I’m one of those children and I’m scared sh-tless. I have no experience at all and everyone that used to to my job either doesn’t work for exxon anymore or was forced to retire. I know nothing that I’m expected to know and I’ve only ever worked from home. How does XOM expect to survive when you fire and retire the people who survived every acquisition, system upgrade and whatever else with people who are straight out of school and have no experience? We may cost you less in salary but as one of those employees, specifically in finance, I can assure you the company is going to lose more on the mistakes we are bound to make. I’m working my a– off but there’s no way to know everything we need to know to successfully take over the desks of people with decades of experience, especially with the lack of a formal training program. Expect an exodus of new hires this summer because I’m leaving for a company that actually wants to train me and put me in a position to learn instead of swamping me with work I barely understand just to get the job done. 90% of my job has been fixing the mistakes of my predecessors which was largely common sense mistakes. But when it comes down to digging in and doing real analysis, which is being left to 21 year olds fresh out of school without even as much as a CPA.... don’t expect anything good to come from it. Most of my team is my age. You’ve been warned.
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@7qav+198fg6dx you didn’t scree your supervisor, you screwed your coworkers. No wonder you got let go...
Lol. Don't worry, your project wasn't going to be implemented anyway.
I admit I rather enjoyed signing the PIP letter to leave the day after I received it and then having my manager honor the “no more than five days” terms to leave.
He reminded me that I had several weeks to decide PIP or PIL, but I said “no thanks”. I had made my decision and wanted to leave as soon as possible (didn’t want to give him the time to figure out who was going to pick up which project.) He was rather busy my last week so there was no transition at all for any project.
I have been wondering if there were a bunch of red dots on the group scorecard for 2020.
In my group, a third of the people were either let go or forced into retirement. Those leaving did not have enough time to fully train those assuming their duties. Now, everyone has an overflowing plate of new duties that they have no idea how to do and no one around who can help.
It seemed like every day, there was another responsibility added to my job without any warning. The way I usually found out it was a new duty of mine was when I’d get an email asking me to do this or that. I’d refer the person to the proper person - only to quickly find out that, I AM the proper person to contact t. The reason that person emailed me is because management told him that I am the new contact for his request. The only problem is that management never gets around to telling me. This has happened multiple times.
It has been utter chaos the last few weeks.
😆 😂
Same thing can be said about unconventional controllers (xto). I’m an analyst in the division and the age gap is massive. Most people in their roles have been in their roles forever so when they retired the older folks and replaced them with XOM people, we lost a lot of expertise that is very much needed right now.
I know this was written about accounting, but it very easily could've also been written about XTO. Anecdotally, the engineering and geo functions in the Spring office have seemingly a bimodal age distribution... 23-35 year olds, and 55-60 year olds (most of whom just retired today), with very few in between. Young guys (very few women) run the show.
Controllers won’t challenge anyone with two brain cells. That’s the harsh truth. Most of the work can be done with a macro or two. I left because I could feel my brain atrophying.
Thanks for the advice. I just love being challenged mentally and I feel like all I’m doing is checking off boxes myself. Which is fine in the short term but I don’t want to fall behind.
You’ll find that Finance Function and Controllers in particular, doesn’t do any real work and pretty much no analysis. Most of you only need to download numbers from SAP, make the charts pretty, throw in some generic comments about price and volume, then upload to Dataflex. Most of your supervisors and managers won’t have a clue if there’s an error. Most of them are just checking off a box before moving onto the next promotion.
Just relax. In Finance Function, no one dies if you make a mistake. However, those backstabbing sociopaths will use that mistake to tank your career so they can get ahead.
You’ll find that Finance Function and Controllers in particular, doesn’t do any real work and pretty much no analysis. Most of you only need to download numbers from SAP, make the charts pretty, throw in some generic comments about price and volume, then upload to Dataflex. Most of your supervisors and managers won’t have a clue if there’s an error. Most of them are just checking off a box before moving onto the next promotion.
Just relax. In Finance Function, no one dies if you make a mistake. However, those backstabbing sociopaths will use that mistake to tank your career so they can get ahead.
I was literally doing the jobs of 3 people and doing them better than my predecessors, but it was still cheaper to replace me with 3 people in South America. If necessary, they can add another person to do the work and still come out ahead cost-wise.
Plus, my supervisor took credit for me turning around the team and the efficiencies I achieved, so senior management thought keeping her was the better option...even though I was doing most of her job as well. But...optics.
It’s weird that you’re projecting these thoughts of hating the people that were laid off on to me. On an anonymous thread. Very weird actually. Let that hurt go.
This entire post has been me admitting I’m in over my head but you guys can’t get over the “brilliant” comment. You can be brilliant and humble enough to admit that you’re over your head, which I am, so I don’t understand why everyone keeps trying to humble me. I’m humble. And brilliant. My job doesn’t define my or my intelligence. But thanks.
Do a bit of history on this site and you will find that it is indeed 99% of relatively new hires who speak so poorly of EM and its employees.
Everyone in this business has been in over their heads many times, and has made many mistakes. It’s a tough business to learn because so much of it requires OJT. EM has many processes in place to catch mistakes before they become costly, such as gate reviews for projects. Sounds like you may be dealing with royalty reports or the like. Just stick with it and you will figure it out. Be humble and admit you need help, and you might be surprised who helps you. Lay off the I Am Brilliant attitude or your network will be very small. Good luck.
99% sure it wasn’t the new hires who were primarily saying those things so I’m not sure why that’s relevant to this post but have at it. As a new hire, I find the people laid off to be valuable. In a grand scheme to the company, maybe not. But as someone who knows nothing, they’re of much more value than me. Why make a point to counter that argument when it’s true? The average person laid off has more value than the average inexperienced new hire. At the very least they should have implemented a decent training program. I got better training at McDonald’s in high school.
