My job at Esso/ExxonMobil

I work in the Retail Operations Support Centre of ExxonMobil (the world's largest oil company) in Guatemala City, Guatemala. The US accounting team, in which I work at the moment, consists of about 14 people, including me and another Dutch guy that has lived here for 10 years already. My colleagues are really nice people and the atmosphere in the office is very relaxed. People are listening to music (loud or on their iPod) and make many jokes in the meantime.

An interesting aspect of Esso's employee policy is its focus on safety and health. This brings a lot of rules with it in order to ensure the safety on the terrain. A few examples are the obligation to handle the bars next to the stairs and to walk on the zebra crossings that are outside and the ban on running and having both hands occupied while you're walking. Every month the "safety police" walks around and gives small fines to people who, for example, are not wearing their safety belt. This sounds worse than it is, I consider it just a funny feature of the working environment. Another funny thing is the ergonomic exercise breaks that are held at 10am and 3pm (working days are from 7.30 to 16.30), then someone takes the lead in a number of exercises to release the arm, neck and leg muscles. Everybody is required to join them and the exercises actually depend on the person who leads, they are different every time. There is a canteen as well with the Guatemalan version of the standard canteen meals and I go and eat there with my colleagues every day.

Then about the job itself: the first day I've got an introduction about the different tasks that are performed by the team and now I am prepared to assist one of the other team members. From this Thursday I will get an introduction to the whole company and the local organisation and I will also stay at a gas station for a few days to see how the operations at the office impact the "real life", I hope my Spanish is good enough by now to follow what's going on. The Retail Operations Support Centre is responsible for a number of back office functions of Esso's gas stations and my team is responsible for a part of the accounting of gas stations, being mainly checking the entries by station managers and the related transactions and entries by banks, vendors and government agencies. So the job involves a lot of Excel, SAP and some other related business enterprise software. I know it sounds boring, because it seemed boring to me too at first sight, but so far I have done many different things, and this will probably continue in the coming time. And on top of that, the task is often like a challenging puzzle that can be frustrating, but satisfying once you solve it.

I hope that gives you some idea of what I'm busy with at the moment.

For the rest, life here has been very relaxed. Of course, in the weekdays I'm at work most of the time and at night I spend some time with my friends and try to keep up-to-date with what's going on in the world (nu.nl, geenstijl.nl, uitzendinggemist.nl etc.). Last weekend I had some parties, played football and hang out with some of the other people here. Tomorrow is a national holiday, so I guess that will be something similar and maybe we'll go on a trip coming weekend, so then I'll have something exciting to tell again. One thing that is quite annoying here, is that I am so dependent on others, because I cannot really travel on my own. The buses are not safe enough and neither are all taxis, so most of the time I am dependent on my car owning friends, which led me to the idea to learn how to drive and buy a car for this year. I think the freedom I will have then will be worth the time and money.

I guess that's it for now, there are a few more random things I could tell, but I'll save them for a next time. Thanks for all your responses!