Experience in the oil and gas industry

After reading stories about various adventures of IT specialists, I decided to share mine.

Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away, right after graduating from university, I was lucky enough to get a job at a large oil and gas company as an engineer, a communications specialist.

I worked there for quite a long time and gained invaluable and diverse experience.

The first category of experience I received was knowledge of the labor code. I learned that internships can be paid, that all expenses related to employment (in my case, mandatory medical examination) are also paid by the employer. Special clothing and personal protective equipment were also provided, the company had regulations on what should be issued, how often and of what quality. I learned what is collective agreement and how many additional perks for the employee can be secured there, including additional social benefits, voluntary health insurance, etc. I quit there due to staff reductions. And here everything went strictly according to the letter of the law: 2 months' notice, offer of alternative positions, payment of 2 average salaries, unused vacation, and an annual bonus immediately upon dismissal.

I wrote all this down because I could live to be a blue-haired person and not know that such conditions exist. And what's more, most of the above is due to the employee by law. And I know many people for whom this is a revelation.

The second category of experience is professional. Since this was my first serious (not counting various student jobs) job, I learned a lot here. My senior, experienced colleagues deserve credit for this, and I am still grateful to them. In addition to purely professional knowledge and skills, I developed my so-called soft skills here (I didn’t know such words at the time). It should be noted that work with new employees (especially young ones, without experience) was structured quite well: an internship, an assigned mentor, on-the-job training, and refresher courses. In addition, it was practically impossible to receive any disciplinary action for a professional error in the first year of work.

And finally, the third category is invaluable life experienceassociated with the attitude towards one’s work and the attitude of various types of managers towards this work.

So, the candy-flower period ended in a year and a half, and I gradually plunged into the harsh working routine at full speed. And it turned out that interesting tasks, like launching or setting up equipment, most often pass by. Although you recently underwent special training from the manufacturer. Sometimes this was done by special people from the head office, but then, increasingly, by third-party contractors. Professional interest increasingly remained unsatisfied. And the full-time employees were mainly engaged in processing the endless stream of documentation. The level of bureaucracy and the amount of paperwork grew every year.: numerous regulations of 200-300 pages, which everyone had to sign, countless instructions and journals. We even had a journal that listed all the other journals, and this is no joke. The bureaucratic burden increased, and we had to choose – fill out the documentation or do the actual work, servicing the equipment. If you neglect the first, a reprimand and punishment will follow: no matter what work was done, if it is not formalized with papers – the work is not done. If you neglect the maintenance – in the end you get a communication failure, a reprimand and punishment. More and more often, you had to stay late at work or work on the weekend. Recycling became the normalthough formally no one forced me.

Additional workload was generated by departments that were not exactly a priority for a technical engineer: labor protection, environmental safety, and so on. If initially these were some auxiliary areas that were handled part-time, then over time in the head offices they were separated into departments with their own staff and developed vigorous activity. There was much more work, but no one expanded the staff on the ground. As a result, engineerwho previously dealt with communications equipment, now I was forced to additionally do some nonsense such as marking fire extinguishers or organizing the storage of household waste of hazard class 4.

A separate type of bullying of employees is internal complex inspections. This is an action, during which on a pre-arranged day from the most important office the smartest bosses fly in and start checking everything and everyone. The main task is to show the employees that they do not know how or do not want to work, everything is done poorly or incorrectly, and in general, be glad that you have not been fired yet.

Yes, that's roughly what it all looked like:

As you might guess, they checked mainly the documentation. If there was nothing to find fault with, they started checking the spelling and punctuation. The commission could not leave without comments. The atmosphere was always extremely tense. Some inspectors could raise their voices. Often women were brought to tears. At the same time, there was always an accompanying person from the local management next to the most important person, in order to avoid excesses. Once, when we were in some windowless technical room with the inspectors, the lights suddenly went out. And in the pitch darkness, one of the inspectors said: “Well, that's it, they're going to beat us now.” But we knew that this was a test of the backup generator and the lights would turn on in 5 seconds, so we had to restrain ourselves.

We, mere mortals, were strictly forbidden to argue or engage in polemics. Some workers took sick leave on the day of the commission to save their nerves.

But the inspection was the final stage, it was preceded by preparation – work on the comments of the previous poor fellows: endless and meaningless running and fuss, overtime and work on weekends. By the time of the inspection, most were morally and physically at the limit.

And so it was almost every month, year after year. Eventually, it became a normal mode of operation. It was impossible to do it “as it should be” once, to set up the work process. Every day was a rush job and a disaster.

It became clear that if I continued like this, then professionally, only degradation awaited me.

Eventually I got so burned out on the job that I lost all interest in it. I just showed up in the morning and waited for the evening.

When I finally said that I wanted to quit and had already found another job, they persuaded me to stay, promising to reduce the workload and transfer me to another position. The management kept their promise, the salary became higher, the workload was less, the inspections no longer affected me. But after some time, I was laid off. Several positions were offered, though in other regions. But I decided that “it was time to leave.” At the new place, I significantly lost in income and social package, but the workload became 10 times less (according to fresh impressions).

What conclusions did I draw?

1. No financial benefit is worth this kind of attitude from an employer.

2. The lower the position an employee occupies, the harder his work is and the worse the attitude towards him.

3. If you don’t maintain a balance and devote all your energy to work and your employer, you can burn out irrevocably.

4. It’s better to keep some distance with management, otherwise it will be difficult to refuse a “friendly request to work on a day off.”

5. Working in the public sector in general and in the fuel and energy industry in particular, to put it mildly, “has its own nuances.”

Yes, by the way. There was a trade union at the enterprise. And remembering it, I understand why such an attitude to trade unions in our country. Our union collected dues, was very indignant if someone did not want to join it or left it. You could sometimes ask the union for financial assistance on some issue, and they would allocate a small amount. What else the union did, what it could do, and why it existed at all, remained a mystery to me.

And so that you can dictate the conditions at work, and not you – unite with colleagues.