Hey Oil Barons.......

[T’Boo Ted Marshall 2,732]

Damn. Cold blooded.

[Okie State 3,821]

That's such a chicken shit move.

[fattyflattie 4,639]

My time finally came last Friday AM. I have survived around a dozen, give or take 1-2, since ‘08.  I was consulting for a project set to go in ‘22, but with all the uncertainty, it sounds like they’ve pretty much stalled the project.  Our Q4 had already been approved, and Q1 was looking iffy, until it wasn’t I guess.  I’ve been blessed in the fact I haven’t had an unpaid day since the week I graduated, always left on Friday and started new gig on Monday, so I was struggling a bit with that.  
 

Got a call Weds asking if I was able to travel immediately to clean up a project, so here I am, in a hotel across the country. Didn’t even call the wife, just said yes.  I know too many good folks that have been out for far too long and I didn’t want to take that chance. Took a little haircut, but still able to run contract for the moment, which is nice. Actually able to bill both a bit until my handover is complete.  Think there’s a place for me here after the project, it’s out of O&G proper, but supports the industry at times. 
 

(real) Thoughts and Prayers to those that are out of work right now.  

[Goofyboy 3,293]

I was supposed to be down to four hours a week, starting this week. Then a change order came in and I’m back to fullish time till the end of October. It’s been since November of 2019 that I was full time.
In November, I should be 25 hours a week. I’m just riding the ride. It’s allowing me to be with my son for virtual school.
All those that are looking, I wish you the best. I’m skating by.

[tx 3 putt 77,060]

On 9/19/2020 at 11:35 AM, FartingMonk said:

Had one of our managers leave and go to Praxair after our merger.  He was recently given the task of informing the people the company was laying off.  After the task was completed.  He was told he was also being let go.  Tough world.

 

praxair is a horrible company 

[markstanco 12,577]

 
praxair is a horrible company 

One of my customers. 3 Safety specialists i know have no complaints but that is of course a very small sample size.

[tx 3 putt 77,060]

dealing with them as a vendor is a pain, compared to the big chemical companies 

[BTW 370]

Had a conversation with a buddy who works at Concho over the weekend, he said they put out a job posting for a landman position.  This is one job was replacing two people who were unsuccessful in making the transition to their current WFH 75% in office 25% model. (Read: they were watching netflix instead of working and constantly finding excuses for why they couldn't get their work done).  Anyway,  he had 140 resumes for this job and interviewed 10 before making the hire.

The things that stand out to me on this story are A) the complacency of the people that got fired, how could you believe you could put forth half-ass effort and keep your job in this environment? and B) holy shit that's a lot of applications for a single position, I figured every open position has a lot of interest, but ... damn

[Armybrat 40,851]

Sounds like the applications/job ratio for teaching positions in the Austin area.

[Neonmoon 38,129]

42 minutes ago, BTW said:

Had a conversation with a buddy who works at Concho over the weekend, he said they put out a job posting for a landman position.  This is one job was replacing two people who were unsuccessful in making the transition to their current WFH 75% in office 25% model. (Read: they were watching netflix instead of working and constantly finding excuses for why they couldn't get their work done).  Anyway,  he had 140 resumes for this job and interviewed 10 before making the hire.

The things that stand out to me on this story are A) the complacency of the people that got fired, how could you believe you could put forth half-ass effort and keep your job in this environment? and B) holy shit that's a lot of applications for a single position, I figured every open position has a lot of interest, but ... damn

More than likely, these two people were Landman between the ages of 24-28. It's shocking they haven't died from alcohol poisoning by now. 

[LurkingHorn 1,066]

41 minutes ago, BTW said:

Had a conversation with a buddy who works at Concho over the weekend, he said they put out a job posting for a landman position.  This is one job was replacing two people who were unsuccessful in making the transition to their current WFH 75% in office 25% model. (Read: they were watching netflix instead of working and constantly finding excuses for why they couldn't get their work done).  Anyway,  he had 140 resumes for this job and interviewed 10 before making the hire.

