There is no way to spin the numbers to make APA look good. Continuing to pay dividends despite losses, amassing debt, willingly decimating our own revenue each quarter via asset sales, and now making the noble decision to be explorers despite having fired all our exploration experts over the last several years. I want to believe in this company, I want to be proud to work here again, but I’m not. I have no reason to be. Can anyone convince me otherwise?
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There is no reason to believe in management these days.
Since the CEO became CEO, the stock price has been positive (above what it was the day he was named CEO) fewer than 10 or so days. And, even then, it wasn’t more than about $7. And that is over an almost 5 year period!
He has surrounded himself with yes men, he clearly has no business acumen, and he has continually doubled down on bad decisions. The downward slide of the stock price can tell even the most disinterested observer of that.
But you know all of that already.
Now, there is a small chance that the Suriname press release was a head fake and that, through sheer luck and divine providence, there might be some positive news and outcomes on the horizon.
But if that is the case, then it makes one wonder why management felt the apparent need to effectively tank the stock right before stock grants vest. Maybe the SEC will find it worthwhile to investigate that question. Doubtful, but one never knows.
Regardless, and to your point, there are still some very fine and decent and hard-working and ethical employees at the company. If working for management doesn’t make you proud (and, as noted, there is no reason why they should), then perhaps working with and alongside such employees should give you a reason to be.
The executives have tried their best to run off many of the good employees, but they haven’t yet succeeded in getting rid of all of them, and at this point the executives are just ballast slowing down the employees’ attempts at success. But forget about them and think about how your work helps your co-workers stay employed and fed and housed, and how their work does the same for you.
Find pride in that, and when the executives ask you to jump, tell them to skip a rope themselves and see how high they will jump.