Thread regarding ExxonMobil Corp. layoffs

I’m a people person, I have people skills. You need me!

If I have to hear the phrase “dripping on a rock” one more time......

Truth. “I spent more time learning how to be an XOM employee than actually improving my skills as a professional“. These comments make me so glad I’m outta there.

Time Sheets. We use this ancient 1980's software "timesheet professional" which is so obsolete that it can't even support a copy/paste from excel. I have entered random numbers for over a decade and nobody has ever noticed.

@uii+18fwqD8o Good luck with that. I know if a few people that retired in the last three years and thought they could easily get consultant jobs.
Your exxonmobilized.

I’ve never seen xom management work. Meeting from 7 am to 7 pm or later but nothing gets done. At least they call them “meetings”.

If you can draw a catchy red/yellow/green stoplight in PowerPoint, you’ve pretty much just hacked your career path. Then, when you finally understand that you are assigning colors based on your opinion or someone else’s opinion (the ‘Plan’), you’ve reached the next plane. Finally, when you realize this doesn’t make any money so you get back to work, you have reached transcendence.

I was an experienced hire at a Gulf Coast mfg site, as well. I had about 8 YOE coming in to XOM. I would agree with all of your points. The bureaucratic grind stifled any hope of efficiency or innovation and quite frankly I think it made us less safe. I spent more time learning how to be an XOM employee than actually improving my skills as a professional.

My very broad observation of lifelong XOM employees is that the majority are very bright and articulate and the high potential folks are mostly charismatic and a bit of a politician. However, on the whole most of them have a pretty shallow depth of technical or business acumen. They know just enough to be dangerous and not look like a fool in the room, but there is always a process that will cover them and prevent anyone from getting anywhere close to an autonomous decision.

I must have heard "it's not easy turning a ship" 10,000 times during my time with the company. People somehow conflated the idea that just because XOM was a large company then all of the decisions needed to be slow and painful. I struggled with that mentality on a daily basis and I tried to challenge it in a diplomatic way.

In the end though nobody was really interested in changing. They would pay lip service and talk about becoming "nimble" or "lean" as an organization. Really that was just an excuse to form a step out team that would make some nice power points and get some face time with upper management but never actually implement anything. I think a core reason why people didn't want to change is the fact that they were terrified of being on an island or even just being held accountable for a single decision.

I take the specifications from the customers and I bring them down to the software engineers

Brown nosers prolonging bs safety meetings asking stupid questions at the end. Happens every time. Same t–ds. Fort Worth field offices are the worst. Before Exxon came everybody told em to stfu. How oilfield used to be. Now they are bosses. Younger generation are terrible. Back stabbing a– kissers. Pretty much sums up Forman position to sup int.

I was hired as an experienced hire almost 3 years ago. While being in the same team all this time, I already had 2 team leads and 3 managers. The frequency at which my superiors get promoted/replaced is shocking. I did not have that kind of experience at my previous jobs.

@hem+18fwqD8o

“Stewardship of monthly dashboards
Stewardship of stewardship
Stewardship of anything“

Funny as heck!

Much of what is done by Corporate staff in research and engineering is low-value work.

After nearly twenty years with the company, in roles likely similar to the OP (Site Sr. Technical Engineer), the biggest inefficiency is doing things at least three times because that's the way the site(s) works. Almost any presentation or recommendation gets reviewed with the immediate supervisor, then the business team lead, then the next level of management (typically a Department Head), and so on until the final review occurs. This is the infamous meeting before the meeting. At each review or preparation meeting, tweaks are made and discussion is had but the end message doesn't usually change. I always called it PowerPoint by committee and learned to just to deal with it because lower level supervisors would get upset if I bypassed them, even though my experience, expertise, and CL was higher than her/him. The saddest thing is it's likely I helped train / mentor the OP and I'm sorry I'm not around anymore to help navigate the landmines. Stay safe friends!

