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Chapter 26: Chevron Headquarters- International Work

There was no one in the Chevron corporate headquarters to en-
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ployees were appropriate. A number of Chevron subsidiary companies
operated in various countries around the world. In addition, Chevron
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like Caltex or Aramco or the Consortium that was then operating in
Iran. The treatment of former foreign service employees often resulted
in their losing status in the domestic organization as a result of their
overseas assignments. Such lousy treatment was manifestly unfair. This
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been overseas and, in general, had no great interest or sympathy. The
Chevron organization was strongly domestically oriented in about every
way you could imagine. Most people involved in personnel consider-
ations had neither knowledge nor interest in the fact that a substantial
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never ceased to amaze me!

After a few months on the job I felt it important to visit the
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hand knowledge of the conditions prevailing where our people worked.
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racaibo, Venezuela. The Chevron oil production operations there were
very small compared to operations I had been familiar with in Arabia.
The company had been unfortunate in its original selection of areas it
had secured for oil exploration. On our side of Lake Maracaibo only
extremely heavy oil had been found. It was so heavy it was almost like
tar; I dropped a rock in an open pool of such oil and the rock barely
sank! On the other side of Lake Maracaibo very large and productive oil
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over the previous 30 years. I talked with the Chevron Venezuelan indus-

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