Well, after being in my new job for 8 months, I finally attended the “Experienced New Hire Induction” program. Actually, I think this is the only one true induction/orientation program I have done in my 17 years of career. Amazing, isn’t it? At the other companies, they just gave me a desk and let me go to work. The program is very well organized and the material is actually interesting. Of course, this one is very focus on refining. But that is totally ok. One thing very surprise for me was the number of non-refining background experienced new hire they have. In the last two years, my company went through a major hiring cycle, partly in recognizing the soon to leave baby boomer population. There is a gap between the 50-60’s and the 20-30’s, especially in this industry.
The program lasted from Tuesday to Thursday. So there were two nights of after class team building activities on the schedule. The first night was Sport Stacking. I have never heard or seen this before. But it was very fun. As a team we were to learn teamwork, cooperation, ambidexterity and hand-eye coordination. Basically, we upstack and downstack plastic cups in pre-determined sequences, competing against the clock or another player. Sequences are usually pyramids of three, six, or ten cups. Can you imagine 50 adults (let’s say the median age of the group is toward the 40s or higher) stacking plastic cups in a hotel ballroom? We learned the 3-6-3. I was actually very fast, but my team mates were not, so as a team, we didn’t end up in the final round. I actually have an advantage being short in this “sport”. I am much closer to the table top and the cups!The second night was dedicated to singing and dancing. The class was divided into 6 teams. Each team was given a song. We were to apply the knowledge we learned in the last two days and rewrite the lyric. In addition, we needed to compile a power point presentation, and sang the song with a live band. The song that was given to my team is “Born to Be Wild” by Steppenwolf. We rewrote the song to “Born to Be Clean” by the Invigorates. We figured the company is going with the green theme, we may as well sing that out loud!!! Here is the lyric. I think my refining background friends would either appreciate it or LOL.
Get your unit runnin'
Head out to the job site
Lookin' for horizons
And exploring every bay
Yeah Tony gonna make it happen
Take this planet to a greener place
Don't fire all your flares at once
Then start up safe
I like dealin' and drillin'
Heavy profit margins
Tradein' with the loses
And the feelin' that I'm growin'
Yeah Steve gonna make it happen
Take the industry to a better place
Hire all your big guns at once
Explore a new place
Like a company you've never seen
We will crack, crack to be clean
We'll always comply
We'll never get a fme
Born to be clean, born to be green
Get your partner's working
Head out on your own way
Lookin' for all cultures
To embrace the BP way
Yeah Hugh we're gonna make it happen
Take Canada in a love embrace
Make sure to send your oil sands here
Performance is common place
I like BULs and GALs
Heavy IT items
Thinkin' 'bout the SIPs
And the pressure that I'm under
Yeah Cheryl gonna make it happen
Take the work force to a better place
Excellence is what we want
To innovate the face
Like a company you've never seen
We will crack, crack to be clean
We'll always comply
We'll never get a fine
Born to be clean, born to be green
Here is a picture of the partial group while waiting for the bus to take us to the performance place. Here are a few of the more interesting ones. The band members are all company employees, including one VP. They played all night, mostly rock & roll music. I danced with the boys. Of course, the ratio of male to female is so skew, typical industry low. So I got some good exercises out of it. My team won the 3rd place. I think it has something to do with us losing the tune about ¼ way into the song! Oh well, consider we practiced only twice, it wasn’t bad at all!!!
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