I'm a little disappointed because I expected to learn a lot from my senior colleagues at Chevron. Unfortunately it didn't work out like that. What kind of experts are afraid to share knowledge with those younger than themselves? What are they afraid of? Are we going to "steal" their jobs or what?
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This is my observation: Some newer employees seek help and acknowledge the contributions that colleagues like me make towards mentoring/knowledge sharing … and it is a pleasure to work with those employees (and gives me a sense of pride to watch them learn and advance). Others suck you dry, take credit for your work, and never so much as toss a simple “thanks” your way.
Guess which employee I will gladly help again and which I will wish a slow-burning hemorrho1d upon? I mean, can you blame me???
Maybe these employees who feel like us old-timers don’t give them the time of day (see what I did there?) should exercise just a wee bit of self-reflection. Ask yourself: Am I the a$$h0l3 here? Chances are, if you have to ask, you are. Peace out
I retired with over 30 years in the oilfield. Never had a mentor. No one ever helped me. My supervisors never taught me anything. You learn by observing, reading the manuals, interacting with others, and OJT experience. To be honest, I would not necessarily take anything someone said at face value. Do the research and figure it out yourself.
Do nothing at chevron. Sleep in. Take all your sick days. Milk it become dead wood that’s how you survive. I have been here for 30 years. Pic is a joke. Make up whatever you want. No one reads it
So here is some advice from a "senior colleague". Watch what they do and learn from it. When they ask you to do something that seems like low level grunt work, do it and learn everything you can from it. Look for way to make improvements and implement them. Take ownership of whatever it is that you are assigned to do and do it well. Pay attention to all the details. Volunteer for whatever comes up no matter how meaningless it may seem to you. It probably isn't and is a valuable learning opportunity.
Get out of the office and spend time in the field and when you do, watch and learn. Take any opportunity for this. If you are in a discipline that doesn't work in the field (IT, finance, HR, etc.) go to the field anyway and meet the people that actually enable the company to make money. Ask them questions about what issues they deal with and help them to solve those issues.
There are no shortcuts. There is only one way to understand what someone with 20-30 years of experience knows. That is to have 20-30 years of experience. There are no life hacks to it. There is no "One weird trick" that you can pick up from a website.
When they tell you something isn't right it is probably for a reason. Try to figure out why. Then ask them if that is correct. Then absorb their response and try again. Repeat for 20-30 years.
well, it could be because they don't have anything of value to share
Here's how it works: Those who are good at what they do, share what they know, because they're always improving themselves for the next position (whether it's inside or outside Chevron) and have no problem training their successors. Those who are marginal or bad at what they do, don't share what they know because they are afraid that training someone else will make them expendable. There are more of the latter than former at Chevron.
I was on a rig where the lead DSM told me, “I trained the one before you and the one before him. I’m done training you kids.”
It’s hard to find good mentors. But they’re out there. Find them and show your appreciation.
Always dependent on the individuals involved. Early in my career, I had a boss who kindly explained to me the practical application at Chevron of the information I had learned in graduate school the night before. Years later, I did the same for my new colleagues in their early stage of their career at Chevron.
There are plenty of "non team players" throughout our organization so get used to it. You determine how you should treat the less experienced staff in your organization.
PS I once worked on a project team in which I had two different manager level members tell me not to share information w/ their counterpart. I chose to set them straight with the old line "one Company, one bank account, one right answer for all" :)
When I was working at BP a long time ago some other work colleagues took some of my powerpoint slides and did not include my name anywhere on the slides and gave the presentation like it was their original works. All of my presentations were saved on the network. After this happened several times I told my supervisor that I thought that behavior was plagiarism. He had no reply. They must have learn that technique in college. To plagiarize someone else's work for their own gain.
Me and another guy were working on a project. I went on vacation, when I came back I saw he had made presentations to the bosses on our work (with my name not mentioned)
Do you think I will share any knowledge with him again?
Oh boy. Another newbie who wants a mentor to hold their hand and spoon feed them everything they need to know to get the job done. First of all it takes time to do that and most senior employees have pile of work that needs to get done and it does not include you. You are a total waste of time, since spending time with you only helps you, it does not help the senior employee. Matter of fact, it detracts from the job performance of the senior employee. Welcome to the real world.
Double-edged sword: in some cases, you’re sharing your knowledge and building a better team, in other cases, you’re helping a backstabber and ladder-climber steal your work and ideas. If you’ve ever been burned by the latter, you’d be hesitant to share knowledge.
I’m currently working with someone who is a self-promoter and produces lackluster results, so I share just enough with them but no more than I have to. Not my job to aid their ineptness.