I've worked at other companies as a Co-op student, but not as long as I've worked at EM so it's hard to draw comparisons. It's only been a few years but the things that bother me the most are the unfair ranking system, horrible managers, and backstabbing coworkers. People keep telling me it's the same no matter which company I work for ... but is this true? Or is the grass truely greener on the other side?
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Stay away from EM. In. my. opinion after working. at few places – nothing comes close to EM level of cluelessness and arrogance.
I’ve worked for 5 companies. XOM definitely the most inefficient, poorly focused and poorly managed. I think it’s part of being huge. Everything so dumbed down. Mid sized companies are a world different and I enjoyed that so much more.
There's BS at every company. Sure, you might get greener grass in some ways, but you're always going to have weeds. At least with ExxonMobil you can be PROUD of the work you are doing. You are making a difference in the world for good, despite what the left (and most people on this board) would like you to believe. Plus, when this turns around, you are going to be sitting in a sweet spot (if you can make it through the downturn). LONG LIVE EXXONMOBIL. Haters can go eff yourself, your down-votes are my lifeblood, the more I get, the more I know I'm right.
@1tef+17vuEiE3 Warren Buffet had warned us about management.. you should have seen this coming.. so many leading indicators. Thankfully I sold all of my Exxon stock in May 2019
We didn’t always have horrible managers across the board. Over the last five years we have made bad choices in options people that are not management material. The people that made those choices should have been let go first.
Historically i would say the grass wasn’t greener. I think there would be some truth now to say that there are greener pastures (greater chance of career progression, performance based bonuses, flex work arrangements, more progressive work atmosphere, better geographic locations, etc)
As a retiree I’d be asking myself how dumb can I be for still owning XOM stock. I would be completely diversified and the 401k would be in everything but the stock.
As a retiree maybe you should understand how culpable you are in the current state of affairs at the company. Disgusting watching how many of yall act like your attitudes had nothing to do with where XOM is today, and just getting to armchair quarterback while protecting your dividend
This retiree looks at the posts and realizes that cutting the bottom 30% will do no harm to XOM, but help save my dividend, so I can vote my shares for management at the annual meeting. Every employee above the age of 50 has survived 5 major layoffs. Periods of time where oil price crashed by 50% or more. Every old guy in EM was once top third, but layoffs caused the bottom third to disappear so many older guys are now middle or bottom after relative ranking.. If you are below the age of 30 and in the bottom...you will not retire from XOM...if you are not cut this year..it will be next year...if not next year it will be the following year. Start looking and leave on your own terms, because you are not good enough stay. XOM should pay the best and retain the BEST... Let the WEAK performers go.
Grass is green where you water it...some grass just needs a lot of water.
Some grass may be brown but the yard is huge. Some grass maybe very green but also very small with limited space for standing on the grass or seeing the grass.
Each person has to find the yard that suits them best.
@1cwr+17vuEiE3
You are partially right with your closing line: Capitalism eats the weak.
Fact is: Capitalism eats itself - like a carbon chain.
If only Trump hadn't been f00lish enough to reduce regulatory and environmental hurdles, the scale of shale drilling would have been muted and oil prices would not have dropped so much on higher supplies. He opened the door for a number of oil companies to explore and crash the oil price, just like they had already done in 2014. If you look at the drilling rig count, it shot through the roof, this was borderline s–c-de.
Financial stress brings the worst in ALL private companies and leaves the employees very vulnerable and culture becomes dog eat dog type, be it EM, Shell, CVX or Tesla or Apple or Amazon. As they used to say, capitalism eats its weak.
It is rather unproductive to pose such questions. There are great people in EM as there are a__holes. And the same is true everywhere. I left another company to join EM and I found some things better some things worse. The only thing that I would say it is totally ridiculous here is the myth that we hire the best and the brightest that brings with it a silly arrogance for employees and managers as well!
There are so many competent people here that EM has decided it would be selfish to keep all these people to itself and will be laying off 25-40% so those people can go and spread the greatness of EM at other companies.
Never mind that EM investors have lost money in the last 10 years while the S&P 500 had 14% annualized returns.
It is not the same everywhere, the world is huge, changing and limitless. @1tow+17vuEiE3 is spot on, it was too well in EM for decades, and won't be the same anymore. Think maturely, read widely and network with ouutside professionals, you will get your answers.
Tired of people ranting here all day that all EM managers are horrible and all coworkers are always backstabbing. If it is so bad, then why are you still hanging out in the company. Go and please leave.
The reality is that most of us have it too well in EM. That’s why people spend the entire career (over several decades) with EM and not leave in a few years. It might come as a shock but there are still plenty of very competent EM coworkers and managers around - no matter what this forum may incline you to believe.
hey you haven’t worked at other places long enough
Get a handle, kid.
If you work for the bigs, it's all the same.
You're not personnel. You're a human resource.
A piece of property, like that 200 acre mineral rights lease on a fault line in Indiana.
As things continue, all the smalls will be gobbled by the bigs.
Not saying there's no hope.
But the hope is for a new system where you're a smart person with ideas.
As an experienced hire things are better other places / some of the competitors. They do have forced ranking but most don’t fill the bottom levels, and the people who don’t collaborate get ranked badly but here this “let’s not share” type of behaviors are encouraged because the lawsuit paranoia is also much much higher. Overall other companies are on average better but I think it’s circumstance and luck. You can have a great manager at Exxon also and great colleagues and then you’re in a good spot. - but there’s a Smaller probability of being in such situations. It’s all about the people as they say and if you get lucky you’re in good shape at Exxon also, but from what I see the managers who don’t develop people are much more common at Exxon while at other companies I was like “ I can totally see why this person got promoted - they are a true leader”.
Most of my managers have been great. Ranking system is stupid. In my research, most other places are pretty similar... but no ranking system makes the normal times much better.
I think most people that b–ch about managers lack an ability for introspection and evaluation of their actual skills.
there are literally tens of threads on this, starting with the one about all the success stories
Like most things in life, your mileage may vary