The things that stand out to me on this story are A) the complacency of the people that got fired, how could you believe you could put forth half-ass effort and keep your job in this environment? and B) holy shit that's a lot of applications for a single position, I figured every open position has a lot of interest, but ... damn

That's pretty crazy to be so complacent. How did they confirm they were actually watching Netflix? Or were they just not getting it done and your buddy was just saying that in passing.

My current company put up a posting for a reservoir engineer position and had to remove it 48 hours later because there were 100s of applications. Incredibly sad to know there are so many people out there right now just looking for anything. 

[BTW 370]

7 minutes ago, LurkingHorn said:

That's pretty crazy to be so complacent. How did they confirm they were actually watching Netflix? Or were they just not getting it done and your buddy was just saying that in passing.

My current company put up a posting for a reservoir engineer position and had to remove it 48 hours later because there were 100s of applications. Incredibly sad to know there are so many people out there right now just looking for anything. 

Yeah, the comment was just made in passing.  He was just saying they were two of the most high maintenance employees with some of the least output.

[Eastwood 4,394]

29 minutes ago, BTW said:

Had a conversation with a buddy who works at Concho over the weekend, he said they put out a job posting for a landman position.  This is one job was replacing two people who were unsuccessful in making the transition to their current WFH 75% in office 25% model. (Read: they were watching netflix instead of working and constantly finding excuses for why they couldn't get their work done).  Anyway,  he had 140 resumes for this job and interviewed 10 before making the hire.

The things that stand out to me on this story are A) the complacency of the people that got fired, how could you believe you could put forth half-ass effort and keep your job in this environment? and B) holy shit that's a lot of applications for a single position, I figured every open position has a lot of interest, but ... damn

It's funny to me because I have been working from home 75% of the time for years in this industry. I'd have zero problems working for any company that has made the transition. But the application process for in-house doesn't seem to take that into account. They'd rather roll the dice, right now, with some 45 year old CPL who has only ever worked in an office and then shrug their shoulders when their new hire spends months adjusting to and accumulating the programs and equipment necessary to do it. And the experience with those programs and processes is actually cumulative. The more you work with those programs and newer tech, the quicker you'll pick up the next round of programs and processes the company will eventually transition to.

For example, right before I started my last project, they were having problems with people not being able to figure out how to share things over Google Drive and Dropbox. People with decades of experience just dead in the water because they can't function in a work from home environment and are spending a significant chunk of their day just trying to figure out how to send someone a PDF or turn in something. Then they add a program or a new method of doing things and these people haven't even figured out the last round, so now they are double behind and spending all of their day scratching their head. Then yet another process comes out and the next thing you know, you have people complaining about putting in 12 hour days with nothing to show for it because they are completely turned around and confused and there isn't a person to sit down with them for a week and walk them through all of it. The best we could do was a monthly meeting to try to get everyone sorted out. Eventually, they get let go, which is a shame because they have the knowledge but are analog people stuck in a digital world.

[Neonmoon 38,129]

8 minutes ago, Eastwood said:

For example, right before I started my last project, they were having problems with people not being able to figure out how to share things over Google Drive and Dropbox. People with decades of experience just dead in the water because they can't function in a work from home environment and are spending a significant chunk of their day just trying to figure out how to send someone a PDF or turn in something. Then they add a program or a new method of doing things and these people haven't even figured out the last round, so now they are double behind and spending all of their day scratching their head. Then yet another process comes out and the next thing you know, you have people complaining about putting in 12 hour days with nothing to show for it because they are completely turned around and confused and there isn't a person to sit down with them for a week and walk them through all of it. The best we could do was a monthly meeting to try to get everyone sorted out. Eventually, they get let go, which is a shame because they have the knowledge but are analog people stuck in a digital world.

This is (was) the industry in general though the past 20 years during the computer revolution. My entire career was me beating my ahead against a wall for the 25% of coworkers and/or managers who didn't like technology/computers and "new" processes that save time. Thankfully they're mostly gone by now. 

