If the two whiners on this site had any guts, I'd recommend some good counselling, instead of sharing their tired old groans here over and over.
Please move on. You complain about working at COP, but you wont leave. We'd really be happy if you did leave and take all that negative attitude with you. And guess what, you'll find new and exciting things to complain about in your new job - wouldn't that be refreshing?
Test?
Surmont 2, what a place. Facilities (camp, room, food is great), rest, not so. Management allow working conditions being short staffed, the worst communication I have ever seen in my career, most are just filling in time, making +200k. The care has been taken away and darn I have tried.
"Be careful when the loyal employees become silent". No sense saying a thing over there. The future has already been mapped and we have zero say.
I don't regret joining 5 years ago but when I leave, which will be soon, it'll be a relief.
This is Ryan, not Jason you df. Don't distract from the thread. Go back to your Facebook and let the grown ups talk.
so jason...are you proud of the epic thread you started?
;-)
...a career end for the manager. Well that explains a lot! Truly! Just shaking my head. Disgusting.
The HR system has a designation for "high potential" employees. Ironically not all high potential employees enjoy the status. The designation is akin to the son or daughter of a vice president. In both cases the employee is a hot potato. A low rating for a high potential employee is a career end for the manager.
So true lpx and ajq. Hi-pots at COP are spoiled know it all disrespectful lazy brats. Fortunately there were professionals in the past that truly earned that designation at more well run and respected companies.
A high-pot is someone who cares only about his/her self and is only concerned with career trajectory. This type of person effectively feigns a group mindset to the boss while actively undermining and stealing from others. These people will drop into a team and project that they know everything, and more than you, even if you’ve spent your career doing it. This is one of the key giveaways that they’re a “high pot,” at least in management’s eyes.
9jdp - you perfectly represent the title of the thread. QED.
ajq-nwe...
have you ever considered that i was a once designated hipo at another oil company (certainly not cop) who is now retired (well short of 65) and is now simply opining on what a brain-dead group of folks are still left at cop?
y'all have the worst assets of any 'supermajor.' Nothing in West Africa. Nothing in East Africa. Nothing in Brazil. Virtually nothing in the GoM. All COP has is some unmonetized Permian acreage, a bunch of low ROR Canadian heavy oil/tar sands properties and an aging, subpar workforce. time to SELL SELL SELL
ajq,
Good observation. I would add that some allow it to happen, and others simply are not astute enough to realize it’s happening.
Hi-pot is also any New to 7- year hire who uses Facebook and chat 95% during working hours and presents other senior employees work and ideas as if it were their own. Their self-centered supervisors who want to continue brown-nosing upper management freely allow this to happen.
Xgs, that was brilliant. I’d be laughing if it were not true. Also, don’t forget the HiPo folks who were forced out of COP and decided to change careers/companies, suddenly wondering why they gave a $&@€ about COP or stayed at COP.
Thanks @8xgs for clarifying what a COP hi-pot employee is. I unfortunately have to agree with your definition.
A HiPo is anyone that graduated with a 3.7 or better from a marquee institution, works at Shell or Exxon, and/or left COP years ago to change careers. A COP HiPo is a 3.0 graduate of a second rate state college who was risk averse enough to stay at COP for the last 20 years and is now assessed to be among the Top 10% of those who remain by similarly underachieving Managers who have 5-10 years greater tenure with the company.
I went to that talk(?), and it came from a BU. Look it up. And that's the quality of our tech confs. Yikes!
I know it was that conference I didn’t know what group was it? I am assuming corporate support group, no BU will approve that type of talk.
I think the poster was referring to the last ggre tech conference here
@6lbi can you tell us more about this presentation? I have only heard about it here but can you tell us at least the group of that person?
That unknown unknowns technical conference speaker must have been a hi-pot. Jesus what is the world coming to...bet he is a supervisor now too. wtf
...and the entire farce is a self-ffilling prophecy. You are chosen, so everything about you is perceived through the high-pit lens. You might have a bad year, where you didin’t really deserved that 1, and maybe someone else did deserve it. The high-pot will get the 1.
Hi-pots are determined to be "high potential" for career advancement early in their careers. They are usually put on the list at functional leadership team meetings and are the younger employees that consistently get rated "1" at their annual reviews. There are different categories of "hi pot", the lowest levels are targeted to be able to attain SGL 21+ targeting them for future Leadership Forum members, and the highest category are allegedly targeted to be able to attain ELT level.
You have to appear very smart, capable, but also "smooth" to get labeled as "hi pot". Some of them truly are good, but many get on the list because they have a high-level mentor they've brown-nosed. An inordinate amount of time is spent taking care of and trying to retain these "future company leaders".
If you have to ask what a hi pot is, you are not part of the club. It is generally not possible to develop into a hi pot. You either are or you are not. Once you have been tagged a hi pot, it is almost impossible to become an un-hi pot. Doesn’t matter how badly you screw up. You are one of the chosen.
The sarcastic answer is, you display all the qualities attributed to high-pots that you read about on this site. Whether you believe the qualities are reality, or just cynicism is up to you. As for knowing whether you are or not, a person above your pay grade will have informed you of your membership in the elite ranks of the high-pot club. Based on your sincerity and humility, I’d say you’re not one of them. In my opinion, that’s something to be proud of.
