I retired early from CVX as an engineer at 52. Luckily I started a side hustle that turned into another company that gave me the outlet corporate world didn't. Spouse is still there as a 30 year engineer and on Monday he gets to walk into a open desk space with just his laptop and squat. Cube farms for all and no more private office after 20+ years. How are others feeling about this change? Is it changing your mindset about staying?
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None of the open concept seating will matter in a couple of years as there won't be any employees in Houston. This is yet another wake up call for all of us. We are no longer valued for our skills or experience, and we are only temporarily occupying this space while the company management is moving all of our roles into lower cost labor markets. This is no secret. Su-k it up and stick it out if you are only a few years away from retirement, but if you have more than just a couple years left in your career, then you really should be reading the tea leaves and getting a job elsewhere.
I just video call people down the hall so that I don't lose my seat
oil went down but profit went up. this all happened during remote work after year one of covid
how do you explain this hard data with your “everyone is a slacker but me” theory?
Cemeteries of the soul.
@kx+1……productivity went up!? LOL
@kx This. All decisions are coat driven. We are being asked how it impacts the bottom line. All decisions are based on cost.
Amazing. I guess there's too many youngins in Chevron now to remember the downtown cubicles from around the Texaco buyout circa 2005. Universally detested and reamed in every survey, Chevron management finally gave in and created regular offices, was it around 2010? I'm retired now, but it does seem to me that brazenly repeating a recent-history mistake really does mean that management doesn't care about you.
along similar lines, consider that productivity went up and so did profit during the remote work era. and then you realize that there must be another financial benefit to going back to the office
and indeed there is. tax breaks. we are doing bad to an ugly crowded office not fit for privacy because of tax breaks and building resale value, not because of “the slackers” as the bootlickers here like to say
@eg so on the money. The building is extravagant and wasteful and the desks are awful. Having people stare at each other is barbaric.
The productivity claim of working together is BS. They built other offices the same before HOU as a way to cut costs. No one likes the “modern office “ layout. The buildings were modernized so they can dump the buildings and leases when they get rid of onshore resources. None of this is for employees benefit. Start thinking like they do to understand. These plans have been in the works for years. They keep it under wraps until they have to tell you.
Chevron took a turn for the worst when MW's tenure was extended due to a lack of a competent replacement. (The Irish girl isn't ready for prime time, MN is too old, and ENGINE isn't ready for BK to finally axe the Houston workforce altogether.) The good news is that, whoever succeeds MW, they can gain widespread worker approval by reversing a few Boomer company culture decisions. Let's see what happens. Chevron su-ks for now, but may su-k less in a few years.
we already know from covid that remote work boosted productivity
why would being back to the office boost it even more over reverting it? that’s such quarter at a time manager thinking. no causality, always assume “number go up”
that’s how we wind up with a flat stock for five years while pretending we generate value
If productivity plummets as claimed, it will give the ELT an excuse to push all the jobs overseas.
@c4 yep, 1TE desk layout is possibly the worst I have seen, (outside project and commissioning activities). So noisy. You have to laugh at all the sales pitch about the great working conditions when they moved us in. cubicles....luxury!
open concepts are for millennial kitchens, not offices
I have no problem being in the office - wfh is appreciated but not as productive for whole office so I get the return, but omfg the open concept is horrendous for productivity, no chance we perform better this way. Going to be fun to watch sh*t get worse tho!
MW was too cheap to build the already-designed third building downtown and challenged his staff to find space for HESS and San Ramone while getting everyone back to work. This solution was all they could do. We will have to try it for a year or two. Give it time.
It’d be interesting to see exec pay as a multiple of the average salary over the last ten years. I bet I can tell you which direction it’s gone. Talk about shareholder value erosion.
Same. I’m totally checked out. Pair the cube farm with depressed ratings (to justify lower pay bumps), and I’m just taking the check. Don’t get me wrong, I will clock in and do my job, but that’s it.
New boss is sub par, new space is horrible, new schedule su-ks, elp has gutted our team.
And I know it’s not anonymous, but always looking forward to the survey…
Laughing at mental mid-ets like you 😆
What are you doing on here then loser
You need a business strategy that works and can be communicated in order to move the stock price - at least move it in a way that does not simply move it the same way as all of our competitors. Someday the BOD will realize that doing the same thing as everyone else will simply move our stock price the same way and our investors could buy XLE for the same returns. Incremental investment in West Texas wells is not a growth strategy, it is a survival strategy. We have been surviving for long enough. Time for the BOD to focus on what is next and go for it - or sell us to someone who will.
Employees are no longer appreciated. That memo came out 5 to 7 years ago and for people to still be there complaining about the same things questions their intelligence. GTFO.
I am one of those people that, generally, prefers being in the office (though I had a WFH job for about 3 years a couple of decades ago). I was one of those people that didn’t even mind going in on non-mandated days.
The modern office in 1TE broke me. I hate it. Sitting 3 feet from half your team, overhearing every conversation, and or to comparing in Teams calls with the same people in your pod … awful.
My productivity plummeted (especially combined with the dreadful computers we have). I feel constantly observed and micromanaged, and when I’m working in the kitchen or a focus room, I’m often asked to justify my whereabouts by the higher ups.
Terrible computers in a terrible working environment with a terrible Microsoft software stack with terrible micromanagers with no direction, and no hope for advancement? Yeah, I’m done. I hope saving on rent whilst forcing us back into the office was worth it. I guarantee the reduction in productivity will not be offset by the reduction in rental footprint.
Cube Farms are not productive. Being around people on all sides with focus work is challenging. While reserved rooms are available for meetings and focus times there are not enough
Of them available for the number of people working in Houston. It will be a nightmare. It might make more sense for teams doing similar focus work to reserve a room to do work quietly together calling it a meeting. The 4 days + cube farms is going to be awful.
OP
I am happy for you for starting your company. I hope that is working for you.
I am not looking forward the "cube farm" but so be it. It's a job and the job market is slow right now. I feel badly for the people I worked with that did not want to leave and they did not find a new position last year. Maybe if the job market picks up and there is another layoff, I will consider taking the next package if one is offered.
Since I am still working at Chevron, my bigger concern is the lack of direction that has filtered down from the upper management. If reducing positions without a clear plan of how the work will be restructured in a better way than it was before, then I don't see productivity improving.
So far I have not seen any improvements in the management and workflows, so if this is the best the ELT have to offer then Chevron will not be making those goals of "being the best in Quartile 1 and all that fluff".
Ask your partner. Watch reruns of Threes Company and the Birdcage.
seems to be two camps
boot lickers who claim retuning to office is how it always worked and what you signed up for and blah blah. which seems fine until you realize that offices cut all amenities and privacy and so no, it’s not “how it was before covid”
and the second type has brains and sees it for what it is. tax breaks and humiliation rituals. nickel and diming and hoping it move the stock price. overall, just doing what mckinsey said the other guys are doing with no real thoughts