[Eastwood 4,394]

9 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

This is (was) the industry in general though the past 20 years during the computer revolution. My entire career was me beating my ahead against a wall for the 25% of coworkers and/or managers who didn't like technology/computers and "new" processes that save time. Thankfully they're mostly gone by now. 

Adapt or die, for sure. The forced work from home situation accelerated that. It also revealed which employees absolutely need supervision in order to be productive.

[DCA_HORN 725]

That's pretty crazy to be so complacent. How did they confirm they were actually watching Netflix? Or were they just not getting it done and your buddy was just saying that in passing.
My current company put up a posting for a reservoir engineer position and had to remove it 48 hours later because there were 100s of applications. Incredibly sad to know there are so many people out there right now just looking for anything. 

I've seen postings that got several hundred applications in less than a day. Its absolutely brutal right now.

[Trey3216 15,347]

2 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

Nat gas visiting pound me in the ass prison today. 

Ugly.  Been ugly since Sally and the Texas cool front came through.  Not a bad buy area though, I think winter demand could be unreal this year, paired with continued dampening of production.  

[DCA_HORN 725]

October is a shoulder month. This is fairly v typical especially combined with the market sell off in general.

[FartingMonk 3,608]

7 hours ago, BTW said:

Had a conversation with a buddy who works at Concho over the weekend, he said they put out a job posting for a landman position.  This is one job was replacing two people who were unsuccessful in making the transition to their current WFH 75% in office 25% model. (Read: they were watching netflix instead of working and constantly finding excuses for why they couldn't get their work done).  Anyway,  he had 140 resumes for this job and interviewed 10 before making the hire.

The things that stand out to me on this story are A) the complacency of the people that got fired, how could you believe you could put forth half-ass effort and keep your job in this environment? and B) holy shit that's a lot of applications for a single position, I figured every open position has a lot of interest, but ... damn

Anytime we try to hire operators it's like that.  150k+ year job you'll have a bunch of interested people.

[sunset87 240]

7 hours ago, Eastwood said:

It's funny to me because I have been working from home 75% of the time for years in this industry. I'd have zero problems working for any company that has made the transition. But the application process for in-house doesn't seem to take that into account. They'd rather roll the dice, right now, with some 45 year old CPL who has only ever worked in an office and then shrug their shoulders when their new hire spends months adjusting to and accumulating the programs and equipment necessary to do it. And the experience with those programs and processes is actually cumulative. The more you work with those programs and newer tech, the quicker you'll pick up the next round of programs and processes the company will eventually transition to.

For example, right before I started my last project, they were having problems with people not being able to figure out how to share things over Google Drive and Dropbox. People with decades of experience just dead in the water because they can't function in a work from home environment and are spending a significant chunk of their day just trying to figure out how to send someone a PDF or turn in something. Then they add a program or a new method of doing things and these people haven't even figured out the last round, so now they are double behind and spending all of their day scratching their head. Then yet another process comes out and the next thing you know, you have people complaining about putting in 12 hour days with nothing to show for it because they are completely turned around and confused and there isn't a person to sit down with them for a week and walk them through all of it. The best we could do was a monthly meeting to try to get everyone sorted out. Eventually, they get let go, which is a shame because they have the knowledge but are analog people stuck in a digital world.

Well Concho just built a brand new big ass analog building, so if they really are going to WFH 75%, that new building sitting at about 25% full, seems like a massive waste. My guess is they will go back to much more in office when Covid calms down.

[Chewbacca 7,780]

Had a conversation with a buddy who works at Concho over the weekend, he said they put out a job posting for a landman position.  This is one job was replacing two people who were unsuccessful in making the transition to their current WFH 75% in office 25% model. (Read: they were watching netflix instead of working and constantly finding excuses for why they couldn't get their work done).  Anyway,  he had 140 resumes for this job and interviewed 10 before making the hire.
The things that stand out to me on this story are A) the complacency of the people that got fired, how could you believe you could put forth half-ass effort and keep your job in this environment? and B) holy shit that's a lot of applications for a single position, I figured every open position has a lot of interest, but ... damn

The laziness of people working at home is astounding. We work with utilities, renewable and O&G companies. It's like time is frozen on new work. People won't return emails, they won't pick up their phones. It's maddening.

