We are a team of six engineers. Last year, I got a great project I successfully delivered. This year, all but me were given projects and I feel like I am just slacking, doing the miscellaneous stuff. Nothing significant on my plate. Am I being pushed out?
12 replies (most recent on top)
@zs Plenty of HMs come here to “take the temperature” of a company’s culture.
It’s not a perfect proxy, but the patterns tell a story. From what I’ve read here, I couldn’t put any of you on the same team as someone from South Asia. That’s a problem from a hiring perspective.
@zs Exactly. It’s the same comment over and over. Great, you learned your lesson. Now stop hiring this type of person. We all learn from our mistakes.
@zg, just seems a little odd that a manager from an outside company would spend their time monitoring this board. Are we supposed to believe that your experience with hiring us was so bad that you are now obsessed with trolling us. That earns you a “Cool story, bru”
@ex Speaking from the experience of hiring from the EM workforce based on stated years of experience.
Maybe we (and every other company) that hired from EM and other Houston area operating companies just had really, really, bad luck, but I saw our new grads running circles around these guys, even on the fundamentals.
Also, another job of the engineering manager is cleaning up messes and fixing mistakes made by the contributors, which I had to do a lot more of with you EM/O&G types, while also dealing with your nasty defensive attitudes about it, and defending why I hired you to upper management. Never again. Seriously, never.
@ag This is the simplest method of throwing people under the bus.
@ca The loser who left the company who knows how many years ago probably in a PIP but always comes in here saying he is the only real Engineer is back. Ge-z. Give it a rest. Oh and by the way it pays better to manage engineers than to be the individual contributor doing the actual engineering. If you don’t e up the value chain then that is your loss.
@OP All your engineering is outsourced to consultants and contractors.
So no, don’t be worried, unless you’re planning on applying for an engineering role somewhere other than a Houston area oil company where you might actually have to do some work.
Yes, you should be worried. The handwriting is/was on the wall when you were assigned miscellaneous projects.
Yes, sweetie. I kept telling my manager I needed a real project as I was completely underutilized. But a senior engineer in the group, who was absolutely PIP material himself, asked for 100% of my time to do some simple data analysis. I kept going around asking if I could pick up something meaningful, but he kept telling my manager he “needed me full‑time.”
I even came up with ideas for the same project, and he turned around and told my manager they were his initiatives. And of course, everything played out exactly as he planned — I got NSI, just like he set up from the beginning.
Yup lack of work is hallmark of nsi unless you are a protected hipo. Remember everything can and will be used against you. I used to think somethings were not a big deal but they were. One employee did not do a presentation because he was busy in the lab. He was always running tests and experiments. The others on the team were favorite s that sat in the office all day. Well he was piped because he did not do the presentation. When he protested about the others who did nothing the supervisor said were not talking about them only you. Another employee who was over 60 and had almost 40 years with exxon had all her work taken from her and given to contractor s. When she asked the supervisor what she was supposed to do he said we will find something for you. She asked what it really meant and he honestly told her that she was going to be piped next year. She decided to retire instead of being piped. One little thing can doom you. No matter how insignificant it might be.
Most likely yes
Why didn't you fight for one. Everything here is a game of musical chairs. If you don't have one, you're booted out.