Pros
- Some peers make this place bearable through trauma bonding - The campus is beautiful and you can take froyo breaks - If you are lucky enough to be at one of the Houston sites, you do not have state income tax - You get to learn if you like oil, gas, & chemicals or not
Cons
- The worst management (including supervisors) gets promoted & many are micromanagers - Upper management has selective hearing when it comes to feedback - Some sites (Beaumont and Baton Rouge) are worse than living in Chernobyl - All the diverse and friendly people leave within the first couple of years - Executives like pocketing more money for themselves while lower level employees face minimal salary raises (if we get salary raises) - Lack of transparency across the board (i.e. we learn of salary freezes, 401k cuts, layoffs, etc. through news outlets) - The younger generation knows this industry is not sustainable and views Exxon as the most evil compared to its peers - Communications on serious issues (i.e. COVID, BLM, Anti-Asian rhetoric) are purely reactive and are put out there as a response to employee dissatisfaction - Working from home for non-essential roles was not an option, even as peers contracted COVID-19. The company's scapegoat was "they likely were exposed during their lunch break" since the exposure could not be "proven" to occur during the 12-person meeting in the conference room (note this was before vaccines were rolled out). - Everything is an "emergency" in the eyes of management and they will drain your energy preparing for minute issues - Overall lack of diversity that will continue to propagate discriminatory behavior and microaggressions throughout the company - "This is the way we've always done it, so we will continue doing everything this way" will get you rewarded rather than challenging the status quo - The CEO and other executives only care about shareholders, never the individual contributors - Town Halls will actively censor messages and questions - "Management's hands are tied" is the excuse that is communicated for everything - Roles will continue to be outsourced abroad to save costs, despite the additional complications with timely communications - Management will not admit that they a culture revamp to retain talent - Talent is escaping to industries that better value their employees (i.e. Tech & Consulting), but Exxon will not enhance their benefits package accordingly - Only Chemical Engineering degrees are truly valued in the company. This is a not-so-secret expectation on how to quickly accelerate your career here. - Sustainability initiatives are minimal - In order to be successful, you are required to follow a traditional career path through manufacturing roles - If you do something bad, supervisors will not support you. If you do something good, supervisors will take credit for the work you did. - The expectation is that you need to respond within 24 hours if someone needs you while on vacation - The cultural issues stem throughout the entire company! Not only within one function (i.e. chemicals vs. upstream or supply chain vs. technical) - A supervisor once told me "the people who do well here take ownership," which is ironic considering that the company as a whole has not been taking ownership over its poor culture that has caused top talent to apply elsewhere.