I thought everyone here agreed that both management and “those old guys who sleep all day” were totally useless with no contributions or intelligence? Now you mourn them being gone? Can’t have it both ways. You wanted them gone, got what you asked for. I do think think we are probably seeing the last of the true subject matter experts, but everybody thought them as worthless as management. Big scary world isn’t it?
The work will get done regardless. But how well and to what degree? You’re retiring managers and supervisors and shuffling them into supervisory positions for Jon functions they’ve never even held. A lot of the managers themselves can no longer judge the quality of work presented to them because they too are in over there heads. Both of you seriously think that continuing to hire new hires while simultaneously firing and laying off your most senior your employees is not going to lead to a decrease in the quality of work? It’s not about an ENTIRE division being incompetent. It’s underestimating the impact of hiring people, offering no real training and sending them off to do their jobs. It’s not going to be pretty.
Same thing happening in engineering. We have just out of school engineers running things with no experienced guidance or oversight. Get ready for things to blow up and expensive mistakes to be made. I’m already seeing it happen on the cost side.
I didn’t say people don’t know what to do. But when you do work involving specific states and operators, you have to know the regulations and common issues they fave. When the people who worked those desks no longer work for the company, while you can get general help from anyone, the nuances that you learn from experience are taken away. That leaves new hires to have to discover issues that were already known and resolve them rather than focusing on higher value work.
Op here. That’s a fair critique but I’m in controllers. I was speaking to finance as an industry not a division. I wasn’t mixing them up. I’m not sure what I would get out of taking time of my day to make up any of this but… OK.
Agree. EM has extremely complicated contracts and operates under multiple fiscal terms that require innovative and complex financing arrangements and expertise. Finance employees typically have lots of knowledge and experience. No way a new hire is placed in the finance group. Op has no credibility and mixes finance and controllers group as if they are the same. No way.
I don’t believe for a second that an entire functional organization, such as Controllers or Finance, exists at EM without anyone knowing what to do. Maybe some people working there don’t know what to do, but the work is getting done. Senior management pours over financial reports at least monthly, and they are smart enough to see if something is amiss. With the earnings announcement next week, all kinds of reports, analysis, briefing materials, etc. are being generated for HQ, and local management works these to death before submitting them. So the work is done and passes scrutiny.
There are always small groups and teams assigned to non-critical tasks, mundane activities, busy work that has to be done but with no urgency. If these flounder, it might not be noticed for a bit, but sooner or later it will be corrected. Perhaps you just don’t realize what goes on above and beyond what you are exposed . I think you may just be overwhelmed, or spinning a tall tale.
Fellow accountant here- can verify everything the OP is saying. I’m an experienced hire and the accounting infrastructure doesn’t allow for real analysis unless you have outside experience to leverage. You spend your day doing janitorial work more than anything deeply analytical. We’re creating worker bees who won’t add value to the company because they don’t know how to. I too would lost if I didn’t come from the B4. I stand by you OP.
OP here. You are severely misunderstanding the current situation going on finance.Most of everyone spends their time cleaning up the reports the systems can’t generate properly.Every day I’m pulled into a meeting about something that doesn’t work by people with massive experience and I would have no way of knowing these processes even exist. You aren’t born with accounting systems ingrained into your brain. My natural availing can only go so far and it’s going no where. What happens when you lose the people calling those meetings, with the experience and eye to catch them? Plus the contractors? It’s not whether we have the ability to understand it’s that NO ONE is left to teach us. They threw fresh grass working from home into million dollar audits for example. My supervisor doesn’t even know how to to my job or theirs. You can be as smart as you want but with a lack of resources and training, you are being set up to fail. You can be brilliant and still be set up to fail. You shouldn’t be so insecure that me calling myself brilliant offends you because you don’t know me. I’m sure you’re intelligent as well. You should also try being kind.
Op states "I can say without a doubt that I am brilliant". LOL. Pretty sure you don't need to be brilliant to handle entry level finance or accounting positions. If you are a new hire and already lost at work, then brilliant doesn't come to mind. EM doesn't rest on your broad and brilliant shoulders, so relax with a cup of warm milk and cookies. All will be ok.
OP here... we lost some of the brightest people I’ve ever met in my life in the layoffs. I was honored to work with them. They deserved their job more than I did and brought immeasurable that to the company. I can say without a doubt that I am brilliant but I don’t have a fraction of the value that they brought to the company. That’s just the truth. There’s some things you can only learn through experience and leaving 2020 graduates to do your financials in the middle of an economic downturn was incredibly stupid.
Take a chill pill.. EM system is robust enough not to require these deadweights.. follow the procedures and you will be just fine..
Maybe I worded it wrong but you guys have the wrong idea. I’m a fresh college graduate with no experience being left with jobs that require much more experience than the non-existent training program I got. I’m in way over my head and I plan on leaving the company for one that wont leave me out to dry. Even my colleagues tell me I got screwed with all of the work I have to do and no one to teach me how to do it. I’m telling you from my perspective that management made a huge mistake keeping the fresh grads and most of us will be leaving as quickly as we came.
I’m the OP. No, I’m not even an engineer. Like I said I’m an accountant.
I’m the OP. When I say run, I mean true day to day mundane activities, not sit in a board room collecting bonuses while the company is sinking. I’m not in management. I’m fresh out of university.
Yeah and I am Jesus.
Pretty sure the OP is an old fart that got laid off and is angry because he cant find a job anywhere else.
How did you get picked fir management. Therein lies the real problem.
i scream with you, OP
Are you an engineer trying to destroy the exploration company by playing “President”?