Can someone describe the qualities of hi-pots and how one knows if he/she is hi-pot? This not sarcastic but a genuine question.
I second that. asg nailed it with the description of the high-pots, and it also applies to the many other know-it-all narcissists around here.
The most value-creating thing the company could do is get rid of the Hi-Potential system. These folks are not that special, but because they are treated that way, it breeds an arrogance and over-confidence that leads to extremely bad outcomes.
The nature of our business is uncertainty. But when arrogant jerks take over who believe they know or can properly "CDQ" the uncertainties, there are only bad outcomes.
Hahaha, the person who posted about the high potentials was right on, couldn't have said or described them better.
And btw, the last poster is one of those cry babies, younger doesn't equal successful you dip, go back to working hard on your Facebook and text chats and preparing to cry again to your supervisor that you are not getting all the opportunities the experienced people have and make sure you bring your blankee and diapers.
Interesting information on the high potential employees. The best career move is to move every 18-24 months and avoid the day of reckoning. As to the original poster, the site is called the layoff site... I am still not pleased the supervisor was sleeping with the contractors and showing up to work drunk most days but I was laid off for not being a "team player".
It’s “morale,” numbnuts. Not “moral.” What a bunch of whining babies. Don’t even work here?! Thank GOD! Old losers like you lot are best served by hiding on the web, lashing out at younger, more successful people anyway. Say hi to your wife’s boyfriend for us!
I think this site is for pissing and moaning about a company. So if someone wants to do it, that is what this is for. So don't go on here and tell people they need counseling and BS like that....if you are happy, why TF are you even looking at this site. You are the one who needs some counseling. Can't understand people like you. You go to a site where it is set up for people to vent about a company then think you are the Almighty and can tell them what to do. You are probably the type of person these folks are complaining about. So go back and keep up the good suction.....I mean work. And I don't work here BTW, just a stock holder seeing what moral is like.
I’m still here, but have no “guts” and like to whine.
I departed in Round 3 or so, I’m only on here because someone told me I could still get some prorated VCIP with my continued participation. Not true?
Obviously, someone really hit a nerve with the OP, a “leader” in some capacity, who’s had everything handed to them on a silver platter and thinks they can do no wrong. I’m sure everything you touch turns to gold. The 15 people before you had no idea how to do their jobs, so you come in and “fix” things. As a previous poster stated, you’re not around long enough to see that your changes were a fail. In fact, the entire mindset of your kind is wrong: you want to make a name for yourself and want to look brilliant by implementing some change or another, but the result is devestating to the project, BU, or beyond. But hey, you don’t carr’e, as long as YOU look good at the moment.
I suggest YOU, the narcissistict, egomaniac are the one who needs counseling. And by the way, if the whining is getting to be too much, don’t visit this site. If you want to see the cause of the discontent, take a look in the mirror -without your rosy glasses.
Yeah yeah yeah. It’s all everybody else’s fault. Leadership is completely in the dark and utterly stupid. Only the geniuses here can save the company, but boo hoo, nobody listens to them because they’re not “hi pot” enough. Successful people are weasels. Happy people are snakes. Waaaaaaa. Waaaaaa. Make Conoco great again!
OP, I've known weasels like you my entire career. Early someone above you tagged you as "hi pot" and you've milked this while contributing little to the company. Every year or two if you don't get a promotion you have a "thoughtful career talk" with your boss where you mention you might go back to school or move closer to home. Your threat gets rewarded with a new job, promotion, or ExPat assignment you don't deserve.
Your functional leaders tell you your feces doesn't smell and you believe it. You remain ignorantly and blissfully happy while you get ahead criticizing and even stealing and taking credit for other people's work. At some point you're not promoted fast enough and you quit for greener pastures. Until then you are happy-- you don't have a clue about your mentors running the company into the ground, because, candidly, you are nowhere as perceptive, intuitive, smart, or technically knowledgeble as you think you are. But you are a smooth talker and excellent at PowerPoint.
OP, as a "hi pot" who gets a new job every 1-2 years, you are never around long enough to see the results of the ruined projects in your rear view mirror. Yes, those all bring chronically negative earnings, missed promises/targets, and layed off employees, some of whom post here.
Your peers and reports despise you. In fact, no one in the company likes you, except those special managers above that you successfully brown nose, so your peers are not open with you, because they know whatever they say, you will find a way to backstab them to advance your own career. So you really don't have a clue about how messed up the company has become because its people like you that got promoted to the top.
In summary, OP, you are a charlatan snake, bettered only by the ignorant leaders who love your smooth talk and brilliant presentations. And you're ignorant about how the other 99% of the company see this once-great company run into the ground, because all you care about is YOU.
The OP doth protest too much, methinks
Get up on the wrong side of the bed Ryan? Go complain to yourself in the mirror or to one of your butt sniffs, and the rest of us will continue speaking truth to power.
i was laid off nearly 3 years ago, dpsht. trouble is, i still know people on the inside who deal with the ubiquitous idiocy from upper management...and still, nothing changes at the top. but hey, oil's up...so no need to attempt to be efficient or even pretend we want to, vis a vis ECO (now cancelled due to "how well we're running the company")
i've still got significant stock holdings, and thus, i continue to post...
ignorant fkr