Thread regarding ExxonMobil Corp. layoffs

BTEC is probably made up of 70% nepotism so of course they rank their family and friends high. Internal management influences each other to rank who they want where they want. This is what BTEC has been known for.

Spot on. And let’s not forget — Knowledgeable Others don’t even matter anymore. Managers already know who they want to boost and who they want to bury. The KO feedback is just a formality they use to check the box. If you’re not in their loop or helping their narrative, your voice gets deleted. It’s not performance-based, it’s power-based.

A lot of managers at BTEC are about to learn the hard way that the Clinton playbook doesn’t reward weak leadership, fake visibility, or protecting your friends. For too long, this place has been run like a closed-loop system — rank your buddy’s reports high, push out the ones who actually know something, and call it "performance management." Guess what? That era is done. Clinton’s already watching. And they’re not sending surveys — they’re sending in managers who actually expect delivery, not recycled buzzwords and newsletter fluff. If you got your spot by playing the game, inflating your impact, or keeping the “family” tight — enjoy it while it lasts. Real accountability is inbound. The scorecards are about to get rewritten — and some people won’t like what shows up next to their names.

Each group is its own middle school of haves and have nots. From the campus to UNCON. The bottom line is the basics are broken. Merit has been perverted. No one holds management accountable that’s where the problems start. The haves and have nots are created due to dislocation of the super or manager are worried about their house or stocks or crypto . The haves that are workers make enough happen to stay relevant or drive their contractors too hard. Merit is based on the eye not the results. If you are not in the loop your opinions mean nothing or are used against you. It’s an adult middle school and will always be that way.

Funny how one name keeps coming up when people read this…

Some managers at BTEC think they’re being “objective” by refusing to play the ranking game — meanwhile their peers are inflating their teams’ impact to get ahead. So what happens? The honest teams get hammered. Solid contributors get “Very Good,” and others walk away with Outstanding With Distinction for fluff work. It’s not integrity — it’s managerial cowardice. Playing it safe in a broken system just tells your team: you’re not worth fighting for. If leadership wants to know why morale’s dead, they don’t need a survey. Just look at the managers who rank their best people low and call it “fairness.”

There’s something quietly brutal about the ranking game at BTEC. You can do your job flawlessly all year, help clean up other people’s messes, and still walk away with a Very Good or Excellent — like that’s supposed to mean you’re appreciated.

It’s the perfect way to keep you in line: “You’re not NI, so be grateful.”

Meanwhile, folks who drop a quote in the newsletter or host a lunch-and-learn? Outstanding With Distinction.

All of this judged by rotating managers who barely last 2 years in a role — most of whom couldn’t explain the work they’re ranking if their CL depended on it.

Performance isn’t about impact anymore. It’s about visibility. And as long as incompetence wears a badge and carries a clipboard, this system will stay broken.

Yep. Welcome to ExxonMobil, where actual expertise is a liability and writing a feel-good blurb for WEAM gets you “Outstanding With Distinction.”

They’ll PIP out the guy who’s kept the plant upright through hurricanes and turnaround nightmares because he didn’t attend enough “courageous conversations.” Meanwhile, the guy who scheduled a lunch-and-learn on psychological safety gets a CL bump and a LinkedIn humblebrag.

The system isn’t broken — it’s working exactly as designed: reward optics, punish competence, and pray no one dies before the next MLRP refresh.

Field knowledge takes 10 years to build. Apparently, that’s 9 years longer than Exxon wants to wait. So yeah, let’s just keep throwing experience into the attrition bonfire and act shocked when the next “Life-Altering Incident” happens.

Hate to burst your bubble but if you under a CL27, and you certainly are if you’re troubleshooting field stuff, Exxon doesn’t care about you at all. All the hiring processes, RSUs, and evaluation system is aimed at finding the next Darren Woods, not actually running the bo-b factory where you work. It’s not as deep as you think for manufacturing hands and yall are only caught up in the ranking system because they’re too ignorant to treat field people differently than the migratory managers that move every 24 months. On what world does it make sense to PIP out field experts that takes 10 years to get experience to run the plant. It is the stupidest performance system for manufacturing ever made. We attrit our experience on purpose and then will be surprised when people die.