Always hope for the future

As we approach the end of 2013, I am one step closer to reaching a personal career milestone. In a few months, I will have been in the Exploration & Production business for three years. The reaching of a milestone is usually a point for one to reflect on what’s been done so far and that’s exactly what I shall do.

First, a bit of a background. The Exploration & Production business is the largest of all in my organization. I don’t claim to be an expert (as I will point out in the later bits of this post), but I reckon that the E&P business is possibly the most vital one since the activities of our other businesses such as downstream, gas & power, logistics & maritime are to a certain extent dictated on what happens on the E&P side of things. I also assume it’s the most exciting and challenging since almost everyone I know outside this business aspires to get in here.

But if I were to summarize nearly three years of working in here, I’d say that I’ve learnt very little about the overall business. The nature of my daily work doesn’t offer much in terms of learning what the actual business is about. A lot of what I do is ‘helpdesk’ work which I guess is okay for a guy like me who’s just starting to cut my teeth in the corporate world. In fact, I would consider this paying my dues before I reach the top. At the same time, I do feel like I’m almost at the point where I want to stop doing this.

As I acquire more experience, I would like to test myself on stuff other than compiling data (most of which I don’t understand) in order to cohesively present to higher management (most of whom don’t care). And as a side note, I find the majority of top management here very patronizing to us non-technical people, which I suppose is understanding (imagine a geoscientist telling Jonathan Ivy how to do design the next iOS!) but undeniably very irritating.

Ideally, I would like to be moved to a smaller operating unit within the company where I can be more exposed to the business. Only there can I learn everything I need to know in order to make myself useful. At present, a lot of what I do is done not because it’s what the business really needs but because that someone has to do it.

And preferably, I’d rather not deal with people anymore. It’s not good for the blood pressure and I don’t think I can deal with people who keep moaning about how their career progression is fucked up when I don’t have one myself.

Maroon me in a server room for a month for all I care – computers I can handle, people I can’t.