January 9, 2010

We did it.  We took the plunge.  We both went to work Monday morning and turned in our resignations.  We are committed to a new path.

The response continues to be positive.  Sure, we are finding people who can’t look beyond their own personal situation to understand that we don’t have to go seamlessly from one job to another.  Most people though are expressing enthusiasm and even a little jealousy.  And it is flattering to hear how we will be missed, even if we are unsure of that reality.

Work continues to feel like work.  I think we are both trying to leave things as best we can even though we really aren’t that enthusiastic about our current positions.  The work day does get regular disruption when coworkers stop by or call to get the explanation of our departure.  We are both a little tired of explaining it and feel a sorry for our closer coworkers who have heard the explanation numerous times.  I have found that the rumor mill at my company doesn’t work that well as the information takes days to move even a few offices.  By the time news of my departure gets to coworkers on the platforms or in Houston, I may have been gone for weeks.

The realization of how many people I have met over the last two years is sinking in.  I can’t possibly say goodbye to all of them.  Every conversation is likely to be my last with that person.  I have left jobs before, but this is new.  This is a big company with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of people who enter my normal routine.  I am good with goodbye, but my last conversation with many of these people has already occurred.

I leave Chevron with the highest regard for the company and its people.  Almost every position is occupied by a person with high intelligence.  People generally act with respectable values.  The management system is the stuff of business school case studies.

It hasn’t been perfect.  Bureaucracy gets in the way of fairness at times.  I was underpaid compared to my peers and the system is slow to correct.  I knew this was likely a problem coming in.  I wasn’t making much in my previous job and my resume was far from typical for my position.  This was only a minor source of frustration.  I was making far more than I needed. 

The demographics were a little odd.  Oil companies probably don’t employ any tree-hugging liberals, but the prevailing conservative viewpoints were a little overwhelming at times.  Like any slice of America, there is never anywhere near unanimity, but this slice is significantly right leaning.  Most times I just kept my mouth shut.  A few times I stepped in to challenge some rather extreme statements.  And one dinner during the election, I instigated a bit of a debate where two of my coworkers were getting ganged up on pretty good for their support of Obama.  I rarely shared my own perspective, but I did cause a little trouble here and there in this strange environment.  The only political topic I typically weighed in on were environmental topics, since my viewpoints were unlikely to run counter on the issues of the day and it was my job to have a deeper understanding of these issues.

It is corporate America and corporate politics are still a part of the game.  I got blindsided a couple of times recently.  With power centered in Houston, those who have access to Houston tend to have more influence.  With very little contact with Houston, I was a little surprised to find myself on the hot seat based on what was clearly misinformation.  Not caring, I basically ignored the insinuations that were directed at me, but I now know how they came about.  I can laugh about it, but had I wanted to stay, I would have had to step up my game. 

During most of my time, the office politics probably worked in my favor.  I am a natural at shameless self promotion and can speak the language of confidence that wins people over.  My experience in engineering and operations allowed me to participate in a broad range of conversations.  The politics probably afforded me opportunities that others missed out on.  I doubt that anyone thought my contributions made me undeserving, but my political success was probably a source of irritation to some of my peers at times.  I was not always proud of my conduct, but sometimes I can’t help myself.

These negative elements of the workplace were a relatively small component of my experience.  As I said, the work environment was mostly great.  I sincerely believe Chevron is about as good as it gets.  If there were a job within the corporation that excited me, I have no doubt I would have stayed.

The work was a journey.  It was enlightening to go from the state side where the only issues that come to you are generally pretty clear.  On the industry side, the daily flow of issues brought forth a new perspective.  An example can illustrate this point.  At the state, the receipt of a permit application provided exposure to situations that clearly required permits.  Working on the industry side brought in the whole world of situations that clearly don’t require permits.  Somewhere in between are the occasional situations that aren’t quite so clear.  And while the permitting requirements don’t create many situations that can’t be answered after hours of research and work, the complexity is infuriating at times.  And when a decision is finally reached, the data is compiled into a concise explanation that appears to be a simple determination from the state perspective and doesn’t hint at the effort required to get there.

The previous example is illustrative of my awakening from the world of simple positives to the wider world of simple positives, simple negatives, and complex uncertainties.  I recognized a certain beauty in the Clean Air Act when I worked for the state.  I still see that beauty, but I now see that much like the tax code, it has grown into a mess of words that had our team routinely hinging decisions on “and”, “or”, and legal definitions of words that ran counter to common sense.  I think we even had a humorous debate one day on the meaning of “is”.  In different parts of the environmental regulations, the same word can have different definitions and the situation determines which definition you need to use.  I have seen my former coworkers at the state attempt to apply the wrong definition or to simply ignore the legal definition in favor of their common sense understandings.  When it takes you days or even months to arrive at an understanding, the explanation of your understanding is often lost on people who want the world to be simple yes or no determinations.

The most depressing realization that has come with my four year career in environmental is that the environment does not matter.  I have killed more trees and wasted more energy in the pursuit of compliance with measurement, reporting, and recordkeeping requirements.  None of these efforts resulted in any action that actually reduced emissions.  At times, I ran into situations where the regulatory punishment of expensive compliance requirements steered us away from actions that could have a positive impact.  I found a few opportunities to initiate programs and participate in efforts that truly had a positive impact, but none of these related to regulation.  Often these efforts were disrupted by regulatory deadlines and information requests from agencies that headed down yet another tangent, often from such a distant past time period that records were no longer completely retained.  The regulatory agency efforts have declined to disruptive efforts rather than constructive efforts. 

The situation is ridiculous.  The Clean Air Act was a good approach in its day.  The complexity has grown to the point that even with a team of highly paid professionals, consultants, and lawyers, clarity is often unattainable.  The permitting concepts fit with 1970’s project management approaches, reducing the responsiveness and global competiveness of industrial activities in our country.  The time has come for a more innovative approach to protection of the environment.  I am not aware of anyone seriously working on this effort so I am glad to be departing this career.  It is going to get really ugly if EPA continues moving forward on the regulation of greenhouse gases under the mechanisms of the Clean Air Act. 

Sorry for these heavy reflections on my mind as I approach this next career milestone.  On more mundane topics, skiing has been less than stellar.  Last weekend was a four day weekend and we suffered through the icy conditions at Alyeska only two of those days.  It is still fun, but ice will be more tolerable on weekdays where we can enjoy the speed without so much fear of collisions.  The other two days we got out for some cross country skiing.  The weather hasn’t improved this weekend so we will probably just cross country ski today.  The weather pattern has included some precipitation, but the precipitation of the last few weeks has come at near freezing temperatures followed by stretches of cold clear weather that freezes the wet snow into a solid block. 

With the holidays passing, we have reactivated our social life.  We had some friends over on Wednesday evening.  We are all looking forward to new experiences in 2010.  She has just started a new job.  He is looking at several potential changes in his work situation, all of which represent growth and opportunity.  We seemed like a pretty happy foursome.  Maybe it was the wine.  Kris enjoyed an evening out with a friend last night.  They went to a movie and then dinner.  Our friendships in Alaska are probably wider ranging and less deep than our Ohio friendships.  It raises some question in my mind about our ability to stay in touch as we move forward on a new path.  I sometimes feel overwhelmed when I think about the number of people I have met in my lifetime, especially in the last ten years, and how few I have kept in touch with.  My life has been enriched by all of these social experiences, but communications take time and effort.  I guess we will cross those bridges when we get there.