(Employee) Anxiety deepens as reality sets in at BP

[Robbien]

At BP's sprawling campus in suburban Sunbury-on-Thames and even in the elegant halls of its corporate headquarters in St James's Square, Mayfair, the realisation that the company was in deep trouble set in only about a week ago, two months after the deadly explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

Despite a barrage of news stories and internal e-mails from Tony Hayward, BP's chief executive, who almost immediately left for Houston, and meetings led by the long-time chief financial officer Byron Grote, employees felt relatively unaffected "like ostriches with their heads in the sand", as one person described it.

But that sentiment has been replaced by one of fear and shock following BP's recent announcement that it was cutting three quarters of this year's dividend payments and establishing a $20bn (£13bn) claims fund. That quantified for the first time the magnitude of BP's problems. Members of one BP team well versed in the challenges of raising finance wept when they heard the news.

In the following days, anxiety has grown about possible job cuts. Decisions over discretionary spending on anything from laptops to hiring contractors have ground to a halt as middle managers wait for direction from higher ranks.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/363dfbd6-7d97-11df-a0f5-00144feabdc0.html

Their thought process probably went something like this:
What's one more spill. We had them before, we have them again. Where's our bonus?
What, you are cutting the dividend?
You mean we have to clean up our mess? Why? We've never had to do so before.
Huh? It's just a spill, what's the fuss all about. We're BP for goodness sake.

[annabanana]

1. It seems only fair that they should be somewhat discomfited

by the ongoing tragedy that has ruined the livelihood of countless families and killed off many square miles of ocean...

[roguevalley]

7. Watch the first year of West Wing when they flashed back on Sam

Seder who was in a prestigious NY law firm. They had a meeting with oil companies eliminating their liability in spills with ships and it was nauseating.

[mediaman007]

2. I'm guessing that there are some people at BP, who

think that way. But I wouldn't cast the broad brush of generalization over the entire organization. I would guess that a great many of those who work at BP actually "got it" some time ago.

[Robbien]

4. Perhaps that's true for some of BP contractors,

but the people at BP are so far removed from everything their company does. Contractors and sub-contractors do just about everything. When anything went wrong before BP just blamed it on a contractor.

The very first thing out of BP's mouth when Deepwater Horizon blew was "It's not our fault, Transocean was running the operation for us". Never before has the shit ever flowed back to BP itself.

[RKP5637]

3. What goes around comes around, BP's turn. n/t

[SunnySong]

5. BP should have all its assets sold and the money put in trust.

After 10 years the funds not spent on clean-up and retribution can then be distributed to the equity holders.

The company needs to be seized and liquidated.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.