Job Title: Technical Consultant
Location: Houston, TX
Submitted on: 05-Sep-04
|
|
Job Title |
Workplace
Survey |
| Technical Consultant |
The majority of college graduates start out as Junior Field Engineers in
one the OFS (Oilfield Services) business segments. In fact, most of the
managers in the company started out in this position. The general career
track is:
1. Junior Field Engineer (JFE)
2. Field Engineer (FE)
3. Senior Field Engineer (SFE)
4. General Field Engineer (GFE)
5. Management
A large percentage of newcomers never make it past JFE. The reason is
that Schlumberger throws JFEs to the wolves and keeps whoever comes out
alive. The stress level is quite high and you can expect to get very
little sleep (if any) for days at a time. The consensus seems to be that
the intensity varies by business segment, with Wireline being the
toughest. The major weed-out point is at the training center, where
engineers gain a foundation of technical knowledge before heading back to
the field. My class started with 16 people, but only 10 people made it
through to graduation 10 weeks later. The others either quit or were
forced to resign. Once you return from the training center, you have a
few more weeks of on-the-job training before you take your "break out"
test. If you pass, then you have earned your promotion to Field
Engineer. This promotion usually occurs about 6 - 8 months after the
start date.
Working as a field engineer involves being a manager for 1 ?? 4 operators,
as well as a mentor for JFEs. Subsequent promotions to SFE and GFE are
determined by the engineer's breadth and depth of experience, and are
accompanied by tests. An engineer is expected to earn a promotion to GFE
after 3 years with Schlumberger. At this point, you are considered to be
an expert in your field. Some GFEs are moved into management positions
in under a month after their promotions, others spend the better part of
a career working as GFEs - usually by choice. Those that remain
engineers do so mainly because of the money since six-figure incomes
(salary + bonus) are not uncommon for those working in offshore and
overseas districts. Those that move into management have a wealth of
opportunities, from HR to Operations and everything in between.
From my experience, the first few months were by far the toughest. It is
difficult to say whether the job definitely gets easier over time, or if
you simply adapt to the demands. I suspect that it is a little of both.
The long hours aren??t as bad as they seem because the high stress of the
job keeps you awake.
In Wireline, the schedule typically follows a 2 on 1off pattern. For
instance, my schedule was 12 days on and 6 days off. Days on are usually
24/7. Often, the engineer is ??encouraged?? to come to work on days off to
finish up on paperwork, administrative tasks, etc. Still, this schedule
works out very well because you can take short trips fairly often. The
21 days of vacation every year are icing on the cake.
The diversity of employees was amazing. There were 11 different
nationalities represented in my 16-person training class. Most companies
consider their workforce to be diverse when they have a decent mix of
races from around the US all working in the same office. In
Schlumberger, your coworkers are more likely to be from Mexico,
Venezuela, Brazil, Egypt, Nigeria, Syria, India, China, Indonesia,
Australia, France, Canada, etc. The best part is that the intense
training program forces you to break through culture barriers and bond
with each other.
However, the camaraderie that is developed among peers is balanced out by
the arrogance of management. The popular notion among my colleagues was
that asking for something (transfer, promotion, etc) almost assured you
of not getting it. Other complaints: there are far too many policies and
procedures, emphasis for reviews is always based on negative (rather than
positive) reinforcement, and too many good people are fired for bad
reasons. Also, having a life outside of work is very difficult because
of the odd work schedule.
In spite of the negatives, if you want to make a lot of money straight
out of college and you want to have a lot of responsibility very early in
your career, then the FE track is a great career choice. Make sure you
are open to living anywhere in the world, you enjoy physical work, you
don??t mind getting dirty, and you won??t crack under pressure.
|
|
Schlumberger Ltd. Interview Surveys
