I was once a valuable contributor in Canada Commercial until I encountered a severe depression. The company jumped at this opportunity to hand the career development I sought to someone else. The VP Finance lead a campaign of harassment and torment intended to see me quit. The health professionals I dealt with read the communications from the company to me and were disgusted by it. I complained in an effort to get an investigation conducted. Once the office was cleared due to Covid, I was terminated. This situation has been brought to the attention of those at the highest levels, but the only thing that matters is the cost to get rid of someone like me. Do not be fooled. Unless you are close friends with your bosses, you do not matter. I am still haunted by the meeting where, within days of surviving su----e, I was called “unprofessional” and my job was threatened. The cowards, contrary to labour law, refuse to this day to share the document they read to me. I have not been able to recover to this day.
18 replies (most recent on top)
I know who you are, and we miss you.
So glad I no longer work for this ?$&@ company.
It hasn't changed
COP is very age biased and will get rid of anyone with a few gray hairs. I think with shale operations it happened because basically all of the heavy design work is done and the goal was a repeatable operation or "factory drilling" mentality. So they mainly need some people to order stuff and keep the mountain of paperwork moving as nothing much is going on that is rocket science over there. And since COP doesn't really explore anywhere or do anything exciting like deepwater or high profile land wells, no need for the older folks who know how to work a design and implement it. I moved on to high profile things that someone with 25 plus years should be doing anyway. If you want to do a boring job with very little security and lots of office politics, COP is the place.
The Calgary Herald does sound like a good idea, especially seeing as how they did this to you during Covid. Most people probably don’t know you’re gone.
Nice to see the supportive responses. Pretty clear that ConocoPhillips views SPIRIT values as a smoke screen rather than any kind of guiding principle. We have all endured some horrendous leaders in this place and no one should succumb to their gas-lighting efforts to believe that anything other than executive compensation matters to them. He-l, people on the BOD make make many times the annual pay of most employees for their few hours of “contribution”. RL and others will insult your intelligence suggesting that it is money well spent.
I noted an ethics violation during the annual year-end compliance survey. I had an HR manager on-record backing me up. But this involved one of the executives, and was ignored and my career soiled. Fortunately there’s a good life away from ConocoPhillips’s. Let this be a lesson to everyone: managers there don’t walk the talk and will lie if they are cornered. I’ve seen it multiple times.
1tdt that’s a particularly despicable and blatant example of what happens far too frequently with greedy corporations. How sickening. Glad the news worked it out for the person. A little negative press can do a company good.
One time in Canada (2007) they had a gentlemen suffering from a brain tumor (or brain cancer) to sign away all of his retirement and severance while he was not in a competent state of mind. They did it in a closed office pressure session where he was there alone with HR and the one of the VPs.
The press and the lawsuits caused COP to rethink their handling of the situation.
All you have to do is get your case on the front page of the Calgary Herald and mentioned on the evening national news and perhaps by Macron in passing. COP will get right.
Plenty of current employees check out this site on a regular basis. Can’t hurt for them to learn a bit about how leadership handles things when they believe no one can see them. Horror stories are plentiful and never featured in the dog and pony shows that the exec are paid millions to conduct. Google “psychopath”... you will recognize ConocoPhillips leadership competencies. Fact.
First and foremost you have my prayers. I’ve been through the same thing in a prior life.
Secondly to the insensitive but less wonder to who replied with the insensitive post, I hope you run into a honey display and stumble over fire ants.
As for the OP, my decision was hard but it meant leaving and quit chasing the dollar. I lost a lot financially but the peace of mind I gained is immeasurable. Reflect on it and make a decision for yourself and your loved ones even if it means taking a hard hit financially. Only you can do that. I’ll be praying for you. I hope you find peace my friend, and may God keep you.
Made an ethics complaint once during annual ethics certification. My supervisor came to me and said she discussed it and determined it is not an ethics violation. Then asked me if I wanted to discuss with an HR Rep. I said why you've already determined it's not an ethics issue. A month later the person I made an ethics complaint against was moved to a different group I had less interaction with. That person had a fit about it. Point being the ethics group is a joke. However, if you can talk to the right people it is worth making your case.
Who’s looking for sympathy? Looks to me like someone sharing his/her experience and the impact it has had on them. That is pretty much what this site is about. You should consider scrolling past rather than trying to run the world.
Are you looking for sympathy on a lay-off gripe site? It was going to happen to you for some reason regardless. Get over it and move on!
Sadly, the ethics investigators are there to downplay and ignore concerns unless it serves leadership. Made to look like the ideal champion for justice, but every bit as corrupt.
Would require significant age and health activism to rid this plague. For now, don’t say a word to anyone at your employer about health matters. Definitely not your boss or HR.
Thank you. I am trying.
Very sorry to hear this. Mental health is just a form of physical health. Sadly, many companies want to get rid of anyone with health issues. It’s not just the impact to the company’s health care costs either. Discrimination on the basis of age and health seem to be well tolerated in an otherwise “woke” US business culture. We all get older, and many of us will have health matters. Unfortunately, pushing people out the door in favor of younger but less experienced people is the standard business tactic.
Keep your head up, get well, and best wishes to you.