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Of late, I have become a bit retrospective. Specifically, after more than 40 years working in the oil and gas industry (60-plus, if you count the fact that I was born and raised in it), I have come to the conclusion that a career in the industry is analogous to a three-act play.
Act One. Curtain rises. A young man enters, stage left. Around him beams rise and fall, lights flash, flywheels spin and workers hustle to and fro. The young man’s face is fixed in a perpetual grin. He is clearly mesmerized. As the act progresses, the young man travels from office to field office to remote locations and back, accompanied by a cadre of colleagues, each with a requisite tool box and half a dozen pairs of gloves. His is, obviously, a hands-on job, one where he and his colleagues touch the steel, fuel the machines, and recover and process the hydrocarbons. He is in the basement of a multi-story, international industry, stoking the boilers and switching the switches to keep things upstairs humming—although he doesn’t have much of a clue what is going on upstairs.
It is a heady environment, meant for a young man. Each job is an individual task, a mechanical task that, when finished, is finished. Afterwards, there is time to stare out into the countryside, or over the slow, rolling waves of the Gulf of Mexico, little troubled by any thoughts of strategic plans, quarterly performance or larger issues of continuity, management or compliance. His bosses—field foreman and superintendents—have risen through the ranks from his position. While they are occasionally pushed into larger corporate issues, theirs is mostly his world. They are all buddies. At the end of the day, if most everything that should be operating is operating, their job is complete. But, there is a fly in the ointment. If the young man is degreed, or ambitious, this world won’t last long.
Act Two. Curtain rises. A youngish man in his late twenties to early thirties enters, stage right. About him sit numerous desks in florescent illumination. The desks are inhabited by secretaries, clerks, technicians, junior engineers and the like, all concentrating intensely on their desktops—which does not mean that they are focused on the work residing on the desktops. He passes through the maze of desks headed toward his small office, a large halo of responsibility surrounding his head and a small scepter of authority clutched firmly in his hand.
He lives, in a sense, in purgatory, caught between management of field activities and achievement of company goals, and senior management, two responsibilities that don’t focus on the same issues, although they are dedicated to the same goal. His job is to ensure that those issues have some continuity between the field and the executive offices. It is often a difficult job. He longs, at times, to dirty his boots in the field again. But, the young man is not entirely discontented, for he is the interface between the industry, and the company he serves, and the large and wonderful world of exciting, space-age technologies that will bring that industry into the next decade, and the next century, safely and efficiently. It’s almost always an uphill battle to get his management to take the risk of adopting new, unproven technology. But, technology is his elixir. That, and his ambition, keeps him focused on the tasks at hand, when other phases of the job become blasé. If he can only get to that corner office, things will be different. He can refocus priorities to address the needs he sees.
Act Three. Curtain rises. A senior type slowly enters, stage left. He is well-dressed in obligatory dark suit, white shirt and muted tie. He moves over the carpeted floor, between a couple of strategically positioned desks, behind which sit the senior assistants, the keepers of the gate. He passes through large, twin doors into the executive space. As he walks, he wonders aloud, as he does almost every morning, at his success. It is a semi-confident wondering. “Yes,” he says, “I have made it here.” “Why,” he asks, “did I make it? Why not Susan, or James?”
“Never mind,” he says, “I have a lot on my plate today. The budget has to be set for next year. The quarterly analysts’ presentation has to be given next Tuesday. I hope Investor Relations has it under control. The share price is hanging in the balance. One misstep would be a disaster. And that is not what we need for the board meeting in two weeks. The analysts will want to have a forecast, too. Have we set the right goals? Do we manage for long-term health and growth, or do we manage to quarterly expectations? Actually, do we even have the option to decide what we manage for, or does the market set that? Lots on my plate. Why can’t the senior VPs quit their infighting and jockeying for position? Rumors aside, I don’t plan on hanging it up any time soon. I don’t know where they get those ideas. As a matter of fact, where do they get any of their ideas? I didn’t have these headaches when I was back in the field. Wonder what happened to Larry and Rachel? I should really check on them—maybe after the board meeting.”
I can’t pretend that the play, as acted above, mirrors reality, although I believe it mostly does—or did. My dad had a part in all three acts. I appeared in two acts. But, things have changed. The walls separating the acts have been torn down. Like me, most folks I know have a fully functional communication device-cum-computer in their pocket, another in their briefcase, a third (at least) on their desk at work and another on the desk at home. Where information was once siloed in three acts, it is now freely available across the board. I don’t know exactly how the play will develop going forward but it will probably be much more extemporaneous than the scripted work of our generation and those before us. 
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