Nauseating rehearsals of simple presentations just for the sake of it. Absurd changes to fonts and colors demanded by childish management. No actual useful or constructive comments from anyone in the room. These people claim they are industry leading, what a joke. Next time I’ll copy something from the internet if that’s the default Aramco response. I get more insight talking to my pet goldfish.
51 replies (most recent on top)
Ohhh boy!!! Just had a trip down nostalgia lane reading this thread.
If delivering power point presentations, regardless of it's quality, content accuracy and operational impact then that's the job that pays me each month. So be it. There's tougher roles with considerably less pay available.
If the primary goal of the company is to produce high quality presentations, so be it.
Embrace it, and accept the cast you get at the end of the month for being an important cog in the production of these high quality presentations.
Things to be upset about is being laid off or being blamed for other people's mistakes.
Like most things with the company it's an exercise in futility. Hours discussing to change the font or it's tone of color. Really? it's time wasting but an opportunity to help feather the nest of your manager towards a pay rise, promotion and good standing in the company and but to your own demise.
The really funny part is that at most really high level meetings such as MC, only VPs and above are allowed to attend and Arabic is mostly spoken. This means that you spend all that time helping your boss or your boss's boss prepare for a meeting but you don't even get to be there. I remember that such meetings used to be like a theatre production, with the big shots pretending to care about the company. Now, I guess that they no longer want to bother pretending, so they just keep the Expats out. Even for lower level meetings, like with department heads, an Expat will spend a great deal of time putting together data and a presentation only to be excluded from the meeting itself. Gate keeping is a favorite Saudi technique along with taking credit for someone else's work.
Typical. No concept at all on efficient use of resources. If all the hourly rates are combined of all people involved, it costs thousands of $$$ preparing silly and useless slides. Then who cares, we got paid.
The absurdity of the process does nothing to mask the truth that every presentation is a political act, either a hatchet job or a promotional package…a finger pointing exercise to strengthen alliances or place competitors in an unfavorable light through KPI manipulation, where repeated dry runs strip anything of substance or situational reality from being presented and where a whitewashed narrative of buzz words and alignment with corporate messages infects every presentation to ensure higher management are aware the underlings are on message and understand the edicts from above. As your eyes scan the room, you have to marvel at perhaps the greatest assembly of backstabbing Machiavellian incompetent leeches that have managed to hijack the company for their own personal or tribal benefit and you feel the sadness in your heart that through your silence you are complicit…just take the money and run before you too begin to think that this toxic environment is normal.
Yep, simple, that's the Aramco way, the Aramco I remember. Just play the game if you can stand it and wait for the monthly apology. That is how you really earn your money. By putting up with the inane dictates. If you value common sense and productive meetings, then you are in the wrong place. But you know that already. Perhaps venting on this forum is helpful for you and that's ok by me. I find it interesting to see that things are non-changing.
Bosses love the dry run. Gotta change colors and fonts. Make it pop. Nevermind the technical details. Change it this way then back to the first way. Endless meetings and comments just to prepare for a meeting that eventually gets cancelled.
Learn to adapt to working with grade one, arrogant, entitled, mo--ns. Or just quit. It’s that simple !!
That was the place I learned how to make proper backup slides to the backup slides of the backup slides.