And lots of landmen looking for work right now.

[Okie State 3,821]

The laziness of people working at home is astounding. We work with utilities, renewable and O&G companies. It's like time is frozen on new work. People won't return emails, they won't pick up their phones. It's maddening.

And lots of landmen looking for work right now.

And this is why the WFH model will shift back to the office for many companies. It just doesn't work for everyone.

[Johnny Chimpo 478]

I can work from home and all but damn if I don’t prefer to have a dedicated office in a separate building from home. I don’t mind working 12 hours a day at the office and trust me I’ve done it plenty but when I walk out the door, that’s it for me. I’m leaving it behind and moving to a different space. 

[Okie State 3,821]

I can work from home and all but damn if I don’t prefer to have a dedicated office in a separate building from home. I don’t mind working 12 hours a day at the office and trust me I’ve done it plenty but when I walk out the door, that’s it for me. I’m leaving it behind and moving to a different space. 

Absolutely. We've been back in the office for months now, but the lines between work and home have definitely blurred. Feels like the expectation is to be available at all times to login. Not sure I like it. Although I do like having a job right now so there's that.

[Eastwood 4,394]

35 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

The laziness of people working at home is astounding. We work with utilities, renewable and O&G companies. It's like time is frozen on new work. People won't return emails, they won't pick up their phones. It's maddening.

And lots of landmen looking for work right now.

It takes a very different mindset to work from home effectively. I feel like there needs to be even more emphasis on the timeliness of returning emails and if it's during working hours, there really is no excuse for not picking up the phone or immediately returning calls. The people trying to reach you can't just run down the hall and pop their head in real quick for an answer on something and a boss will always create their own reasons in their mind as to why they can't reach you, so you need to get out in front of that and show them that you're home, you're accessible, and you're on top of things. I actually work way better from home than at an office because there aren't any fellow employees trying to socialize with me, no birthday cake meetings, no catered lunch to make the mandatory appearance at, etc.

[Fudge Nuggets 19,206]

2 hours ago, Eastwood said:

I actually work way better from home than at an office because there aren't any fellow employees trying to socialize with me, no birthday cake meetings, no catered lunch to make the mandatory appearance at, etc.

Now I have doubts you actually work in O&G.  Birthday cakes and catered lunches haven't been a thing since around 2015.

[Chewbacca 7,780]

And this is why the WFH model will shift back to the office for many companies. It just doesn't work for everyone.

Had one client at a utility tell me that he can't even get the people who work for him to answer the phone or emails. And there is a hiring/ firing freeze so he can't even do anything about it.

[Eastwood 4,394]

10 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Now I have doubts you actually work in O&G.  Birthday cakes and catered lunches haven't been a thing since around 2015.

The catered lunches became exceptionally rare and the birthday cake meetings got whittled down to once a month, one cake for all that month's birthdays.

[Okie State 3,821]

Had one client at a utility tell me that he can't even get the people who work for him to answer the phone or emails. And there is a hiring/ firing freeze so he can't even do anything about it.

Firing freeze?

[Fudge Nuggets 19,206]

2 minutes ago, Eastwood said:

The catered lunches became exceptionally rare and the birthday cake meetings got whittled down to once a month, one cake for all that month's birthdays.

We went from a weekly b-day cake get together to monthly in late 2013.  Then they disappeared completely in late 2014.  Our previous manager kicked up a big shit storm about service companies bringing in food; guess he thought we would sway a $100MM tender to the company with the best breakfast tacos or something.  Anyway, he's gone now so maybe if things start to turn around a bit we can at least get some damn kolaches in the office.

