Why Guidelines?

Abstract

This paper was prepared for the 44th Annual California Regional Meeting of the Society of Petroleum Engineers of AIME, to be held in San Francisco, Calif., April 4–5, 1974. Permission to copy is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words. Illustrations may not be copied. The abstract should contain conspicuous acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper is presented. Publication elsewhere after publication in the JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY or the SOCIETY OF publication in the JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY or the SOCIETY OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERS JOURNAL is usually granted upon request to the Editor PETROLEUM ENGINEERS JOURNAL is usually granted upon request to the Editor of the appropriate journal provided agreement to give proper credit is made. Discussion of this paper is invited. Three copies of any discussion should be sent to the Society of Petroleum Engineers office. Such discussion may be presented at the above meeting and, with the paper, may be considered for publication in one of the two SPE magazines. Some time ago I was indiscreet enough to make some comments about the proposed "Guidelines" in the hearing of Sam Sarem. Once you make an error like that, it doesn't take Sam long to nail you. So I find myself up here making a speech just because of what seemed at the time to be a minor indiscretion. My qualifications, such as they are, for participating in this discussion are largely the result of having been around longer than most anybody. I have been working in the oil industry for forty years, many of them as an employee of a large corporation. I have worked in research, engineering, operations, and management. For the past ten years, I have been a consulting engineer. As nearly as I can see, the main difference between consulting and working for a big corporation is that a consultant seems to have a lot more bosses and their patience is shorter. In any discussion of Guidelines to Professional Employment, two questions Professional Employment, two questions are fundamental:What is the purpose of formulating Guidelines?If the purpose is a worthwhileone, do we need formal Guidelines to accomplish it? After all, we have been getting along without formal Guidelines for a long time, and since we are all subject to plenty of rules, regulations, guidelines, etc. already, we should hesitate to establish new ones unless they are absolutely necessary. Let us not kid ourselves. In the real world, guidelines historically become rules and rules eventually become laws. If there is not some way of bringing pressure on the recalcitrant employer, why have guidelines?