PRESIDENT’S LETTER By Cat Campbell
“A big crew change is underway in the oil and gas industry.” – NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCILEMERGING TRENDS IN THE US ENERGY AND MINING INDUSTRIES
The big crew change. That seemed to be the slogan for those of us entering the industry over the past decade and a half. We were told that the boomers are retiring faster than roles can be filled and the bimodal distribution of ages (Figure 1) in the workforce, with FIGURE 1: Bimodal age distribution of an oil and gas company staff. boomers at one end and the XenniSource: https://www.americangeosciences.org/geoscience-currents/ als at the other, challenges will apgeoscience-workforce-age-distribution pear from issues with experience to conflict among the generations. communicating through social media outlets, which I The last challenge, the potential conflict between am sure many of you have noticed (sorry about that). the generations really sparked a curiosity for me. I Technological availability is a major factor in the exknow that I see things differently than my parents, periences of different generations, but it is so much which seems to be inherent in that type of relationmore complex than that. Having a cell phone in colship (love you Mom and Dad Campbell!), but why do lege rather than middle school doesn’t make me valI look at the world through a different lens than my ue freedom and flexibility, just as my parents being boss whose kiddos are my age? committed to an employer isn’t because they experienced huge leaps in television and early computer “Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but technology. So why are we so different?
follows religiously the new.” —HENRY DAVID THOREAU
For starters, what are the generations? Talk about opening a can of worms with a question. For the purposes of this column, I am using Figure 2 to define the generations. The reason I’m opting for this diagram is because it captures the essence of the generations; the defining moments, personal drivers, and some key aspects of workplace life. I consider myself a cusp generationalist, bordering between X and Y, where cell phones came into popular use later, specifically in college, but I am still driven by freedom and flexibility, yet I really don’t like OUTCROP | July 2021
“Focus on why generations see things differently, not what those differences are.” —HADYN SHAW
I love this quote. It redirects the focus from Matt Silverman (a Boomer, my former boss during my years at Bayless and now my mentor and friend) berating me to pick up the phone and call someone rather than email (just kidding, but really, he did ask me to use the phone more), to considering how Matt grew up versus how I grew up and why he prefers
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