What will happen to those over 50? 55? 60?
9 replies (most recent on top)
They can keep the youth and lose experience and knowledge. I will let my voice be heard to anyone and everyone including college students. Everyone is still entitled to an opinion and can easily review the company online for others to see what really lies behind closed doors. It is not slander when it comes from personal experience.
The only thing this executive team excels at is managing the image. They are very good at presenting the illusion of a vibrant midsize E&P company, at least to the stock market. Fancy office complex, presence in all the trendy basins, domestic/international, conventional/unconventional, bring fields on stream early and under budget, blah, blah. It sells really well to the analysts. But it's only skin deep, like a fresh coat of paint. Scratch the surface and it's rotten to the core. They spent billions jumping into the Marcellus and gas prices collapsed. They spent billions more ramping up the Niobrara only to get burned when oil prices collapsed. They greedily grabbed Rosetta because the analysts said the Eagle Ford was the place to be in a low oil price environment and got burned again. Their international operations are all in risky countries with fluctuating fiscal terms or worse. Their exploration program chases high risk prospects and calls them low risk. They over pull the producing wells to show the market how efficient they are and damage the fields. They over build their offices to present an image of substance. But there isn't any substance only illusions. Empty buildings, empty claims, empty heads.
Lets put it this way. If you are a senior employee with any kind of negative feedback in any of your performance reviews you will be gone. With senior employees you are out with "strike one". There is no "strike three". They are looking for ANY reason to get rid of you and there is no way to redeem yourself. With the "kids" at Noble they can get away with anything and keep their jobs. I have heard managers say things like "We won't be able to back to their campus to recruit if we lay he/she off". This really comes from the top at Noble.
But we have a basketball court!
It seems they are a little myopic in everything they do. Hiring young inexperience to save money upfront, Spend like no tomorrow in boom times, Run off the older employees because they cost more, put off implementation of needed software upgrades that will help in long run, just to save today without recognizing future streamlining benefits in long term, the list goes on...
Old guys rule!
I was laid-off in 2008 when the company I was working for was forced to liquidate by it's lenders (JP Morgan). Class action suits are a dead end. The company can say a multitude of things about your performance to cover themselves. "Oh he/she didn't communicate very well". "He/she was paid too much for the job they were doing"...Or whatever... Things that were never said to you by any managers during any performance review. Who knows what is in your file with HR. And Noble from what I hear is the one of worst at this. Your file may be completely different that what you think it is. They will not share it with you and you will no straight talk from any managers. Furthermore, any and all severance packages, from any company, contain a paragraph addressing lawsuits against the company. You will NOT get your severance package until you agree not to sue the company. The truth is you are completely at the whim of your current supervisor.
Why didn't someone file a class-action suit, then?
This company made a decision to ignore a season employee's experience in favor of hiring Millenials and investing much time and $$$$ to do the same job, IN A FUTURE VERY FEW WILL BE AROUND FOR-NOT WITH THIS FUTURE WE RE HEADED FOR!
So disregard who can do the job now, and hope your new crew can get past the Millennal ' I deserve this' attitude!
Of course they will be targets! Are you kidding? The layoff in April was 64% people over 50.