[Johnny Chimpo 478]

4 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

We went from a weekly b-day cake get together to monthly in late 2013.  Then they disappeared completely in late 2014.  Our previous manager kicked up a big shit storm about service companies bringing in food; guess he thought we would sway a $100MM tender to the company with the best breakfast tacos or something.  Anyway, he's gone now so maybe if things start to turn around a bit we can at least get some damn kolaches in the office.

What a jackass. Lol. 

[Okie State 3,821]

We went from a weekly b-day cake get together to monthly in late 2013.  Then they disappeared completely in late 2014.  Our previous manager kicked up a big shit storm about service companies bringing in food; guess he thought we would sway a $100MM tender to the company with the best breakfast tacos or something.  Anyway, he's gone now so maybe if things start to turn around a bit we can at least get some damn kolaches in the office.

Jesus. Breakfast tacos and kolaches are all we have to keep us going. Even those have been taken away by Covid.

[Chewbacca 7,780]

Firing freeze?

Utility, bro.

[fattyflattie 4,639]

1 hour ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

guess he thought we would sway a $100MM tender to the company with the best breakfast tacos or something.

Shit that takes at least a few 200” class deer, and some sail fishing for good measure. 

[FartingMonk 3,608]

We still get catered lunches.  There's like a 25k pcard that we can use.  It's the don't go stupid with the pcard and it's fine type of deal.  Although Covid did take away our breakfast tacos for ERT training.  We only get boxed Chick Fil A for lunch now

[Planet Houston 4,930]

1 hour ago, FartingMonk said:

 We only get boxed Chick Fil A for lunch now

Accurate handle is accurate. 

[jeevsie 3,734]

11 hours ago, Okie State said:

11 hours ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

We went from a weekly b-day cake get together to monthly in late 2013.  Then they disappeared completely in late 2014.  Our previous manager kicked up a big shit storm about service companies bringing in food; guess he thought we would sway a $100MM tender to the company with the best breakfast tacos or something.  Anyway, he's gone now so maybe if things start to turn around a bit we can at least get some damn kolaches in the office.

Jesus. Breakfast tacos and kolaches are all we have to keep us going. Even those have been taken away by Covid.

The first time (post lockdown) someone brought us breakfast a few weeks ago, people just kind of stared at it for a while.  "Is it safe" kind of deer in the headlights.

Then the engineers caught wind. "Mmm...Free Food..."

[sunset87 240]

2 hours ago, jeevsie said:

The first time (post lockdown) someone brought us breakfast a few weeks ago, people just kind of stared at it for a while.  "Is it safe" kind of deer in the headlights.

Then the engineers caught wind. "Mmm...Free Food..."

That's funny and accurate...needs to be in a Dilbert cartoon.

[DCA_HORN 725]

The first time (post lockdown) someone brought us breakfast a few weeks ago, people just kind of stared at it for a while.  "Is it safe" kind of deer in the headlights.
Then the engineers caught wind. "Mmm...Free Food..."

Is this somehow different than getting food delivered or getting takeout?

[FartingMonk 3,608]

Ouch.  Houston Refinery just got a 10 percent population decline notice

[tx 3 putt 77,060]

3 hours ago, FartingMonk said:

Ouch.  Houston Refinery just got a 10 percent population decline notice

LCR ?  One of the biggest group of dicks I've ever worked with. They are not good people, from the top down. 

 

all the refineries i deal with have been cutting back, 10% is below avg imo 

Edited September 23, 2020 by tx 3 putt

[FartingMonk 3,608]

9 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

LCR ?  One of the biggest group of dicks I've ever worked with. They are not good people, from the top down. 

 

all the refineries i deal with have been cutting back, 10% is below avg imo 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-refinery-staff-lyondell-houston-exclu-idUSKCN26D346

[billfromlaketravis 11,516]

On 9/21/2020 at 9:27 AM, BTW said:

Had a conversation with a buddy who works at Concho over the weekend, he said they put out a job posting for a landman position.  This is one job was replacing two people who were unsuccessful in making the transition to their current WFH 75% in office 25% model. (Read: they were watching netflix instead of working and constantly finding excuses for why they couldn't get their work done).  Anyway,  he had 140 resumes for this job and interviewed 10 before making the hire.

