I want to say something that might help someone avoid the mistake I made. I bought into all the hype about how great this company was, how it looked amazing on a resume, how lucky I was to be here. Friends and family reinforced that constantly. So despite years of bad management, a toxic environment, and watching good colleagues suffer the same fate, I stayed. I wasted so much time. If even one person reads this and decides to think twice before joining, then saying this was worth it.
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When I was a Chevron experienced hire in the 2000's, it was considered a real career coup. Sometime in the mid-2010's the focus changed from finding oil and developing careers to buying oil and expendable staff. Good advice, OP, there really isn't any hope for Chevron to return to glory.
You're just one person with one opinion and it's a bit crab in a bucket. Sure, times have changed, but conditions are difficult everywhere with this economy and anti-energy public perception (yes, it's hard to even get a wind or solar farm approved). Many of us spent time at Chevron and stayed or left and continued on with our careers elsewhere with success, much of it due to the experience we had working in less than ideal work environments. It's only the idea that you should be able to stay with one company and they owe you the world that's defeating you.
@OP agree word for word, biggest mistake of my career. Famous line, for right now ….
@ah
Agree… it’s not the same company that a lot of us joined either.
But to be fair, how many other legacy companies still are worthy of their name and brand? The name of the company may be the same, but the culture, priorities, etc…
A relatively recent example would be Boeing(I.e. McDonnell Douglas).
Things can change… slowly at first, then suddenly. Decades of enviable reputation can be lost in the blink of an eye. (As David Schwimmer once said, “It’s like he isn’t ‘The Juice’ anymore…)
Despite the current environment of negativity, I have found that the days pass faster if I continue to focus on meeting my internal clients’ needs. I figure I’ll do that until I get kicked out and try not to dwell on what I can’t directly control. Remember, if something is not sustainable, at one point it will end. Good luck to us all.
We seem to have forgotten our base business!!!
When I joined Chevron 25 years ago it was a great company to work for: Lots of opportunities to grow, training, communities of practice, and a technical focus on doing it right for management decision gates. Increasingly, the focus is just cost reduction, buying resources, minimal effort, and management boot licking. Downstream management style is a bad fit for upstream, the agile mindset is even worse, and the focus on short-term investor ROI rather than long-term staff competency, exploration, and asset infrastructure development will be our undoing. Leadership has lost long-term direction in part by the current success of unconventional factory production, but as that era comes to a close, we seem to have forgotten our base business.
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