Once again, back in Farmington and I hit the ground running. Thankfully, not as hard this time. I was back in the office in town here by 1130 yesterday and spent most of the rest of the day trying to figure out what happened here during the week, where people were, and what state various pieces of equipment were in. All things that should be easy to find, but are (expectedly) poorly tracked. We have systems for all those things, but people don't use them properly and it aggravates me so much.
Houston was solid. The presentations went well, mine included and I generally had a good time. They gave us some glass plaque-like things in to mark the occasion. I said the things I wanted to say to the personnel managers that day and some more at dinner. Perhaps I like the sound of my own voice too much, but I thought I had decent insights into the employee development process as well as plenty to say about my own specific experiences and desires. As expected, dinner was an exercise in excess, but it was a celebratory dinner for reaching what is an important career milestone within the company. However, I think only one person got himself more inebriated than social norms would deem strictly appropriate so we'll call that a rousing success to moderation
On my free day, I and the other person there from my segment (who is from New Orleans) had breakfast with the VP for North America of our segment since he wasn't able to attend the presentations the day before. Afterwards, the other guy in my segment took me to the Houston offshore office since he knows people there and I wanted to see what exactly an offshore district looks like since all their equipment is on the rigs already and their field people don't really need to come by the office. You know what. It's just an office. There's a very different feel and operational focus. We then visited a support lab in the Houston area to satisfy my curiosity before going back to the hotel where I promptly took a long nap.
The tours on Thursday were interesting. It's hard to explain exactly what they consisted of, but I liked what I saw. And I got another company hat. I then had dinner with Nikhil who seems to be doing generally fine. During our conversation, we concluded that backgammon was the sophisticated man's Yahtzee. All in all, a pretty low key, informative, and what I expect to be an ultimately productive (despite appearances) trip to Houston.
2 comments:
Yep, the helicopter or ship supply staging areas would have been more interesting than some office. Offices are generally boring unless you work there or they are located on the 43rd floor or such, in which case the view would be good.
If I was on the 43rd floor of a building in Houston, all I would see is more flatness.
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