BP plc - Canary Wharf

[uk contractor]

All I can add is I used to be managed by someone who went onto become the head of IT @ BP. Not sure if they are still there now but this person was a classic non manager executive who had grand ideas which never ever translated into everyday working practices and only looked good on paper. One of their core beliefs was to also hire the cheapest possible IT staff from outside the UK so I am not surprised BP is stuffed full of them right now!

[flavios]

it seems a kind of depressing working environment from your words... what about offices? kind of one floor open space or more human-oriented? do they have a good canteen?

[Lance]

An ex of mine is Kenyan Indian sikh and he hates the caste system more than I do. From what I understand, sikhs tend to come from castes that are seen as high castes by hindus - though my ex was a pretty liberal guy, he hated the whole thing.

I'm not sure in my example it was necessarily about caste, I think just that general hierarchy thing that is so prevalent in their culture. That guy was very envious of anyone doing well. I could tell.

In general they need to be high caste to get thos roles.
Easy to check as the surname is a give away. Just run it by Google.

[Contractor101101]

At risk of being called racist. It's a problem with some higher caste Indians. Culturally they are brought up in the belief that they are better than the lower castes. Seems to not to be an affliction suffered by Sikhs or Moslems.
Also. The Sikhs are respected by high caste Indians the moslems less so.

An ex of mine is Kenyan Indian sikh and he hates the caste system more than I do. From what I understand, sikhs tend to come from castes that are seen as high castes by hindus - though my ex was a pretty liberal guy, he hated the whole thing.

I'm not sure in my example it was necessarily about caste, I think just that general hierarchy thing that is so prevalent in their culture. That guy was very envious of anyone doing well. I could tell.

[Lance]

He also had the management style associated with his culture: bullying, making his permies work into the early hours and pretty much terrorise them. When he tried to do the same to me, I left. He was pretty upset over this. That was funny.

At risk of being called racist. It's a problem with some higher caste Indians. Culturally they are brought up in the belief that they are better than the lower castes. Seems to not to be an affliction suffered by Sikhs or Moslems.
Also. The Sikhs are respected by high caste Indians the moslems less so.

[Contractor101101]

what could possibly go wrong with that mix?

People who don't care. People who only care about their pension in 5 years. And people who pretend to care but don't.

Spot on. Even if you cared, it was beaten out of you pretty quick through others' inertia.

Probably the worst contract I have ever had from competency and boredom point of view. BP have the policy of moving people around, that's code for not firing anyone ever for incompetence. The Indian guy that was running the team I was on had been sent over from another group, he had no experience in what we tried to do.

He also had the management style associated with his culture: bullying, making his permies work into the early hours and pretty much terrorise them. When he tried to do the same to me, I left. He was pretty upset over this. That was funny.

There were some cool contractors who were also smart, they set me on my current path (AWS Cloud) so I'll be always grateful for that. Every cloud...

[Lance]

, there appears to be a mixture of short term contractors, lifers in their 50s and Wipro Indian employees.

what could possibly go wrong with that mix?

People who don't care. People who only care about their pension in 5 years. And people who pretend to care but don't.

[Contractor101101]

Hi eveyone - suggestion tips about this client? how is it to work there as a contractor nowadays overthere?

It depends on which team you work in. I was a contractor at BP for a couple of months, worked both at Canary Wharf and in wherever their Surrey office is (can't remember).
BP is a massive thing, reminded me a lot of the public sector. We had to provide our own tools but due to the systems they required us to install, there was a LOT of struggle with compatibility - including those that had super duper laptops.

A lot of in-shored Indians, when one of them became my 'surpervisor', I left.

All in all, it was a boring experience. Everything moved slowly, there appears to be a mixture of short term contractors, lifers in their 50s and Wipro Indian employees.

[flavios]

Hi eveyone - suggestion tips about this client? how is it to work there as a contractor nowadays overthere?