The things that stand out to me on this story are A) the complacency of the people that got fired, how could you believe you could put forth half-ass effort and keep your job in this environment? and B) holy shit that's a lot of applications for a single position, I figured every open position has a lot of interest, but ... damn

I've reminded my peers over and over again the company is monitoring our laptops. I'm friendly with a guy that has run several IT Departments. IT can easily pull screen shots and track progress. He called it "building a case for separation". Do your work like you're at the office is the best advice I can give. Don't give the company a reason to pull the trigger. 

Once things are back to normal, I'd encourage people to network outside of their professional organizations. The AAPL message board is very sad. There's people with 15-20 years experience that have been out of work for a year +. Rodeo committees are great. The McCombs tailgates/events are also pretty good. 

[Eastwood 4,394]

2 minutes ago, billfromlaketravis said:

The AAPL message board is very sad. There's people with 15-20 years experience that have been out of work for a year +.

Yeah, we've really learned how to streamline things and programs like iLandman have really minimized the need for manpower and maximized the need to be computer literate. I'm pretty proud of my track record of always being on the last ship out of a project and have sees big land projects from the start, or damn near close, all the way to the finish. It always amazes me that we start with anywhere from 50 to over 100 people and over a period of months have the crew whittled down to a quarter of the size and productivity is either the same or actually improves. We have so many tools now that it wouldn't surprise me if companies are no longer doing the whole "flood a project with manpower and let the rest sort itself out" approach anymore. We'll never see a job market for landmen like the late 00's, early 10's ever again, IMO.

[billfromlaketravis 11,516]

13 minutes ago, Eastwood said:

Yeah, we've really learned how to streamline things and programs like iLandman have really minimized the need for manpower and maximized the need to be computer literate. I'm pretty proud of my track record of always being on the last ship out of a project and have sees big land projects from the start, or damn near close, all the way to the finish. It always amazes me that we start with anywhere from 50 to over 100 people and over a period of months have the crew whittled down to a quarter of the size and productivity is either the same or actually improves. We have so many tools now that it wouldn't surprise me if companies are no longer doing the whole "flood a project with manpower and let the rest sort itself out" approach anymore. We'll never see a job market for landmen like the late 00's, early 10's ever again, IMO.

Unfortunately this is true. My team went from 4 to 2 we haven't missed a beat. The former people on my team liked to specialize and work on the same project for a month. It's amazing what can get done when everybody is working hard and working together. 

Edited September 27, 2020 by billfromlaketravis

[elfenix 34,310]

 

[Landjeff 1]

On 9/21/2020 at 6:06 PM, Chewbacca said:

The laziness of people working at home is astounding. We work with utilities, renewable and O&G companies. It's like time is frozen on new work. People won't return emails, they won't pick up their phones. It's maddening.

And lots of landmen looking for work right now.

I’m one of them.... 20 plus years in the industry (company and field) and have yet to receive a response from any of my inquiries. I’ve gone so far to tell them I’d for work free for a while to ensure I was a proper fit. Nada. Zilch. 

[Chewbacca 7,780]

22 minutes ago, Landjeff said:

I’m one of them.... 20 plus years in the industry (company and field) and have yet to receive a response from any of my inquiries. I’ve gone so far to tell them I’d for work free for a while to ensure I was a proper fit. Nada. Zilch. 

That's because there's no new work.  The only work going on is projects that started before this whole mess.  Renewables are finally starting to thaw out.  We got our first new project in a long time this week.  But O&G and Utility work is essentially dead.  Utilities aren't even doing the stuff they are mandated to do right now.

[tx 3 putt 77,060]

I’ve worked from home for many years, I’m constantly paranoid about not responding to emails within 5 mins 

[jeevsie 3,734]

On the rare occasion I work from home, I love sending the immediate response.  Or look something up immediately when someone calls.