So you’ve worked in Oil and Gas for many years, and now you are leaving. Perhaps it’s your choice… or more likely at this point, you’re being made to leave.
What’s next for you? Maybe you are one of those who has another excellent Oil and Gas role ready to slot right in.
If not, might this be an opportunity to take a moment of reflection? To look at life the other way up for moment, rather than instantly hunting down the next job… maybe even consider whether this is still what you want for your life? What is the impact you’d like to make, and how might that impact be best achieved…
And right about now, you are saying, ‘don’t be daft Thor, I just need another salary to pay for our mortgage and cars and bills, I don’t need your waffle!’
Which is fair comment, because life has a habit of creeping up on you, along with financial responsibilities, doesn’t it!?
OK, well at least please consider this short Career transition story… My Brother worked for Shell on Cormorant Alpha for many years. Meanwhile, he first saved, then invested around £50,000, and a lot of hard work, to earn his Commercial Pilot License (CPL). Then he started applying for 1st Officer Roles all across the flying world…
He then sent out many many applications and achieved a precisely ‘zero’ response rate… not even a ‘no thanks’ or simple acknowledgement – it was a recessionary down-turn phase in Aviation, which sound’s familiar doesn’t it?
Well what would you do? Stay in your ‘secure’ £70k + Offshore role as most of your family and friends advise you?
Nope, he knew what impact he wanted to make in his career, and that was as a Pilot. After a brief Brothers brainstorm, we hopped in the car, and I drove him (moral support, as his door to door sales skills were pretty rusty!) around Aberdeen Airport, first to Eastern Airways, where he had a natter and dropped in a CV, then to Gamma Aviation. He disappeared inside and I fell asleep in the car as he was taking so long!
Turns out the owner of Gamma was up from London, and both having an irrepressible enthusiasm for aviation, my Brother and he got on pretty well… Less than 60 minutes later, he was being offered his first commercial pilot role on a handshake.
‘Great Thor, but what’s this got to do with me? I’m in Oil and Gas like your Brother was, but I’m being forced to leave. I’m not a volunteer like him!’
Well it was what happened next that I think may be pertinent to you in O&G. This dream job, came with an £18,000 per year salary. He’d been on £70,000.
My Brother , is now a Long Haul Jet Pilot and more than recovered his salary drop many years ago. He tells me he was never more career satisfied than while he flew that Ambulance Plane around the UK in all weathers. Yet this was at less than one third of his previous salary. Just a thought for you.
– What area might you possibly want to make an impact in?
– Is your salary and package really the most important thing?
No easy answers, and I’m genuinely sorry if you are being made redundant.
PS if you’re thinking, he was ‘lucky’ to meet the boss and be offered a job in airline number two… well I got to know the Gamma Aviation Operations Manager Kate later, and she told me in all her years there, no other wannabe pilot had EVER simply walked in, and created their opportunity like this. Quite remarkable, don’t you think? At a tough time like this, there are CV’s aplenty, perhaps less real people, with irrepressible enthusiasm…
石油圈
