10 THINGS I LEARNT IN XGO [KLCC]

10 THINGS I LEARNT IN XGO

11.      Drilling.

-          Drilling is the most important thing that we should understand apart of the geology that we learnt before. However, this technical subject that we might forget as we learnt it few years back need to be polished as soon as we step at this department. Learn from Youtube, and shared drives. The fastest, learn from seniors.

22.       drilling Jargon Words.

-          Master the jargon words and all the mnemonics. When we conquer the language, it is much easier to understand the drilling programs. Plus, the jargon word is not only used by department or PETRONAS, it’s the ‘lingua franca’ for the oil and gas industry. Read the DDR and all reports and try to understand them. It is very crucial to understand every word and number stated.

33.       Urgent and Important.

-          Feel the work is urgent and important. The slides and reports need to be finished before meeting, the problems need to be solved and understand before people ask in the meeting. The daily 11am meeting is the meeting where our few minutes presentations show our understanding and seriousness in work.

44.       Own it!

-          How can we say ‘we don’t know’ if we claim ‘we own it!’? The well that has been assigned to us need to ‘take care’ with all our hearts and we should hold it tight until we unable to say ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I’m not sure’ when people strikes with lots of questions during the meeting. We also admit every mistake that we made. Imagine that we own the well, and it ours!

55.       Above the line.

-          Every work need to be done above the line and exceed the expectation. Everyone has different pace of learning, whether slow or fast, but one thing for sure, if we work above the line, all the work can be done successfully. The perseverance, and the mental need to be prepared prior attend the meeting. People might purposely humiliate, might kill us with killer and burning questions, made us sh*t in our pants, they tend to make us sweat in the meeting and make us feel down until we barely to have our lunch after the meeting. Above all, be optimistic and don’t let ourselves below the line.

66.       Teamwork.

-          People said the TEAM means Together Everybody Achieve More. And we won’t achieve the best result if we don’t have the teamwork and mutual trust among the teammates. Handling the exploration and development wells have their own challenges and everyone need to contribute their best to the team. The teammates should be fun to work with and despite all the problems that will be faced and the superior or others might not satisfied with the results, the blame should be taken by all the teammates without finger pointing to anyone. Working as ‘silo’ need to be avoided as it will make the team less trust each other. Speak up if there is problem, not posting in social media or make another group whatsapp perhaps in other to talk bad about someone in the team. The best team is when each of the member believe each other and achieve the success together.

77.       Ask seniors.

-          We shouldn’t have the feeling that people will look us down if you know nothing. All the freshies need to remove the feeling and perception that the seniors will angry if we cannot understand the process just like they expected. Ask before meeting or after lunch all the things that we do not understand. Some seniors prefer we do searching and have few ideas before we ask the concept or they might accuse us as lazy, but there also some seniors don’t mind if we have zero knowledge on that matter. Recognize the senior that have this behaviour and ask accordingly. We don’t know what the seniors face during their junior time and we should respect them as someone knowledgeable and have more experiences than us.

88.      Communication.

-          Learn how to communicate with the OPG especially when deal with international wells. Some OPG might provide us insufficient data and do not answer all the inquiries. It will give bad effect in the meeting and cause our work not smoothly as we planned. Know the do and don’t when communicate with the respective OPG. Ask seniors. Double check with senior in office before send the email. Build the chemistry between the XGOs and OPG so that all members at the same page and ground.

99.       Knowledge sharing.

-          The ritual Wednesday knowledge sharing session might give you benefit, but sometimes it might give you obsessive knowledge which hard for you to understand and digest. Grab the chances to ask questions to the presenters. Besides, we can initiate to make our informal knowledge sharing with seniors. Pick one topic to discuss and bring the case study from our well to discuss with. It is not only give benefit for all the newcomers, but it also make the relationship between seniors and juniors better.

110.   BE PERFECTIONIST!

-          Don’t take for granted on our work. Every single word and number is counted. Be perfectionist is good but being too much and extreme perfectionist can harm the team as there are a lot thing need to be covered to. Recognize the work and part that need to be prioritized and make sure preparation shall be made before the meeting. Master in Microsoft word and excel is necessary. Ask seniors to double check the sentences in the presentation slides, the jargon words used and the concept that has been understand from the DDR. Avoid mistakes especially the simple one!

*XGO dalam kenangan*

Regards,
Ezan Izzah
Ex-XGO (Oct 2015 - March 2016) KLCC
Recently, Engineer Petronas Sarawak.