Me, Myself and Nobody Else: Part 4 The Setback

Now with my so-called victory over the seemingly impossible of changing perception of management about me, I thought that that was it and now I could cruise all the way to success up the corporate ladder. And again so many times(it is starting to be an annoying occurrence), I was proven wrong. I thought I have mastered on how the 'game' is played but it seems that even if a single pawn could become a queen, it is still playing piece(a little chess analogy I picked up while playing Metal Gear Solid 2). I was overconfident, I underestimated my challenges and overestimated my capabilities.

After four years in Maintenance Dept, I was approach by the Reliability and Integrity Management (RIM) Dept. and was offer a place in his team. Feeling under appreciated in Maintenance Dept., I jumped at the chance. I was overwhelmed at the thought of someone wants me. I have a chance to become a Reliability Engineer.

Some of you may ask what is a Reliability Engineer? What does he/she actually? Well through my experience there are various interpretation of that. Some say there are suppose to be experts in engineering to introduce any practices that either prolong the health of plant equipment or reduce the probability of failures. Others simply are just coordinators of reliability improvement activities. After all my experience, I come to realize that there are no right or wrong answer to which is the true interpretation but it is just a matter of plant complexity and problems faced vs which setup is best to cater for it. Even the word 'reliability' itself may have different connotation. What works in manufacturing may not necessarily be copied directly into oil and gas.

Back to me, in Petronas, for every staff there seem to be 2 things that are more important than life itself. Yearly appraisal or PPA (Personal Performance Appraisal) and Accelerated Competency Development (ACD) assessment. The former determines your yearly increment with ratings 1,2,3,4 with 3 is average, 1 is best and 4 is below average (the trouble group) while the latter is about your progression or promotion. Previous part I have covered my painstaking journey to get myself a rating 2.

Now my ACD assessment was based on my technical dicipline or Skill Group we call it. My Skill Group was Mechanical Static. Each Skill Group has its own ruler and we have to met certain criteria depending on our level and experience in the company. When I was transfer to RIM dept., I thought I would be converted to the Reliability Skill Group but somehow my manager denied it and wants me to continue with Mechanical Static Skill Group. This strikes me rather odd. I truly felt confident that I had a better chance of passing in the Reliability Skill Group rather than Mechanical Static. The reason being that I felt the ruler for Static is a bit harder for me as it encompassed much design and fabrication work which is not that relevant to maintenance work. I know I may sound like a whiner and there others who passed it with not much difficulty but somehow to me, it seem a lot harder to pass the assessment than actually doing the job. I failed twice my ACD assessment and therefore my promotion into next grade was denied.

If that wasn't enough, it happens that for that year, Petronas has introduced a force ranking system. What they did was between rating 3(average) and rating 4(below average), the is a new rating called Marginal performer or M3 it is called. The way it is done, M3 will be selected 10% bottom of the staff ranking. These 10% will be given some sort of warning to improve in the next cycle. Also they will be offer what we call Career Transition Opportunity (CTO) which they will give some cash to you if you decide to leave the company should you get an M3. And another thing that all the M3 had to painfully find out for themselves is that their yearly bonus will be cut in half. There were some anger, confusion and resentment towards this system and even now. I know they try to emulate what is successfully being champion by companies like GE, I know there are some logics to it(well at least they look good on paper), but the execution of it and especially what I saw happening in CUF, is very poor and has since cause damage more than it improves or remedied anything. The main problem I think that the process of ranking is not consistent between superiors and elements of favoritism rear its ugly head. The proof of this is apparent when 3 excellent performance personnel got jailed for embezzelement recently. Plus HR SHOULD have done a better job to implement this system and avoid confusion as the talented and loyal staff (myself NOT INCLUDED) should deserve better than to get M3 and have their bonus chopped in half.

As luck would turn out, I got M3 for both final consecutive year in Petronas. For 2 years I struggle having failed my assessment, promotion denied, poor yearly appraisal. For 2 years, life was gloomy. Although I have to acknowledge there are others having worst fate than me.

Now I try to remedied the situation by asking for a transfer to Carigali. I did got accepted but as usual HR comes up with bunch of excuses that doesn't makes sense. This adds more to my frustration. Then I try to seek transfer internally to Asset Operation and Maintenance to strengthen my technical skills. This was met with hostile intent by my Plant Manager which seeks to block me from ever entering his department. I feel the term 'two-face snake tongue' is very appropriate here. My superior said that the Plant Manager said that the position(which I was aiming) can be occupied by anyone except Tarmizi. During that time I finally realise that professionalism was a myth or a joke in where I was working.

It was a poisonous environment where I was for me. It was not much more I can take. I was experiencing stress and high blood pressure. I even pass out a couple of times while working. It is not healthy anymore.

Then I got a phone call interview from Saudi Arabia. There were offering me a position for Reliability Engineer there with triple with I was getting with Petronas. Somehow the timing for this is just nice and I grabbed the opportunity.  And thus begins another life changing cycle for me.

To be continue......