J.T.’s Gift to Esso

When it comes to your corporate reputation, your credibility as an organization, small things matter.

About a month ago, I noticed these small red stickers on traffic stop signs in our area. They were placed right underneath the “STOP” and they read “The Tar Sands”. I really hadn’t given much thought to issues behind the tar sands projects until that point. But it did actually cause me to reflect upon why someone would be so passionate about this issue. After all, the big oil companies really do care about the environment and people, right? One small incident changed my perception.

A couple of years ago, my young nephew was commencing training to become a police officer. This required a move on his part. I offered my truck and my back in the effort. He was quite grateful, placing a $25 Esso gift card in a handwritten Thank You card. While I didn’t need the gas money, I didn’t want to offend him by returning it.

I thought I would hang onto it and use it for something special for our family; a nice outing somewhere, in honour of my nephew. That special trip happened a week ago. I went to use “J.T.’s gift”, only to have the clerk tell me that there was never any money on the card. Our family felt very bad for my nephew, thinking that a clerk had scammed him by taking his money and giving him an empty card when he bought it. I thought I should call Esso to let them know what happened.

Well, as it turns out, the card had an expiry date on it. The “gift” no longer belonged to our family. Apparently, Esso needed it far more than we did. I was told that there was “no way to reactivate the card” and that I should have read the (extremely) fine print on the back. If you read Imperial Oil’s 2008 Annual Report (Esso’s Canadian parent company), you now know that they only made $3,899,999,975 in profit through operations…the other $25 that went towards their $3.9 billion in profit came from J.T.

Why is this in a public relations blog? It’s simple. Lawmakers, regulators and average citizens all have a hand in making critically important decisions surrounding Esso’s business practices. Do we need to question our beliefs about them further or take what they say at face value? From the perspective of a couple of people who wear the Canadian flag on their uniform, Esso’s business practices appear fundamentally un-Canadian. How does one trust them as guardians of our environment? How does one trust them to deliver a quality product? It’s about values; whether you type them into a corporate report or whether you really live them.

It’s a lesson in how you do (or don’t) maintain the public’s trust. If J.T. and my family cannot trust Esso with $25, how on earth can we believe anything they say when it comes to environmental stewardship or corporate governance?