office. I work with two women that have been working from home with young kids and each say it is hard to keep focused, and keep the kids entertained and work. Throw in the fact they are now homeschool teachers and that takes away even more. I am all for working from home if you can for everyone, but my point was just because you have kids does not make you any different than say a 60 year old person that is more vulnerable to the virus. If you can work from home and be just as productive then we should all do. I also think one of the reasons Oxy cut our pay was because they knew we were going to work from home and be able to cut some expenses, so maybe they figured they would only get 70% out of us. It will be interesting to see if they give us the option to continue to work from home with a reduced salary if we choose.
I 100% agree with what was said in the comment below. OXYs ultra conservative culture of wear slacks and a pressed button down to work, have a clean shave everyday (what everyone does in the land department except a few “chosen” people) is insane. The open door policy and no work allowed from home is OXY living in the past where old white men make all the decisions. If OXYs cancerous culture doesn’t change they are going to have a huge talent gap as soon as things turn around. No one wants to work for this company.
@1aha: You have the typical old school mentality. That's what Oxy also doesn't realize, that many companies across industries have now figured out, especially in this time. People can and should be able to work from home in many cases! Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, etc. have all figured it out. As has Netflix, which is now worth more than ExxonMobil, can you believe that?!?! If you have kids or not it's immaterial. With today's technology, work can be performed from home as efficiently or more so, and those who have children do not have to make the difficult decisions on where to place their children in a coronavirus ridden world. Because of this old school mentality by you and the rest of Oxy, we will never be able to attract the best talent IF we survive this downturn. Oxy is lost in the dark ages, and most of our millennial and younger crowd want nothing to do with this type of work environment. When things recover, they will leave, and we will never be able to attract top talent. Our culture is cancerous, and it is very evident to many job seekers. They will join us only if they think the same way as us or in times of desperation. That's hardly getting the best talent, or even close. You may say that "we don't want any sensitive snowflakes," which I agree with in many ways. But I've also seen some very smart and hard-working millennials accomplish amazing things, and who just happen to work differently than us. Besides, none of us are getting any younger. In the future, IF we survive, we'll need them more than they need us. But let's go ahead and push them away with that grouchy, insensitive, old-school attitude. Way to go, keep up the great work!
You make it sound like if you have kids you should be paid to stay home. When I had kids I home I had to scramble to get the right daycare, babysitter, neighbor, or relative to watch my kids while my wife and I both went to work. It was not easy, but we did it because that is how we choose to live our lives. People with children are not due anymore special treatment than those who don't have kids. It is tough to juggle work and kids, but it can be done, and as the parent and adult you usually give up your time for theirs. Hopefully there will be more quality daycares coming, but if you say you need to be paid a full salary or 70% to stay home and watch kids, and work that is not the real world. Tell that to all the less fortunate that have to leave their kids at home while they go to work for minimum wage to buy food. You can always do with less and stay home and watch your own kids. I am sorry to come across as a jerk, but you can't use the kids as an excuse to not come in, and you should never bring the kids to the office. That in itself is totally unprofessional to have them running around the office making noise. I can assure you many don't think it is cute or want a child there.
Y'all are talking like there is any actual work to be done
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Without extensive testing the degree of risk is just a guess, based upon vested interests of individuals.
But those elevators would make me nervous regardless of the + rates, measured or assumed. There will have to be some time consuming workarounds.
Schools are closed for the remainder of the school year. I will plan to drop my kids off at Vicki's office promptly at 8:00 am when we report back.
This sounds good plan to excercise too work authority
I’ll be using stop work authority as this would be an unsafe with my asthma.
That should be interesting. First the Houston Mayor and County Judge has to say okay, and the Judge will be hard to persuade.