when you realize that your manager who you thought has your back is only there to stab it when you’re not looking - just to make himself look good. What an eye opener. I will never put my trust in management again. But it’s all good, as the saying goes “what goes around, comes around”.
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I recently left after 30 years. Never had a bad review in all those years. My new boss of 1.5 years tried to NSI me, and he got PIP'd instead. That, my friends, is karma.
The amount of people in power that would rather continue to execute sh– orders vs. standing up to people is disgusting in this company. These people don’t see there is a world outside XOM and can’t be strong enough to tell people to go f— themselves and work elsewhere.
Towards the end, I am extremely proud of myself for sticking up for myself and never apologizing for being my true self. Laughing all the way to the bank with a new job and fat severance check.
“You can’t say that, you are going to make yourself a target and they are going to lay you off” ...ummmm duh, that’s precisely why I said it, not bad enough to get fired for cause but sufficiently irritating to get on the list for involuntary sposa and a nice fat check with a lifeboat.
Your dignity is priceless.....
@1iah+19CP7UCS You missed the point. That’s not what the poster meant at all.
@1ekp+19CP7UCS “Never” is used in this case because you don’t know who you can and cannot trust at work. It’s best to be safe and be strictly professional at a large corporation. I would say at any job where your means of survival is dependent. The gossip train and backstabbing happens with most people is omnipresent. I’ve been in ye control room and a comment be made, and then find it when I get back up to the office that someone has heard about the comment. This is extremely common. I have multiple firsthand accounts of people repeating what others say to the boss and relating what they do. So mannny times. To the point I believe 90% of coworkers do this. Weekly leadership meetings where the boss meets with other managers, are full of talk aka gossip about each other’s subordinates. This is not necessary. Talk about how the plant is doing, about incident investigations, and other related things will suffice. But no. Talking about people is to exercise power over them when it’s done from a supervisor. You guys have no idea unless you’re a manager. Juts keep your head down, be friendly, but under no circumstances share opinions about the company, managers, coworkers, other groups, how anything needs to be improved e.g. ops training, incident reporting, equipment not being repaired properly or monitored, when the stock will improve, dividends, etc. Because it will be repeated.
A quick story I learned from personally - I had good relationships with the maintenance workers. One of the guys came up to me when I was off by myself and told me one of his coworkers was just let go and the story behind it. I listened to him. I sympathized with him. I went back to my office and voiced my displeasure with the situation. Well before I was even able to do that, a colleague came up to me telling me that we shouldn’t be talking about it and blah blah, ins I am by words telling me to stop talking about it. I wasn’t lol. That’s how quickly things spread in minutes. There are dozens of stories I have like this. The situation from which the maintenance guy was let go was not just. It was not right. Before I could say anything, word that someone was talking with me about it had beat my to my own office. I had also went straight back to my office without tarrying about.
People like to tattle. People who laugh and smile with you and share personal stories like their son in law cheated on their daughter. This happened to me early in my career. A rotating equipment engineer shared this story to me in private, and then I found out that engineer was complaining to people about me being too energetic. He was smearing my name. I learned not to trust people after this. Very two faced. I have also seen this happen to other many, many times. Way too many times to count. I generally try and stick up for them, but if it something that’s not true and also on the basis of it is true that gossip is not the way to mitigate the situation. Plants are are like high school.
And if you became a first line supervisor you would revolutionize the system? Supervisors can’t assess all their reports as HiPos. They have to follow the distribution provided by the system. This is real life not peewee soccer. Everyone doesn’t get a participation medal.
Imagine a lousy contractor was converted into an employee and then became a supervisor, with no leadership qualities at all. Only skill is to s— up to his boss. So ready to cut everyone except himself, when he is a big big FRAUD.
It's a good point worth repeating. You have no true friends in these big companies. Your management is trained to win respect and trust to achieve Company goals. They are very wary of developing true friendships, esp with underlings. That said, business friendships, although different, can be rewarding if handled in the appropriate manner.
This just happened to me last week- he forgot to mute his mic and just spill away- Very disgusting
Yeah. So the company is just like every other company.
https://youtu.be/0tdsL4kvp_I
Any comment that says all, every, never, etc is an exaggeration. Of course there are some bad apples. There are some good ones too. Grow up.
Maybe the boss thought you were a no-talent pin cushion that liked bareback riding.
Happens all the time. When I started I didn’t know whether supervisors were stupid or lying, or both.
Eight supervisors later, five of them firs time supervisors, i’m convinced is all lying.
They think themselves as smart and above you, “chosen” - yet since they also feel deeply insecure climbing the ladder, all the nasty behaviors, mind games, lies, and tricks come out.
My boss is a liar, her boss is an even bigger liar, and the VP is the most conniving of all.
Downvoted because it is dishonest by being much too broad. Not all bosses are bad. Becoming a boss doesn’t always make you bad, sometimes it just allows the existing character flaws to be visible. But, there are some good bosses at EM. You might not know it until you report directly to them though. They swim in the shark tank and have to be careful to not be perceived as soft or weak.
L@lua+19CP7UCS WOW this is a true statement. Who would down vote this comment? Sick.
True friends and true family are extremely rare. More rare than diamonds.
I was always perceived as a snob but, in fact I listened more than I spoke. Never, never trust anyone that you work with no matter how much you value your “friendship”. Honesty is something that isn’t handled well with this Company nor it’s employees. It’s set up that way to see who will survive. As far as your boss is concerned, he or she is like the scum on the bottom of your shoes. But they are feeling the harsh reality now that they might not be as well thought of as they were in the past. Swallow that pill and please don’t choke.
A fine response @lua+19CP7UCS I wish I had known more about work cultures and power dynamics and politics earlier. It would have not only saved me my job but also my mental health. The trust issues I've developed due to the backstabbing fake-smile colleagues and supervisors is here to stay for a long time. I committed the mistake of trusting my supervisor, confiding few things in confidentiality that things weren't alright at work (regarding a narcissistic boss who was setting me up to fail due to his incompetence and laziness) and sought help in that regard. Had I slacked and kept quite, I not only would have retained my job but also would have been in good books. They waited for the right moment to pounce on me with gaslighting, mobbing to save their skins and shine bright for their next managerial role !
Never will I ever commit the mistake of trusting someone in my professional life and let my guard down. Lesson learnt.
I reported directly to a senior exec who complained often about how the company was run, the poor leadership decisions, bad culture, etc. He was later elevated to an even more senior exec position with significant ability to change the very things he complained about.
What happened? He became worse than those that preceded him. It happens.
Same as any other company I’ve worked at. Some good some bad.
I’ve been lucky as this hasn’t been my experience. While I haven’t done as well in the ranking as I’d like I’ve always felt my supervisor was doing the best they could for me in a flawed system.
I am sorry this happened to you. If you’ve been browsing this website for any period of time you will see many posts with comments warning people not to trust coworkers, your manager, or any manager. I’ve written a comment of warning also.
People will literally come and act friendly to you to get information and then will go and use the information in exchange for power or influence with someone. You get it? That’s a huge reason people leave corporate because of the superficiality. Your manager doesn’t care about you. No one at work does.
Why did people not realize this?
There was a guy I was reading about of faked losing everything. His fiancée left him, his friends and also his family left him. If you have one true friend in the world including family, you are lucky! In the top 1%. I had one in my grandmother. She was true as can be. I miss her everyday knowing how rare it is.
Work is for money and nothing else.