SLB reviews

- Heavy Internal Politics - All sales done by VPs - Managers don't take time to get to your know strengths, weaknesses and interests. In fact they don't have a clue what you know or don't know. - You may be asked to travel 40+ hours to reach a client destination and be expected to work a full day as soon as you arrive (without a chance to sleep). - When having a project abroad it would not be unusual for you to have to spend 72+ hours awake, unless you are lucky enough to sleep in the plane. - Company is full of bureaucratic processes that invade your own privacy. For example you can't use your mobile phone in your car (even if you have a car kit built into it)...and not even when going to work or return to your home from work. Lots more restrictions like that. - Company is completely different in the USA than in Europe and Asia. In USA you can have a good work life balance, but if you get assigned to Europe you could end up being away from your family (in AFRICA!) for 6 months without a chance to see your babies and wife. In Asia the leadership treats employees really bad (maybe because he can find replacements easily) so beware.

There is a culture in Schlumberger to continually improve processes and limit mistakes by keeping track of mishaps and hazards no matter how small. While this is a good thing on the surface, this generally leads to policies and standard procedures to be changed without enough thought on how the changes will effect other areas. This tends to lead to continual modification of polices that counter each policies' effectiveness. One oddity that this has led to is a company wide requirement that all employees back their cars into parking spaces when parking. No joke, there was a problem with people backing out when leaving and not paying enough attention so they force people to back in, or at least pull forward when leaving. In addition to having parking policies, everyone in Schlumberger is required to pass a 'Commentary Drive' driving test that requires employees drive a car around with a trainer and tell them what they are doing the entire time ( like: "Im looking in my rearview mirror, there is a car behind me that may be following to close" ). This would make sense if it were require of individuals where driving on company time, however, it applies to everyone that has a drivers license.