Dipping one's toes in the corporate hullaballou

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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I know many here might have some thoughts on the subject, and likely only those who slug their way all the way through this will have posts to ponder. It’s possible I’m posting only to collect my own thoughts (OMG, online diary!!)

I recently (6 weeks now) began a job with a large public corporation, after 10 years of running my own company. I work in a branch office that consists of 10 people, but only six of us work for the petroleum exploration company; the others work for the drilling company. I don’t have a local boss - the two guys whose company was bought out to start this branch five years ago are here and are definitely my seniors; but, organizationally they are my peers. I’m not thinking anything along the lines of seize control and start my own planet - I already did that - whoo boy, that’s fun when you don’t have money. But, while I could complacently sail along in a new job with a salary and benefits that smoke what I had going with my own company, I have come to realize that they did not hire me to be a jobber.

This company is one of the biggest drilling companies in the country (I know, not as exciting as ether-stocks) and they’ve never had one of me before. They’ve got lots of geologists, but I am their singular geophysicist and, as such, I am working not just my district, but all districts company-wide.

So, I realize that showing up and depending on management for guidance might work for a couple of months, but ultimately what is wanted and needed out of me is a new sub-organization. I need to establish new links with the big dogs, links I manage. These are not pipe dreams. I’m coming to realize that this is what is expected, it’s just that I’m supposed to figure that out myself. So, fight the good fight, stoke the fires once again. I’ve got little to fear from the entrenched, and I’m off to fight anew.

Then, my question would be (this is MPSIMS, right? I mean, technically speaking, I don’t really have to ask a question, right, Unc? I could just, like, propose a toast or something?): wouldja do it? Should I mount another beatle moves a mountain effort (or maybe just play smart and let beatle be the guy who gets a budget to hire some more folk to move the mountain) or would you just take the job at face value ?

That was silly. I suppose what I’m really wondering, in light of having recently let up on the throttle on my own little corporate empire, is something along the lines of how competitive to remain. The job, as it is, rocks. They pay me good bucks and I don’t work nearly as hard as I did when spinning my own sphere. But that is the honeymoon impression. Things will change, and if I don’t change ahead of them, they’ll get to change me.

A lot of rambling, but… I guess beatle needs to go ahead and put together a global geophysical department.

Comments?

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Sounds like an exciting situation to be in. I’m in the software startup business, where constant expansion and reinvention is the norm, and I love that stuff.

What sort of organization are they expecting you to put together? I guess the better question is what sort of organization do you see needing to be built? What problems do they have that you can make better?

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beatle, I’m an old corporate warrior in the oil biz. As a geophysicist you are worth your weight in gold. You are going to have to be a team player, big time, working with geologists to bring in plays. You’ll be lucky if, once in your career, you find a “company maker”, that is, an undiscovered hydrocarbon deposit worth, say, $120,000,000. If you prove that you can add value you will be given a lot of freedom and can do a little empire building. For now, focus on what the company wants from you and build good relationships with your team. I’ve seen young keeners do serious damage to their reputations and careers by premature empire building. The last thing you want to do is try to build up a staff and spend all kinds of money building a department with the latest and greatest in high tech geophysical software and hardware and then have it all sitting around with not enough to do. Somebody will notice that, instead of adding value, you are a money pit.

Make your employer richer and add value. The beauty of the oil business is that this is possible and can be clearly demonstrated. For example, I hope that someday you can go to your boss and point out that it was your geophysical interpretation that added hundreds of millions to the company asset base. You will be Vice President of Exploration and they’ll throw budget money at you with pitchforks.

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Absorbing Al’s contribution (thanks, Al, your comments are appreciated - I do have 20 years in the business behind me, so I’m not really a young keener), and refining my own thoughts - yeah, I guess this is a bit of an online public diary exercise.

I didn’t seek this position; it came and snatched me out of my own little business world. And my first impressions were along the lines of…cool job, they pay me more and expect less. I guess, and some of this might not necessarily be in line with what I posted in the OP, that while my initial take was that I had little choice but to accept the position offered, I think I was just looking at the salary and benefits and the people and workload with which I’d be dealing. It was very hard to let my own company go (and I haven’t, entirely), but my perspective on starting the new gig, while cognizant of the possibilities, really centered on having a (lower case “j”) job, and performing and enjoying same. I’d worked as an exploration worker bee (with an infamous independent) for a decade before I started my own enterprise.

I’ve come to realize, though, that, like it or not, I didn’t land in "j"ob territory. I can’t just merrily explore and be done with it. I’ve got to set the pace for geophysics, and I’m the only one on that crew. And, yes, Al, I do appreciate your thoughts (I think you, perhaps, took me for a slightly greener onion) - I know I must team play to get it done for all of us.

What I’m confronting is the realization that I can’t just be thankful that I got a cool sounding job title with a nice package - they expect initiative and the welcome wagon will probably be gone by Tuesday (holiday on Monday here in the U.S.). In other words, I’m still in the business, I’ve just belatedly come to recognize my employers’ intent. Ugh! Whoo hoo!

So, once again, the politics. I’ll make a point of “dropping by” the District Geologist’s bayhouse this weekend (50 miles) where we’ll get up to date on the two wells we’re testing and try and fucking bond.

That sounds a bit jaded. It ain’t that bad.

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beatle, I have the feeling from what little I know of you and what I can glean from reading what you’ve written here, that ultimately you will be very unhappy being nothing more than a worker bee showing up from 8 to 5 and collecting your bi-weekly paycheck. You strike me as someone who would get very little satisfaction out of that kind of work ethic and eventually it would drive you nuts. You take far too much pride in your work to do the bare minimum to get by.

I think you know what you need to do. Why you’re looking for validation from us, I have no idea. But if it helps to have a cheering squad, I’m pretty good at the ‘Rah, Rah, Sis-Boom-Bah’ stuff!

Good Luck!!

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An engineer, a geologist, and a geophysicist are all being interviewed for a job. During the interview the interviewer asks the interviewee a question: “What is one plus one?”

The engineer: (using a calculator) “Four point zero zero zero zero.”

The geologist: (after looong thought) “It’s a whole number between one and three.”

The geophysicist: (after checking out the room carefully and closing the curtains) “What do you want it to be?”

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Shayna, Shayna…there’s something I really like about you, gal! I should’ve put this in a thread that wasn’t about me. Oh well, c’est la vie!