Vantaggi
Easy life if you are one the boys or galz, or sent by UK/EU office.
Svantaggi
Disarray. USA branch is an older Carolina mechanical installation company, purchased by the UK company. The mix is the worst of both worlds, good ole one and the "above you all" main office transplants, very blissful in their very loud ignorance. They pretty much just bring to the client the crafts people, with a few supervisors, without much real engineering, more of an aggregation hiring outfit for crafts. Client does all the decision making and engineering regarding the installation. BP for some reasons gives to their field engineers and superintendents titles of "Project Manager", though hardly any, if any, have ever managed something big enough to be called a project, and their skills are just basic leading hand/foreman supervision, but sitting in the office. As for such leads, the BP UK also sends in such "lead" personnel from other countries (where they worked on notoriously failing projects), and they land here, on the job site or in the regional head office, without knowing anything about the place, but arrogant to the heavens in their ignorance. Also taking some head office space which could be used by someone who knows the job they are doing, and is actually willing to do it, instead of "cover-my-back" empty generic phrases which have nothing to do with the actual project, or the planet. Unqualified, but probably thought that they would be big shots in "the colonies". Just sad. Result: mismanaged mess job sites.Leads operate on fear and thugish conduct, which might work, if they themselves had some decent work ethics. As in "play hard, but work hard"/"play tough, but then do the work too". Well, it does not work all that well when such "lead by example" tough guys duck out of the job site at any opportunity, and try to use any chance to avoid work. Then you also have to think who may be related to whom, and also how to dance between random cruelties, be it whether that hush-hush one had his six-pack last night, or whether that permanently grumpy one's hangover is today worse than it was the day before. Then also the kiddy conspiratorial approach with sudden random shush-shush meetings. Fearing what kind of cat and mouse game will take place today. Waste of energy on nonsense, instead of thinking about your work that day. Listening to such boasting how it was easy to fire people "elsewhere", and it is not so easy "here". Then, after chasing people away, complaining how that HR is not sending them good people. And going on in circles like that. While their own job security is based on absence of reliable records from the previous one, where they cannot figure out how to build a copy of something which they built a year or so ago. Worse you do your job, more secure it is. You know how people react when they are pushed around by such couch potato toughies, while they sweat. Another thing with that work ethics is that you get little kings on job sites, which hide what they do (or mostly, what they do not do, and are supposed to be doing it) from the bosses in head office. Lots of disloyalty, hiding, skipping duties, hiding their messes, just to make bigger messes. And you know what kind of situations it creates. See if you want to be part of it, and whether it is worth changing employers Summary: messy, favoritism when the guy next to you does not work, while you are yelled at even though busting your guts to do the job right. If you have a choice, make the right one for yourself.