reorganizations (especially all of the emails about "the new organization", "day one", and related BS)
mass emails (often irrelevant to recipient. even if relevant, still useless)
Dallas location
BPO
Initiatives
Big Bets (no one knows what this is, which is why it is a waste of time)
webcat
surveys
forums
sharepoint
powerpoint
MPI
RMG (even more of a waste of time than MPI)
SAP gui (timesheet)
Business Practices Review
LPS
LPO
NLI
LI
QI
Stewardship of monthly dashboards
Stewardship of stewardship
Stewardship of anything

I don't care too much about these bs. I know I want to develop external relevant skills and I don't mind not being a "high flyer" at exxonmobil. And I know if I am forced to retire earlier I can find a consultant job easily.

I love this thread and the OP. My organization at EMCC is not as bad but certainly it's very similar to what the OP describes.

That is why I focus on step outs! Like Women Internet Network! Even got letters from the LCM! Feeling safe people.. very safe!

TPS reports. Do not forget the cover sheet.

All manufacturing sites should be able to solve their technical problems by themselves and quit relying on corporate staff - that’s how it is done in the outside world where efficiency and safety go hand in hand.

Townhall Q&A meetings where the answers from the VP etc sound like they are running for office and not running a business.

I thought of a wild idea(probably outright insane but throwing it against the wall to see if any part of it sticks....)

Supervisor evaluation is in part tied to an annual debate activity where a group technical lead is volunteered to formally debate on behalf of their team (prepares with the team) and moderator is someone from other department and the supervisors answers to pointed questions are ranked by the audience on multiple levels (do you trust the answer? Do you better understand the pros/cons of policies, etc)

When supervisors give us just “what we need to know or talking points”, all the nuances/rational is lost. People then tend to fill in the blanks and misunderstanding develop. We need a more open culture...some policies s— and have to s— but at least we can better understand the factors that force people’s hand instead of “I said so”....

Appreciate any constructive comments on this....and sure, any ridiculous comments calling me toxic or crybaby are perfectly welcomed as well.

This is so true!

“ PowerPoint polishing is one animal but email polishing is probably even worse. You want to capture all the info in the email but make sure it doesn’t come across wrong and you reread it a few times out of fear, it becomes a little ridiculous.”

Also having meetings to make a decision that a phone call and an email could easily solve is another item of frustration and then no decision is made and another meeting needs to be held!

My biggest source of frustration is immediate supervisors and technical experts not taking the time or effort to read some sort of deliverable that they or “the process” require, and expecting you to dumb it down for them in a 30 minute meeting. There is a huge lack of accountability at every level in the organization, and so many people love to characterize themselves as “strategy” or “thought leadership” people. Anything related to “execution” is something that is undeserving of US employees’ time and should be pushed to EPCs, TCs, MSPs, Contractors, etc. etc. ExxonMobil is often an empty shell that talks a lot.

Hold on! I've been told it's not a LPO quota. I just have to have 3 submitted every month with 50% QIs. LOL

I love this post for several reasons.

1. Your examples are perfect
2. You are asking for others to provide input and make outsiders have a little better understand of the c-ap....and reassuring insiders that sh– is truly asinine
3. You mention the legend Norm Lieberman (I own nearly all his books ). He is slightly a jerk but a super duper helpful/insightful jerk so overall greatness

My examples are:

1. Inefficiencies of taking things “offline” (I.e. not talking about them in a group). Technical follow ups are one thing to be careful about overworking in meeting but when it comes to things that actually might affect a broader group of people....you have several people doing things 1:1 when it could have been addressed to the entire group.
2. PowerPoint polishing is one animal but email polishing is probably even worse. You want to capture all the info in the email but make sure it doesn’t come across wrong and you reread it a few times out of fear, it becomes a little ridiculous.

OP here. ALSO I FORGOT, the monthly/quarterly LPO quota, especially if you work an office environment