I’ve noticed a lot of posts from employees who are feeling anxious, especially those with longer tenure. But if you look at the RTO and data science groups, most of the people who ended up on PIPs were actually under 40.
When a manager isn’t technical, they often rely heavily on the more experienced people in the team. Those employees frequently position themselves as “mentors” or “coaches” to younger staff — sometimes as a way to stay relevant. The reality is that in the age of AI and rapidly evolving tools, not everyone keeps their skills current, and performance gaps can show up. In some cases, that wrong team dynamic ends up putting younger employees at a disadvantage.
A big part of the issue is XOM’s structural design. Opportunities aren’t distributed evenly, and we end up having some people doing tasks for years.
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@s1 Dutch people brought the high school culture to XOM
@OP We have one of those, he wants his name on every patent or paper that comes out of the group because he claims he “helped”, "coached".
stolen land and stolen labor
hahahahahahaha
land has been “stolen” every few decades to every few hundred years all over the world since the dawn of humanity. the expression is merely a way to target to your enemies by ignoring all of the data which proves this is a completely arbitrary term
@OP Agree. That's why we need technical managers .
@fr just pointing out your thinly veiled attempt to distract from the real issues at hand… race, politics and “hoping people get fired” into a single post. Wow triple whammy, good job! You kind of missed there at the end about outsourcing… could have been more inflammatory.
The issue is clearly with leadership, but folks like you would like to prevent those conversations from happening. That’s the point.
@f3 Touched a nerve, did I?
@ek it’s pretty wild how you brought race into the discussion, great way to distract folks from what’s really going on!
I’m guessing you were voting for better worker rights this whole time? While also wishing for folks to get fired…
The root of the issue is the folks making decisions within the company. Previous leaders could have made these same moves, but did not. Let’s not get distracted here.
@eg There’s little protection for anyone. U.S. employers can fire you for any/no reason everywhere except for Montana.
It is pretty wild to see affluent middle-aged (mostly) white dudes losing their minds over being discriminated against though. Somehow this is never a thing - until it starts happening to YOU. The kicker is that these awful anti-worker polices reflect decades of your own voting patterns.
Personally, I hope every last one of you gets fired and they send every job they can’t automate to India, Africa, or anywhere else that’s populated by people you don’t like. IMO most of you have it coming anyway.
TIA for the downvotes.
@af there is little protection for senior technical. Over 50? Most are in the bottom quintile and many are being pipped. Why do you think they removed NRE status.
@OP I saw this during my first assignment in the process modeling team. The people who were stuck in that group kept pushing for the software they were experts in and wanted everyone else to use their preferred platform. Some of them built one model and kept modifying it for every project, claiming large cost savings. But those projects rarely moved forward anyways.
@ak LLM models (aka “A.I.”) don’t live up to the hype, but they’re definitely force-multipliers, especially in the hands of a subject matter expert.
Way too many people who think of themselves as being world-class engineers (ex. most people posting here) demonstrate these Luddite tendencies.
If you can’t use LLM tools to a reasonable level of proficiency, then you have no business remaining in the white-collar workforce.
@OP
"The reality is that in the age of AI and rapidly evolving tools, not everyone keeps their skills current"
Let me fix that for you.
"The reality is that in the age of propaganda and vast amounts of garbage, not everyone is able to put fancy superficial cr-p on their resume"
I would be happy if they had a solid background in math and physics nowadays.
@OP Principals are expected to spend roughly 25% of their time mentoring and driving capability‑building initiatives. For senior principals and chiefs, that expectation jumps to 50%,75%.
That’s why many of the more senior employees emphasize “mentoring” or “coaching” junior staff. It's a way to position themselves favorably in the system. This will overshadow or even undermine younger talent who are trying to build their own track record.
Some groups (what you mentioned) have a lot less >50 individual contributors, and to protect the >50 “leaders” in those groups, they pip young folks. It’s not about skills, it’s always about protecting the “leaders.”