After decades of awesome, now it is an OK place to work but not the phenomenal company it used to be.
Pros
Profound concern for the individual: decent salaries, pension, retiree health, stock sharing plan, health benefits, educational funding, vacation seniority and work/life balance enabling alternate work schedules (allowing 3 day weekends). Great people with some phenomenal opportunities despite the often suffocating and burdensome processes we have to operate with. Otherwise a varied and stimulating workplace, I sincerely hope it can regain a most liked status. If you enjoy Houston, Texas, this is the company to work for.
Cons
We are an Energy Company, so working here will earn you an "I work for BIG OIL" demonic moniker with your outside friends! Overly burdensome business processes, sometimes excessive safety culture and extremist OE zealotry permeates to the furthest corners of the corporation (watch out for that paper cut). No question that we certainly should extol the virtue of human safety (clearly Chevron is the gold-standard here) but seriously how many times has the stop-work-authority been called OUTSIDE of a traditional hazardous working environment : refinery, rig or pipeline? That may be a pro or a con but either way it does add up the cost! We are BORG (pardon the Star Trek analogy) - numerous project decisions are sloowly made by a committee of peers resulting in a steep trending towards reduced features and mediocrity. Other are driven by a decision executive forcing solutions despite objections from the subject matter experts (in another Star Trek style : "the will of Landru"). Severely retarded and even dysfunctional efficiency-at-all-costs executive directives. Mind-numbingly risk-averse/management-by-dashboard/tool/committee where all the lights are invariably green (despite the suspected turmoil underneath). It is all about delivering a measurable/sustainable process(rather than accepting a fast-fail), less about figuring out who is going to be engaged long-term to sustain it for you (no headcount, efficiency or budget line item for that). No recognition after-the-fact supporting exceptional personnel development or look-backs to the now senior managers who (while oblivious to reality in the pursuit of short-term efficiency) permeated a long-since-forgotten path of destruction and were promoted accordingly well beyond their worth or capability. This has a knock-on effect of demoralizing more insightful members of the workforce unwilling to foment a similar dis-functional type of behavior to elevate their own status! Finally, if you dislike living in Texas this is not going to be the company for you!
